De Pandora Handheld #4

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Op vrijdag 29 juli 2011 12:33 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:
Okay, dus ik kan nog steeds geen Pandora zomaar bestellen via impulsaankoop. Zonde

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Firstly, I apologize to everyone who is waiting for eMail replies, repaired Pandoras or similar from me.
The business plan and the planning of the production in Germany did eat most of my time, so I'm way behind with emails and Pandora repairs!
It's the most important thing right now. Once the business plan is finished (probably early next week), it's time to find investors to get all the money needed and then it's time to sign the offer with Global Components.

Once that's done, the move to a german production company will finally have started and take a while. That's when I will have a lot more time to work on mails, Hotfix 6 and repairing Pandoras.

Even if some won't believe it: I'm only human. Yes, really

Now, time for some news, isn't it?

1. Quotation from Global Components

I got the final quotation yesterday. As expected, it's more expensive than CircuitCo (Germany is ALWAYS more expensive), but I'm pretty content with it.
As the price is calculated on the time that is needed for production, I also got a first estimation of how fast the production can happen.

Basically, calculating the estimated time is simple:

The main population is being done by a machine.
It is known, how many parts per minute the machine can place on the boards. So based on the amount of parts that are on a Pandora board, the time can be calculated.

First you load all the needed reels with the parts into the machine. Depending on how many different parts you have, this takes a while.
For the Pandora, this actually takes a full working day (8 hours!).

Then the machine automatically populates the PCBs. This happens in three steps for the Pandora: Both sides need to be populated and the RAM needs to be put PoP (package on package) on the OMAP.
It takes 22 hours to populate 1000 PCBs (approx. every 1,5 minutes one PCB is fully populated).
After that, they go into the oven so that the parts are baked onto the PCB. And that's it.

So SMD population of 1000 boards takes about 30 hours. That is about a week. Nice

After that, there's manual soldering to be done. Nubs, Volume wheels. And testing. Each test takes 4 minutes.
Since they have multiple people working on this, it will be another 30 hours.
However, that can be done while the population goes on.

So basically, they could theoretically produce 1000 boards within two weeks.

Right now, I'm planning with 1000 boards each month for a start. That should be realistic. And better be safe than sorry... something we learnt the hard way.

So, while production speed actually seems to be pretty fast, this does not mean that we'll have thousands of Pandoras soon.
The machine needs to be programmed, bare PCBs need to be prepared and a prototype testing run needs to be done (though if that one goes without issues, the real production can start right away).
And: It won't happen before the order is signed - and therefore, money is needed.

Which leads us to the next point...


2. Investors for OpenPandora GmbH welcome

To move the production to Germany, money is needed.
There were quite a few refunds lately and CircuitCo delivering boards at a crawling speed is not helping much either.
And we need to make sure there's also money there when more people want to get a refund before the Pandoras are finished!

Of course, we could try to fund it with iControlPad sales at some time - but who knows how long that would need.
Aditionally, we don't just want to deliver all remaining preorders but have the Pandora produced at a regular basis so future users can buy them without having to wait.
Production needs to become reliable and steady.

That's the reason I've been working on a business plan for the last weeks: It actually is a pretty accurate calculation of the costs and time needed.
Once all preorders are fullfilled, there can be made some money from it. I discussed this with my tax counsellor (who is experienced with stuff like this) and she thinks it should certainly be possible to get some big investor.

I prefer trusted community members and known Pandora users. You can be sure notch will be one of the very first to receive a copy of the business plan!
Of course, anyone here from the boards can also help us out with some investments.
We need to set a minimum amount though, otherwise it will be way too much paperwork. The minimum amount should be something like 10.000 EUR.

If everything goes according to the plan, the invested money would be fully refinanced next year May and from then on, it's time to make money with the Pandora.

This should be a very interesting opportunity for every investor. You can be sure my main goal in September will be to find an investor and sign the order for the production as soon as possible.

If you are seriously interested in investing money or do know someone who would be interested, get in touch with me (via PM or eMail). I'll send you a copy of the business plan as well as soon as it's finished.

One thing is sure: I'll only accept silent investors. That is: Investors who get their share of profit each year, but are not involved in any decisions. We all want to keep the Pandora the way it is!

I'm happy to share the success of the Pandora with anyone, who helps to make the Pandora successful


3. Preorder time!

What? Again?
Are you kidding me?
You want more money from us before you even delivered the units?

Well... no.
Yes, there will be another time to place a preorder soon.
But no: You won't need to pay any money upfront.

As said, we really NEED to move away from paid preorders.
So what's the reason we want more preorders then?

Easy. Basically, there are two reasons:

1. I get so many eMails from people who want to order the Pandora. A preorder makes sense
2. The more preorders we get, the more easy it is to find an investor! Just imagine you can tell an investor "Hey, I already got way more customers than I need!"... this will certainly help a lot.

I will start taking preorders probably the end of next week.
If you are interested in a second unit or know anyone who would love to get a Pandora: Let them know!
The more orders we get, the better. And there is no risk involved - well, except for that you will have to buy a Pandora once it's finished.


4. What about CircuitCo?

They are still repairing the remaining boards. That takes some time.
They shipped another 50 boards last week.
So there will be some more Pandoras shipped soon, but I personally don't expect them to be able to repair much faster.
That's why I'm currently concentrating on the future Pandora production.


5. Conclusion

In my opinion, things are looking good.
Yes, it surely will take a while until the "German Pandoras" will be finished. I'm happy if we get the first units until November / December, but I can't guarantee anything.
Well, I can guarantee to keep you informed about every step that happens.

First step is to gather enough money to make this happen. But this certainly seems possible. The Pandora will keep alive. I'm sure of that, because as a community, we can achieve everything if we just try to do so

So for everyone who walked with us the long way: Thanks a lot! You really rock!
And to newcomers: The Pandora rocks. That's what so many people who got one tell you. And that's why you can be sure we will do EVERYTHING we're capable of to continue the production!

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Well, just some quick news to tell you that I finished the business plan this weekend and sent it out to interested investors.

Over 40 community members have sent me mails that they are interested in investing - guys, you rock!

I also sent a copy to notch - he was one of the first people to order a Pandora (and waited until he got it), so he might be a potential candidate as well.

I will let you know more details and informations about it soon, as well as the preordering that should start soo

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Op donderdag 22 september 2011 11:24 schreef Bosbeetle het volgende:
Pandora episode 2 is onderweg

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Best wel heavy eigenlijk dat er gelijk 40 investors uit de community komen. Minimale inleg is geloof ik ergens rond de ¤2000 dus dat is niet niks.

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Ohja en dat alles met een batterij tijd van 8 uur met wifi + 100% CPU gebruik.

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Op donderdag 22 september 2011 11:24 schreef Bosbeetle het volgende:
Pandora episode 2 is onderweg

[..]

Best wel heavy eigenlijk dat er gelijk 40 investors uit de community komen. Minimale inleg is geloof ik ergens rond de ¤2000 dus dat is niet niks.

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We need to set a minimum amount though, otherwise it will be way too much paperwork. The minimum amount should be something like 10.000 EUR.

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Op vrijdag 23 september 2011 15:15 schreef Gambolputty het volgende:

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10.000 zelfs, (uit je eerdere post).

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Op vrijdag 23 september 2011 10:01 schreef Mr_Belvedere het volgende:

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Als mensen ergens diep in geloven is er best wel animo voor om te investeren. Ik zie steeds vaker dat ik ook wel bereid ben ergens in te investeren, als ik geld had om dat te doen.

Overigens:

[..]

Dat lukt die nieuwe PSVita dus noooooiiiit. Dat lukt een gemiddelde smartphone nog niet eens.

Alhoewel de technologie natuurlijk niet te vergelijken is, vind ik het bijzonder en frappant dat over het ontwerp van een pandora blijkbaar veel meer nagedacht is. Ook de kracht van community.

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Good, back to some Pandora news.

A. The quest for raising funds

In my opinion, thinks are looking good.
So far, about 60 users from the community have given me their interest in investing. This is absolute astounding!
About 14 confirmed the amount of money they plan to invest - and that's about 120.000 EUR already.
Another 10 told me a rough value they are planning to invest - and alltogether, we're at 240.000 EUR with that... a good start after a week, I think.

I also sent notch a copy of the business plan via snail mail, though I have no idea whether he's interested or not.
Next week, I'm having a meeting with two agents who have some major investors at hand who work in IT business and are venturesome, often investing in start-ups.

And this Friday, I've got an appointment with my local bank to check whether there are any governmental fundings we could apply for as well.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
I just checked how many users have subscribed to the OpenPandora newsletter: What would you guess? 1000? 5000? 10000? Nope. In fact, we've got 17000 users subscribed to the newsletter!
If I'd asked for investors or donations there as well... heck, if only a half of them would donate only 5 EUR, that would be another 42000 EUR!
Don't want to beg for donations though But it just made me think that you can achieve almost anything with a great community!

As it looks like, we shouldn't have too many problems getting the money together to lead us all into a great Pandora future. I'll keep you informed!

B. Okay, but... what IS the plan?

We've got multiple things to cover here, so the plan is basically split into multiple stages.

1. Get things going, get units to all of you!

First priority is of course to get the production running and deliver the remaining units to all our patient preorderers,
Production will happen in batches of 1000.
Some of these 1000 will have to go to new orders and some of these will go to the preorderers.
How many will go where depends on CC, the US/EUR conversion rate, the PCB failure rate, donations, the total amount of invested money we get and the amount of refunds we get until then.

Basically, it's easy: We need a certain amount of money to produce the next batch of 1000.
The first 1000 will have a higher cost (as there are one-time-costs), the next 1000 will be cheaper as we already own some parts, but this is too much to explain in detail.

About 1200 preorders are still left to be delivered. CC still has to deliver about 1000 PCBs.
Let's say CC delivers 500 PCBs and we'd have about 300 refunds. With an investment capital of 350K, most of the preorders would be finished with the first batch of 1000, the remaining ones with the next one.
If CC wouldn't deliver ANY PCBs from now on, it would the last ones would be delivered with the fourth batch of 1000 units.

Of course, if we get a higher amount of investments or more donations, we can deliver more preordered units with each batch. Same if the USD / EUR conversion rate is better for us.

The trick is to keep a balance between the costs for the next Pandoras, the amount of preordered units and refunds and the units that need to be sold to new customers.
I created a nice LibreOffice Calc-Sheet that helps me quickly tune the parameters and let me know how many units go where.

GC should be able to produce 1000 Pandoras per month - though I expect about 1000 in two months at the beginning. Things should be moving faster once we get there.

2. Support development, increase popularity

Once all old customers have gotten their unit as well as quite a few new ones and the production is running stable, it's time to increase the popularity of the Pandora.
Do some marketing, make it known to new users.

Some money will be used to improve the OS and support application and games development, maybe we could do some coding competitions as well.

Primary goal now is to support OpenSource development and increase the attractivity for new users with more software.

At the same time, development of the Pandora 2 is planned to happen. As we all know now, this sure will take a long while - so there's plenty of time to have fun with the Pandora 1!

C. And what's the bad news?

The usual... we didn't get much at all from CC.
Neither tons of boards nor much information via eMail.
I've never seen a company with worse communication and customer service, honestly.
Well, we still hope to get the remaining boards for them - but I'm just happy we're moving forward here with the production in Germany.

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The last post was only a few days ago, but I thought you'll be interested in the stuff that happened.

1. Investment capital

I can't stop to tell everyone how impressed I am about the power of the community!
About 70 community members are interested in investing so far.
38 reported back how much money they are planning to invest (some gave me a certain value).

The amount of money raised is simply astounding:

About 194.000 EUR are certain so far, whereas it sums up to 455.000 EUR including the amount of money from the users who are still thinking about it.

That's 100.000 EUR more than needed!

And 32 haven't even told me how much they are planning to invest...

The german-speaking investors have already received a preview copy of the contract.

It's currently being translated into english language. While my english is not too bad, it certainly is not good enough to translate a proper contract.

That's why a professional lawyer is doing this.

Monday is a holiday in Germany, however, I hope I'll get the contract within the next week.

I'm having a meeting with two interested big investors sometime next week - but as things are looking right now, I'm not sure I'll need them...

Well, can't hurt having more potential investors - though the one from the community will have a higher priority!

2. Tuesday: Next meeting with Global Components

As things are looking very well with the investment capital, it's time to go to Global Components and discuss the production plan.
This will happen on Tuesday.

As it looks like the investment capital shouldn't be an issue, I'll also order the bare PCBs on that day.

The bare PCBs have some one-time-costs for tooling, etc., but I can afford that myself.

20 bare PCBs for testing will be produced. That takes about 5 weeks, which means we're going to see the birth of the very first Pandoras in Germany in November.

And yes, we WILL see it, as I'll post a full HD video of the very first Pandora PCBs being populated in Germany.
You will actually be able to see the process of a Pandora being born!

If those boards work without any issues, it'll take another 4 - 5 weeks until all 1000 PCBs for the first batch are finished - well, and then it's time for the full production run.

During October, we'll need to do some more small payments (to buy the nubs, etc.), but some investors already mentioned they could send the money right away, so that would work out fine.
Most of the money won't be needed before November, so there's time to do sign the contracts and transfer the money.

3. Preorders!

The next round or preordering is just round the corner!
If you're interested in getting a Pandora (or another one, if you already have one): The preordering will start on Tuesday.
The final price of one Pandora will be about 370 EUR, though this time, there's no need to pay in advance.

We're requesting a small downpayment of 10 EUR in advance - but I guess that won't hurt anyone who is really interested in getting one.

If you want to support us, you are free to pay more than 10 EUR in advance. The downpayment will be completely deducted from the final price.

Anyone is welcome to spread the word about the Pandora to friends, family or on other websites. Let them know the preorder has started!
More details on Tuesday, of course.

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As promised, preordering the Pandora is now possible again - and no need to cash in the money for the whole console anymore!

Of course, if you already HAVE a paid preorder, it stays valid and you should get your unit shortly after production in Germany has started.

The current price is 375 EUR, but I'll still have some negotiations to do, so it might drop.
If you preorder now and the price drops, you will also get the new price, so 375 EUR is a max right now.

The only thing you need to do to get a valid preorder is head over to the OpenPandora.org website, place your preorder and make a prepayment of 10 EUR.
We are currently planning to have 1000 Pandoras produced per month starting from January - so to make sure you get one as early as possible, be sure to place your preorder early.

Once production is running sweet, my main goal will be to support OpenSource development and developers here from the community to turn the Pandora into the ultimate portable Mini-PC/OpenSource-Gaming platform!

Of course, you are very welcomed to help us as well.
Spread the word, inform friends, colleagues and family about the Pandora or whoever you think could be interested!

Thanks

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And it looks like my birthday wish from last week came true... we got 325K EUR 99% ensured already, so.... Pandora will continue to live, made in Germany

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This will be a short newspost, as I had a loooong day and want to get some rest... but...

We got enough investments to start everything here in Germany!
Thanks a lot to anyone who kindly invest their money for the trust - I will do everything to get things running as good and smooth as possible!

If you are one of the guys who are thinking about investing but haven't made your final decision yet:
Don't worry, you're not too late - I've got 350K EUR right now and will accept investments up to 450K EUR... as that means that I can buy more parts at once which decreases the production costs as well.

So, during the next week, it's time to prepare all the contracts and send them to the investors.
We're very good within my timeframe, so it still looks like the big run in Germany will start in January.

Tomorrow I'll have a meeting with the guys from EBV (major distributor for parts, we bought all the TI parts from them) to discuss how to move the parts for Batch 2 from CircuitCo in Texas to Global Components in Germany.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Also, if you didn't see it yet:
Both Craig, me and quite a few guys from the community will be at the Replay Expo 2011 in Blackpool.
So if you ever wanted to meet us, here's a good chance. There'll be lots of arcade games, etc, as well - i'll be fun!

So, hope to see you - and thanks again for all your support

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1. Parts

I already got some parts lying at my office (like the EXT Ports, USB ports, battery contacts, WiFi Modules, etc.), the parts that were lying at CC in Texas have been picked up early last week and should arrive within the next few days, the bare PCBs will arrive today and all remaining needed parts have been organized by Global Components as well.
Well, almost: One part, a coil, is causing a small headache: While the manufacturer can deliver as many as we need until the mass production, they cannot deliver the needed samples until next week. Therefore, GC is looking for a third party source for this coil or a replacement part we can use. Well, in worst case we will rip them from broken CC boards.
As said: We will have them for the full production run. We're only doing 20 units for the prototype run.

2. Prototype and Mass Production Run

The prototype production run has been scheduled to happen next week Thursday or Friday.
Until then all parts should've arrived, so we're ready to go.

The mass production run is scheduled to start January 16th. Of course, this depends on the prototype production run. If the PCBs have some issues, we first need to find out what and why and fix that.
But if they are working properly and without issues, we're set

3. Other tidbits

We found some companies that could produce the TV Out Cables and are currently waiting for quotations.
We'll most probably also have proper AC Adaptors with Pandora stickers on them.
The case mold has been modified a bit to prevent some of the most popular crackings, a sample should be finished tomorrow.

I still need to move some needed parts (like cases, batteries, LCDs, etc.) from Craigs place to my company. Craig packaged that up already and we should be able to move them soon as well.

Oh, and as you might've seen: The repository now offers commercial games!
Therefore, indie game developers could now also become interested in the Pandora.

Do you know some indie or iOS games you'd love to see on the Pandora?
Let's gather a list and contact addresses.
I'll try to officially contact the authors and tell them about the Pandora. As we got some developers who agreed to help with porting the games, we might see some of these games on the Pandora as well!

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I know I am two days too late - but I am pretty sure a lot of you actually followed the older thread as well, with all the thrill and suspense we had!

I am very happy to tell you that the Pandora prototype production run was a full success!
After the issues we had on the first day, we had a nearly-smooth test run on the second day.

The result: 13 out of 13 Pandoras we built are 100% working!
(our goal was to get at least one of them fully working... so I guess that's a good rate )

I've tested the PCBs for the last few days and they all work fine.
The WiFi and BT LEDs (we got more orange ones now, as the old ones looked red) are a bit too bright, but that's just some resistor that needs to be changed.

Mass production run is planned to happen early February, so we should see quite a lot of Pandoras being delivered in February!
The assembly machine Global Components uses can populate 15,000 parts per hour, and the Pandora PCB has about 500 parts.
Therefore, 30 Pandoras per hour can be produced.

Now, remember when I said I've got a little surprise for you?
Here you go: The Pandoras made here will have 512MB of RAM, twice as much as before.
I know that some of you (who already have one) might be disappointed and angry - but we couldn't do much. The old RAM is just not available anymore, so we had to upgrade.
If you're mostly playing games, then the additional RAM most probably won't affect you - it's mostly only helpful if you use the Pandora as Mini-Desktop PC.

However, I am also planning of an upgrade program: If you already own a Pandora, you can get a new PCB for an upgrade price (and either keep or swap your case as well).
The old boards will be sold as second hand units for a cheaper price. I've not worked out the details yet, but these are the basics of what I'm planning.

Here is a small video showing the prototype production run.

OpenPandora: Prototype production run in Germany

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Op woensdag 25 januari 2012 15:46 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:
http://www.pocketables.ne(...)asse-next-month.html

445 euro

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Op woensdag 25 januari 2012 15:46 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:
http://www.pocketables.ne(...)asse-next-month.html

445 euro

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Op woensdag 25 januari 2012 21:22 schreef Bosbeetle het volgende:

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Ik heb anders al meer dan een jaar veel plezier van mijn pandora (alleen was hij toen nog ¤350) er zit trouwens wel iets meer RAM in deze versies.

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Op woensdag 25 januari 2012 21:38 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:

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Voor 200 euro had ik 'm besteld en had ik die Vita-pre-order geannuleerd

Ik ben benieuwd of die Pandora nog in prijs kan/gaat dalen...

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Op woensdag 25 januari 2012 21:43 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:
Ik begrijp de prijs wel, maar aangezien ik 'm voor 90% voor SNES-emulatie zal gaan gebruiken vind ik het wat veel.

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Op donderdag 26 januari 2012 16:28 schreef darpios het volgende:
Pandora! Ik heb hem ook. Al sinds ruim een jaar, eigenlijk. Wist niet dat er hier een topic over was.

Weet iemand overigens hoe ik OpenVPN aan de praat krijg zonder NetworkManager te frituren? Package networkmanager-openvpn installeren uit de Ångström repo lukt wel, alleen ik kan dan 9 van de 10 keer niet connecten met wifi access points. En verbinding via m'n VPN is wel een must als ik op wifi hotspots zit te internetten.