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Re: size of first shipment
bit off topic, but you mentioned Nokia which piqued my interest (I'm a bitter N900 owner and former Mameo Linux user). do you know of somewhere that talks more about that?
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Re: size of first shipment
I also have a Nokia Maemo device - N810
Used it as a Sat Nav until it tried to direct me through the middle of a supermarket. I had paid for 3 years map updates which never materialised.
Any suggestions as to what an old N810 could be used for - a touch screen/keyboard for a RPi?
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Re: size of first shipment
Interesting question as I have a Maemo device too that I'm not sure what to do with now. Touchscreen/keyboard role might work by using a bluetooth or wifi adapter on the Pi and the using some client in Maemo that talk to a server on the Pi.
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Re: size of first shipment
Interesting point you make coder 27. Is there anyone else around here that can shed any light on this ? I've tried to find more info, but nothnig seems clear about the 8,000 that were floating around somewhere between here and China ?
Or have I missed some news ?
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Re: size of first shipment
Replying to myself, is that a bad habit ? Anyway, I've posed the question over in the RasPi forums. Any significant information and I will post here too.
That's if I don't get banned for asking a difficult question...
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Re: size of first shipment
Steve,
Thanks for asking on the RasPi forum. Judging by the responses you've gotten so far,
anyone who knows isn't saying, and anyone who's saying doesn't know.
That's the way it's been on this issue for a long time, which certainly raises suspicions.
I also asked here: http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-43262#comment-13325
It will be interesting to see if batch 2 has the EC mark silkscreened.
That would be a giveaway that the 8000 never existed.
One tidbit we heard yesterday is that RS sent out 2000 congratulatory emails in March
to those who were in the first batch. But since only 700 units actually arrived in the first batch,
they have 1300 disappointed customers who now have to wait for the second batch.
It isn't clear why they sent out 2000. Maybe they forgot they would have to split the first batch,
or maybe they thought the first batch was more like 5000 units. Mysteries abound.
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Re: size of first shipment
Now I'm really confused. Apparently yesterday Eben gave out some boards from the first batch to a school in Leeds -- http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17703852
Surely the entirety of the first batch (all 10k of them, not just 2k, nor only 700) was sold out to preorders, wasn't it? How could Eben possibly have a bunch of them spare for the school?
Something's really bizarre about all this. The numbers don't add up.
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Re: size of first shipment
Morgaine,
The numbers do add up. See my original post in this thread.
The distributors were each allocated 700 of the first batch of 2000.
Eben kept about 150, 10% of which he handed out to the class,
and one of which ended up on eBay.
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Re: size of first shipment
Well your numbers add up, but those aren't the numbers to which I'm referring. I'm referring to the Foundation's numbers, which are that 10,000 had been made as batch #1, not merely ordered to be made. And according to everything that's been said since the last week of February, those 10k were being assigned to preorders. I guess that's not the case then.
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Re: size of first shipment
when in doubt, who's numbers are you going to believe,
the guys actually making the thing or some anonymous
forum poster?
I think by now it is painfully obvious that the missing 8000
units is just a hoax. According to trustee Robert Mullins,
the foundation didn't even order 10K of the parts kits they said
they were ordering. Instead they ordered 5K.
see page 9 here: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rdm34/raspi-talk.pdf
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Re: size of first shipment
looks like we now have a definitive statement from Liz that the 8k units
exist and are arriving before the middle of next week. Someone ought
to alert Farnell and RS, as I'm sure they would be happy to know that.
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Re: size of first shipment
Could you link to that statement please coder27? It sounds like a key one. I'm having great trouble finding anything on that site.
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Re: size of first shipment
it's message 20 in this thread: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/am-i-missing-something/page-2 just after the suggestion that "for all I know they could be on the backs of 7 Sherpas traveling over the Himalayas as we type".
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Re: size of first shipment
Well, well, apparently they do exist.
As you say coder27, perhaps someone might like to tell Farnell & RS as they make no mention of them.
Wonder if they will come with a silkscreened certification logo ?
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Re: size of first shipment
Steve,
Many thanks for sticking out your neck to finally get this issue addressed!
I'm sure many people will be happy to hear they don't have to wait until May,
assuming of course that the devices do arrive on schedule.
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Re: size of first shipment
Thank you Coder27, i'm hopefully one of those peope in the first 10,000 so this issue was quite interesting for me :-)
However, I've said before here and elsewhere, until I actually have one in my hand I won't quite believe it. Even though I'm not in my first flush of youth, I was very excited by this device, but with all the delays and problems I just couldn't keep that level of interest going indefinitely. I've found other things to play with and this is now in the 'I'll get it when I get it category' rather than 'I'll cut my own arm off to get one' category...just as well really, it's difficult to solder with only one arm !
Steve
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Re: size of first shipment
Thanks for the link, coder27, and good work everyone in teasing this information out.
God, it's been like getting blood out of a stone! And I see the fanbois on the Rpi blog are doing their usual fanboi stuff and pretending they knew all along, when in reality nobody knew until Liz spoke up. What a saga, lol.
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Re: size of first shipment
someone really ought to also alert whoever does Twitter for RPi.
LewisCHunter asked today when the next batch was coming,
but no mention that it was already somewhere over Siberia.
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Re: size of first shipment
JennyPeters of element14 is saying today on the RPi blog
that the next batch of 4000 is not arriving until May.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1022#comment-19852
So, are they currently over Siberia or not?
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Re: size of first shipment
I've continued talking to myself in my post over in the RasPi forums, suggesting someone should *really* speak to Farnell and let them know.
Someone is wrong, either Liz or Jenny Peters !
The Foundation's brewery would be populated by stone cold sober people, that's all I can say...
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Re: size of first shipment
It looks like JamesH is siding with Jenny Peters.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/when-will-my-batch-arrive
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Re: size of first shipment
Jenny to contact Liz to find out when the next 4000 will really arrive.
Liz to contact Jenny to find out when the next 4000 will really arrive.
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Re: size of first shipment
JennyPeters
Apr 27, 2012 4:53 PM
They've shipped and will be with us next week....you can't get much earlier in May than 1st or 2nd!
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Re: size of first shipment
Liz has answered my post, seemingly if not contradicting herself then not exactly saying the same thing either.
Someone *must* know, surely ?
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Re: size of first shipment
Seems like from the most recent post, they are not quite sure who is right !
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Re: size of first shipment
DHL is usually pretty good about tracking, with 24/7 service.
Even if you've lost the tracking number, they can usually find
a shipment, particularly a large one involving multiple pallets,
based on the source and/or destination.
+44(0) 844 248 0844
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Re: size of first shipment
Perhaps I should pass that number on to Liz as she seemed so sure they were on their way.
I truly don't know how the foundation don't know, weren't the first 10,000 built under their auspices? If not, does that mean that they were only responsible for the first 2000. Guess we'll never really know?
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Re: size of first shipment
For what it's worth
JennyPeters on April 15, 2012 at 1:55 pm said:
Next 4000 expected in may – exact date still to be agreed
JennyPeters on April 15, 2012 at 4:23 pm said:
Many more thousand due in June
above two comments from http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1022#comments
JennyPeters on April 15, 2012 at 11:02 am said:
The first batch that arrived in the UK with raspberry Pi contained 2000 Raspberry Pi’s. The foundation kept a small number to use in the continued promotion and education of this amazing little device and shared the rest between ourselves (element14) and RS. We (element14/Premier Farnell) have split that first delivery to ensure the first customers who placed in all countries are able to receive these fairly. Our next delivery of 4000 (ie 50% of the ‘missing’ 8000) is due to arrive in mid-May. After that we expect to start receiving the higher volume production quantities in June and delivery times will then start to improve. We will confirm delivery dates to customers as soon as we have confirmation of the arrival of these quantities and know that the commitment we are giving is accurate. We appreciate everyone’s patience but as manufacturing is now getting underway
above from http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1011#comments
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Re: size of first shipment
Thanks jbeale, good citation from JennyPeters.
I especially enjoyed hearing "the higher volume production quantities in June and delivery times will then start to improve".
The question I'd really like to ask though is:
- "Roughly, to the nearest quarter, by when do you expect the production and registration/preorder curves to intersect, so that boards are available for delivery ex-stock?".
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Re: size of first shipment
I'd love to know that too, although from what I've gathered, neither production rate nor demand rate have been "well behaved functions" so far, so I can see why they are reluctant to extrapolate to find the intersection of the two. :-)
- "Roughly, to the nearest quarter, by when do you expect the production and registration/preorder curves to intersect, so that boards are available for delivery ex-stock?".
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Re: size of first shipment
and also:
Stuart Lea on April 14, 2012 at 8:33 am said:
I spoke with Farnell in the UK yesterday and they said that they had 62,000 RPis on back order – a lot less than I expected considering all of the talk of 1 million +.
above from: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1011#comments
(Note, I haven't been able to find any claims of million+ "orders" for RPi. I do recall a reference to vast numbers of "page accesses" eg. hits, during the initial rush, but hits != orders.)
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Re: size of first shipment
Every techie in the inner solar system wants one, except for those of us who want a whole pile of them.
And for every techie who wants to play with the hardware, there are N times as many people who saw the TV, newspaper or website news on launch day and now want a $35 media player, for large N.
But Joe Bloggs doesn't shop at Farnell nor RS, he shops at Amazon, so I very much doubt that the "registrations of interest" are representative of the real level of demand. That won't appear until the education market materializes, or until they start selling in bulk to 3rd parties for resale to the masses.
Farnell and RS are set to make an absolute fortune, if they play their cards right and get their costs right down through massive volume manufacture and good PR and promotion. They have this huge sector entirely to themselves, for now.
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Re: size of first shipment
I think the claims of millions came about by extrapolating the claims of 700 "orders" per second continuing through the end of the first week: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/05/raspberry-pi-demand
with 86400 seconds in a day, and 2 distributors, it doesn't take very long to get to 2+ million orders.
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Re: size of first shipment
Stuart Lea's quote of around 62000 is interesting, as one of the sales people told me (when I called up in March) there had 50,000 (approx) back orders, so after the initial rush there haven't been *that* many subsequent orders. I think that as commented elsewhere, that people are waiting until they are freely available before they order ? Also I'm presuming this is Farnell UK's back orders, not including any international distributors.
Looking at the timeframe for this 'missing' batch as quoted by Jenny and touching on the start of this thread....is a month enough to make 8,000 from kit form ? Or am I being overly cynical ? If they were ready made, surely Farnell could get them over here faster than mid May ?
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Re: size of first shipment
manufacturing supposedly takes 2 weeks after parts are sourced.
For example, on Feb 6 we heard that the crystal had finally been sourced,
so production would be complete 14 days later on Feb 20.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/615
Also, on March 30, message 14 in this thread:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/new-e-mail-from-element14
Liz said:
"All the parts are ordered and in place, and positioned at the factory so it should
only take a couple of days to make a board (or tens of thousands of boards –
I don't know what batch sizes RS and Farnell are making, but I do know they want
to get their backlogs dealt with as soon as possible) from scratch."
She may have meant "couple of weeks" instead of "couple of days".
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Re: size of first shipment
The thing I don't understand is that I would take Liz's quote above as referring to the batches that Farnell are making, not the remaining 8,000 from the mythical first batch of 10K. Even if it was a couple of weeks, surely the 8,000 should have been made by now ! I wonder if I will get a firm answer back in the RasPi forum ?
Is it me, or is there a *lot* of conflicting information ?
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Re: size of first shipment
It is indeed a mess, but I have an idea on how to clear it up.
Let's ask Element 14 and RS to identify the serial numbers of the boards that they each are selling. They obviously know this information since it is important when customers return boards to them, otherwise there would be potential for confusion and/or cheating.
The ranges of serial numbers will be useful information for Rpi's wiki and other information pages, even Wikipedia, once the whole story of production unfolds and millions of Rpi enter education. At the same time, it will tell us how many units are being manufactured by each party, and later, by each factory.
It's important to realize that although serial numbers are company information, they cannot be hidden from us since everyone who receives a board could post their serial number and hence it will become public knowledge anyway. Element 14 and RS might realize this, and save us the effort by volunteering the data.
Morgaine.
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Re: size of first shipment
Mushroom management at its very best. I wonder how long it'll take the blog fanbois to realize that the Foundation is to openness as Facebook is to privacy.
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Re: size of first shipment
more on the holdbacks...
In the November 2 article "How we're managing the first sales":
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/302
it says holdbacks would be "a couple of percent of the first few runs".
2% of 10000 would be 200, which is exactly how many they did hold back,
including the 50 failed boards.
note that they can't hold back any additional boards now, since all further
production is being done by the distributors, and shipped directly to them.
note also that the first 10k units were "emphatically not for programmers only",
but instead, just first come first served, "whoever you are".
This article also gives the first clue that the first batch would not be the full
10K units, although to this day the RPi forum is saying it was in their
pinned "status" article.
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Re: size of first shipment
@coder27: Aha! That makes sense. Well spotted that the 10k was only for "parts kits", and that they never actually produced 10k boards. Good lord. No wonder the 8k "missing" boards have never appeared, and the Foundation has kept tight lipped about them --- they never existed. Batch #1 was 2k.
/me shakes head in disbelief.
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Re: size of first shipment
As you say coder27, not a lot of helpful replies so far, just a lot of speculation. I have now tried a more direct approach in the thread of asking if anyone from the foundation can comment.
I got a mail from Farnell a while back, saying that I was one of the lucky people that was going to be one of the first to get my hands on a Pi, with a delivery date slated in mid April. I presumed this meant I was in the first 10,000 orders, but if this has now been shrunk to 700, it is little surprise I haven't had a despatch e-mail.
As for the one on Ebay, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Being handed a device that people all across the world are clamouring for, and then deciding to sell it on ebay because ' I'm not really into computers'...I hope that isn't going to be a metaphor for the Pi, in that it'll end up being a hit with makers, engineers and tinkerers but won't make the slightest difference to UK computer education. When I was that age, i'd have given at *least* my right arm for one, and possibly one or two non essential internal organs.
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Re: size of first shipment
Just made a suggestion on the forum that the other 8,000 may not even exist other than in a set of parts.
(Well spotted coder)
Do you think i'm heading for a ban ?
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Re: size of first shipment
Steve,
Although many have been banned for much less, I sort of think that
as long as you keep it polite, you are OK. That's because they will only
be digging themselves a deeper hole to ban you, when they actually get
around to recanting the whole story. And I'm sure they know that.
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Re: size of first shipment
Some info for us all from the RaspberryPi website.
Delivery update from element14
We’re excited to report that our next shipment of 4,000 Raspberry Pi’s has now left our manufacturers in Asia and will be on their way to customers next week! We have a further 12,000 due to arrive with us by the third week of May and regular volume shipments thereafter .
By early next week all 110,000 customers who have ordered with element14, wherever they are in the world, will receive a confirmed delivery date ( which, as previously communicated, will be no later than the end of June for those who ordered before April 18th) .
Also, over the next 5 days, we will invite the 70,000 hopeful customers who have already registered their interest in the Raspberry Pi to place their orders, with delivery expected in July/August, dependent on the place of that order in the queue.
Elsewhere I saw that RS have 250,000 but not sure if thats orders or registrations of interest.
At least the almost mythical Pi's are coming out into the light...
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Re: size of first shipment
Great support and communication by Farnell, but then they are a reputable firm and it is great to see they take their reputation seriously.
I do still wonder about the 8,000 that the Foundation said were being made and shipped over. From Jenny's announcement, this seems very firmly a Farnell led build, so I'm still thinking those 8,000 were only ever in kit form when the Foundation 'had' them.
Well done to Farnell for pulling this out of a deep hole.
I'm hopefully getting mine the week after next and I'm fully expecting to see a silkscreen CE certification, which wouldn't have been possible if these had already been made, or is that incorrect ?
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Re: size of first shipment
Steve,
The timing certainly fits with your theory. EMC testing finished on April 6,
and the paperwork was all signed off by April 13. Production was said to
have begun after the EMC testing finished, and takes 2 weeks or so.
Even if it didn't get started until the paperwork was finished on April 13,
that is still 2 weeks to the 27th when the factory shipped them.
The schedule for shipping the next batch the 3rd week of May is consistent
with the production schedule of around 2 weeks.
I think we can definitely rule out Abishur's theory stated in the "Status Updates"
that as of April 19th this batch was "en route".
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Re: size of first shipment
Unless they were en route via Sherpas of course ? :-)
I know we have discussed it here before, but I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that the Foundation only had 2,000 built, these were the ones that had problems and the rest were never made, at least at that time. I got one comment that they were still having the jacks replaced, but in that time frame, I could have desoldered that many, and I'm only just learning which end of the soldering iron is the correct one to hold !
In theory, if this lot turn up without a silkscreen CE on them then I guess I am wrong, but if they do have a silkscreen on, then I think the mystery of the 8,000 might have been solved, they were never made under the auspices of the Foundation, but Farnell picked them up as part of the sales agreement.
We can only wait and see I guess. I'll post photos of mine when I get it.
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Re: size of first shipment
Jenny Peters has issued the clearest statement yet on the mystery of the "missing 8000".
The pcb's for the 8000 had been made prior to the compliance delay, but
apparently the pcb's hadn't been populated from what I gather. So no
resoldering of ethernet jacks, or shipments back to the factory, for the 8000.
JennyPeters on May 3, 2012 at 5:13 pm on the RPI.org forum wrote:
"Really no mystery here. The initial batch commissioned was for 10,000. the first 2,000 made by Raspberry Pi, the remaining 8000 by RS and element14 (4,000 of each). I can confirm that element14′s 4000 have been received and will be shipping out by end of business tonight so anyone with an order date of w/c 7th may is coming from that batch. The 8000 were delayed whilel we all waited to see if the Compliance testing necessitated hardware changes – it didnt so as soon as the compliance paperwork was finalised manufacturing continued. The pcb’s had already been received so the compliance markings will be the same in this next shipment as for the first 2000. From here on in we’re on our own ! Our next shipment will be for 12,000 and then we have another, even larger shipment at month end and 3 more volume shipments before the end of June……110,000 due to us before the end of June and all committed to people like you who’re keen to get their hands on them! Hope this clears up the mystery!"
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Re: size of first shipment
I'm sure I have seen several times (but I could be wrong, i'm getting older and the memory is failing) the Foundation talking about the 10,000 boards being built, on way etc etc, so this was a little wide of the mark at best ?
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Re: size of first shipment
There is a quote today that the initial production run was around 2000 pieces.
Sounds exactly right to me.
"With the initial production run being something along the lines of 2,000 pieces,
the volume wasn't there to make it practical to build in the West," Mike Buffham,
global head of electronics design engineers at the UK distributor Premier Farnell plc
(London: PFL.L), told us.
http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=1071&doc_id=250579
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