First MRCC Shipments Are Going Out Now
about 5 years ago – Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 09:00:51 PM

The MRCCs are shipping! 

We've got a bunch queued up, already packed and labeled and waiting for the carriers to pick them up. 

If you are Kickstarter MRCC backer ID between 1 and 150 (you can check on Kickstarter.com), you can start looking for the email from "trackmyshipment.co" with the tracking info. We should have them all in the air before end of this week.

So far, we've shipping everything either by FedEx or DHL Express. Its costing us a lot, but they are fast, provide detailed tracking, and it saves on customs hassles for you. Apologies in advance for any fees charged by the carriers for handling customs and VAT payment. 

We will be back with another update on the next shipment soon.

All the best,

Steve and Darryl

Update on Shipping
about 5 years ago – Mon, Jun 07, 2021 at 05:21:03 PM

Greetings lovely people,

A couple of days ago, the HK fulfillment warehouse received our first shipment of MRCCs and accessories. There are 150 MRCCs, with 5 heading to us for inspection and distribution to some US backers. The warehouse has yet to check-in the inventory, we hope to see that completed on Monday, then we can start shipping. Backerkit has limited methods of sorting Kickstarter by actual order date, so we'll use the Kickstarter ID instead. If your ID is in the 1 to 150 range, there's a good chance you will get a shipping notice early next week.

We would have liked to see the warehouse get enough MRCCs to complete the Kickstarter orders, but as previously mentioned, we were short on enclosures. We had to have some reworked, and waiting on more finished pieces, but there has been some delay due to rolling blackouts backing up the queue at the metal fabricator manufacturing site.  Our manufacturing rep has been unable to give us a definitive schedule, but they expect the enclosures will arrive next week so we can continue assembly and delivery. That means, 2~3 weeks before the next batch arrives at the warehouse.

Here's the truck being loaded with the first batch of MRCCs:

Really sorry that things are still dragging on, but we are moving forward nonetheless and very excited to see the first shipments happen.

In the meantime, Steve has nearly completed the code to enable MRCC to expand the number of outputs with Remote 7. Using MRCC's "remote" (Y guy) button to route to remote outputs, you select an input, then hold the remote button down and select an output 1~5.  When the remote button is held, the port 1~5 LEDs change color to indicate which are routed to the remote, and the activity screen will show those routings in a different color. Pretty sweet! We should have the firmware update posted in a week or so, and encourage all MRCC users to update when your unit arrives, as there will be additional feature and performance improvements as well. Instructions will be on the conductivelabs.com website.

We will also be posting a The NDLR firmware update, which fixes a problem when using The NDLR in the MRCC USB Host port. Most would not see a problem unless going over 166BPM clock rate, but update anyway to avoid future issues. We will remind you to get those FW updates in a future Kickstarter update when the firmware is posted.

All the best,

Steve and Darryl

Final Assembly and Shipping
about 5 years ago – Tue, May 18, 2021 at 10:52:30 PM

MRCCs are being Assembled and Boxed this week! 

It has been a long haul, but it is still exciting (and a relief) to see this finally happening. So far we've received 190 good silk screened enclosures. There was some fall out due to misalignment and what have you, this is expected. We plan to have this first batch assembled and shipped to the warehouse by end of next week. While the warehouse is getting them checked in and shipped out, which takes a few of days, we'll continue assembling as more finished enclosures arrive. Testing and boxing until we have enough to  complete the backlog of Kickstarter and Backerkit pre-orders. Woot!

Kickstarter units will go out first. We will post another message when the MRCC's get picked up by the carriers for final delivery, and again when the next batch is queued up. You will know when your MRCC ships when you get an email from "trackmyshipment.co" with your tracking link. 

We will lock the shipping addresses this week. If you want to make any changes first, please visit mrcc.backerkit.com now. Thanks!

All the best,

Steve and Darryl

Still Waiting on Enclosures
about 5 years ago – Tue, May 04, 2021 at 12:17:25 AM

Greetings MRCC backers,

We're getting close, but still two more tasks to complete. The anodizer took too long (ugh) so the enclosures didn't get silk screened last week. The enclosures have already arrived with our manufacturing rep in Shenzhen for delivery to the silk screener. You can see in the picture below, its a big stack! Our manufacturing rep says the finish on the enclosures looks great!

We're also waiting on the Remote 7 enclosures and since over half of our backers elected to get one (good choice), we can't go without them.  They are on the May Day holiday in China until the 6th, so we will anxiously await another update next week.

Since we're still waiting, we won't lock addresses for another week. If you should need to change your shipping address, please visit mrcc.backerkit.com soon.

When the enclosures arrive after silkscreening, the circuit boards will have already been assembled and tested so final assembly will not take long. Everything else, such as power supplies, boxes, and cables have already arrived for packing. In the meantime, a couple of assembled boards are on the way to us so we can double check that they are assembled correctly.

Once the two circuit boards are put together with lots of screws and stand-offs, and the microSD card is installed, we run a special test firmware for burn-in and QA test. The test firmware lights up the LEDs, exercises the MRCC during burn-in and shows the amount of time its been running. It also provides an interface to QA test functionality. The shipping firmware is installed with final assembly, in addition to serial number programming. 

That's all we've got for now.  We will be back soon with another update and hopefully some good news.

Steve and Darryl

Its coming together!
about 5 years ago – Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 01:32:59 PM

Dear backers,

We will be locking the Kickstarter orders on Wednesday April 21st (this week), so if you need to change your address, please go to mrcc.backerkit.com and change it now. 

We will also be locking Backerkit pre-orders and charging credit cards this week.

We're following along with our manufacturing rep and his team on the completion of MRCC's components and we wanted to share some updates on our progress.

The following enclosure pics are from April 14th. Enclosures have completed the machining steps and are on the way to get anodized and silkscreened. 

Here are the endcaps going through the deburring machine. Our manufacturing rep Pivot made it a field trip for the team, making a cameo in the reflections ;-)

The  MRCC main boards were completed week before last. 

The mezzanine boards (matt black) took a couple of days longer than expected. They are completed now and arriving for assembly this week.

All of the other components, such as power supplies should be arriving this week. So its looking good for having a first batch ready to go by end of April, but then it will take a few days to get them to our fulfillment house for shipping. We will be getting an update on arrival of required parts, and completion of the enclosures this week, then we'll have a better idea of when exactly they will be ready to ship. Stay tuned!