ChrisPVille

Surprise good news, a pallet of IO plates arrived today out of the blue, so the deluxe kits are a go! We're still waiting on our product boxes but they're on the way

Overall, Base and Q January flippydrive units likely to ship this month although may have plain boxes. Deluxe may not make end of the month, depends entirely on when the IO plates arrive (which supposedly are about to ship to us), software updates continue to roll out regularly

We have been rolling out software improvements about once per month with the features like the desktop disc compressor, Memcard pro support, much faster boot times, etc. and should be able to continue that pace for a while

We're moving ahead on the April batch with some things (like Ethernet modules) already done, and component procurement underway for the flippy itself. The flex connector suddenly has an extremely long lead time, although we can source through alternative channels if need be

Rear IO plates for the deluxe kit still have not shipped. They're 4 weeks overdue and promise me they'll be shipping within 24 hours. We did get samples in December which looked great and supposedly the run is fully produced, so it may/may not affect the deluxe kit dates

Now the problem children: The product boxes are still stuck in customs, we have a backup plan to get more made domestically if these do not get unstuck in a few days and should not impact the end of Jan ship date

We have the flexes, screws, mounting frames, esd bags, and all the other ancillary things in hand. Ethernet modules for Jan and April batches are also here and have been tested out

Flippydrives for Jan batch all safely arrived and we're about half way through programming and testing. The new automated test rig is much improved and tests the fusing, software install, SD card, and every single flippy is booted with a cube as a final test

Alright so it's been 32 days since I submitted the last update and it's still not live, so I'm going to be doing updates here I guess 1/N

Did it ever work before or is this the first time you've tried using it? Some percent of the original units had defective factory config and needs replacement. I would say contact CrowdSupply but we've heard they're not answering replacement requests, so DM me with your order info and I'll send one

The six crates of batch 2 FlippyDrives for January have safely arrived and we're getting started testing, programming, and packaging!

New album just dropped

Heh naaah I didn't want to ruin anything, just bring some extra joy

I don't know who thought it was a good idea to offer writable NFC tags in retail stores but there's now about 40 rickrolls ready for people on Christmas morning

Programming writable NFC tags in store with Never Gonna Give You Up

I'm giving the ultimate holiday gift to random strangers this year

The base flippydrive, not a problem at all. Cubeboot has a configurable boot delay to give them time to connect to your display so you don't miss part of the logo. The Ethernet/Deluxe kit might interfere mechanically with some internal HDMI mods depending on their size/location

I didn't know I needed integrated thermal printers in my life until now

We won't have variants beside the dol-001 and dol-101 since each mold costs thousands of dollars to make, but we will be releasing the files soon so people can print/modify their own. You could also buy additional injection molded ones and cut with minimal risk

Flippydrive rear IO plate

I'm still waiting for the actual IO plates to finish production, but I'm pretty happy with the design even 3D printed

Ethernet and WiFi is finally fixed. Let's never troubleshoot a race condition between 4 different processors on 4 different ISAs ever again please

Panels of Ethernet modules for the flippydrive

Ethernet panels look good too!

a black and white drawing of bart simpson and marge simpson standing next to each other Alt: a black and white drawing of bart simpson and marge simpson standing next to each other

Yes but his work got more disturbing sans banana

Yeah they're definitely sub-optimal although I haven't seen any ruined ones yet and this was after several smaller batches of a few thousand, so I've got some spares

18000 flex PCBs in box, banana for scale

So that's what 18000 flex PCBs look like

That does look super clean. For the stock cube rear IO plate, I ended up designing snap fit retention features into the molded piece for toolless install, but nothing beats the look of a panel mount like that

I'm pretty focused on the Flippydrive at the moment, but the receiver design passes through the existing front plate, so yeah whether regular or blueretro board, it should work transparently

Hmm, we don't have any insight into individual orders as CrowdSupply is the one selling and shipping units. We just ship them a crate of flippies from time to time. Their customer support are the only people who have enough information to help

Batch 2 is getting assembled now, about 2 weeks ahead of schedule!

Status update! We've now got all but 1 component in our electrical BOM secured with the last reels arriving in a week or so. The next batch is looking slightly ahead of the original schedule which is awesome

bulk packs of instax mini are a lifesaver 😄