October update
over 9 years ago – Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 11:01:30 PM

Dear backers,

As many of you have requested, and due to further delays, we wanted to give you an update of what went wrong, where the project is now and what we are doing, moving forward, to bring the project to completion.

What has happened?

As you know from previous updates, the partnership with which the project originated fell apart some time ago, for reasons that we unfortunately can't go into for legal reasons. We are a small team and we didn't immediately have an engineer to step up and take over the work. We sourced a new engineer as promptly as we could and as you know, we then engaged with him to progress with a brand new design, as the one we had been left with was not fit for purpose. 

As promising as things looked initially with the new design/engineer, we have recently (after paying for sampling and submitting design files to the manufacturer) come to realise that the quality of work produced was not up to specification despite reassurances from the engineer in question. 

Whilst we were trying to sort out the outstanding issues with the design, the engineer ceased communications with us and has failed to produce any further design updates. 

As a consequence of this major letdown, we decided that as well as fixing the outstanding issues it would be prudent for us to perform a full review of the design with a newly appointed engineer in order to check that there were no other unearthed issues, before beginning manufacture.

What is happening now?

We are still fully committed to delivering the PiJuice (and in fact, some aspects like the solar panels are already set in stone - more on that later). Alongside the PiJuice project, within the last year we have employed another full-time engineer for our company, in order to work on separate projects which have so far been successfully delivered. We have therefore decided to allocate this engineer's time exclusively to the PiJuice project until it is complete. Given his proven record with us, we are confident that he is capable of delivering what is required.

On top of this, we have also brought on an experienced project manager for the company, whose initial job will be focused on coordinating all work on the PiJuice module to ensure the requirements of the project are fully met and that manufacture can resume as soon as possible.

Work has already begun on both of these fronts and our next update will contain a more detailed schedule.

We know some of you have raised some concerns about the fact we have continued to work on other projects and launch other products - and we appreciate that is a valid concern. Running a small business like ours, with limited resources, and keeping it afloat requires consistent effort and commitment as well as a sufficient stream of revenue. The reason for us continuing with these other projects and expanding our product range is so that we can absolutely guarantee the delivery of the PiJuice Kickstarter.

Delivery of other items

We really appreciate the continued support and understanding of the vast majority of the backers of PiJuice and it is this community spirit that keeps us going.

We really don't enjoy causing any bad feeling with our backers or customers and we want to show that we are committed to reconciling everything and most importantly...still committed to you - our backers. 

It is with this in mind that we have decided that we will begin shipping all the items included in the various pledges with the exception of the PiJuice module itself, the extra batteries and the maker kits.

Given that the logistics of shipping this many items is fairly intensive and that we want to remain focused on getting the PiJuice module itself to completion as well as other business needs this shipping will occur in stages, over the next few months. We know this is not ideal, and that you would rather be receiving your PiJuices instead of the accessories/add-ons, but we want to show that we are still fully committed to this by at least shipping what we can for the time being. We will be reaching out soon to confirm shipping addresses for any backers with add-ons in order that we can begin this process.

This project has had many shortcomings and has been a steep learning curve for us due to the far greater success it received than we had originally anticipated, as well as over promising on stretch goals. We are still paying the price for this naivety but will make sure that we continue to work very hard on delivering what we promised.

Thanks,
The Pi Juice / Pi Supply team

Production news
over 9 years ago – Sat, Jul 09, 2016 at 12:27:17 AM

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in updating. We've been working extremely hard behind the scenes to make sure everything is ready at the right time during the production, refining the programming and testing process, refining the firmware and software, the plastic surround and more. It's all coming together! 

Manufacturer and onward sales

A number of you have been asking about our manufacturer, who they are etc etc. 

We decided to go with one of the two companies we quoted with in China - Embest. They are part of the Premier Farnell / element14 group of companies, and we deal with their UK based team with production in China giving the best of both worlds - price and quality/service. As a number of you will know Embest/Farnell produce a number of the official Raspberry Pi add ons such as screens, cameras etc at this factory so we know the quality is very high and that they are a reliable partner.

The added bonus is that we will also, moving forward, be working more closely with Farnell and they'll be taking care of a big relaunch after we ship the Kickstarter rewards as well as looking after a lot of stock management and distribution - worldwide. We're very glad to be working with such a great partner!

Also, just so you know - due to higher production costs than originally planned with all the stretch goals etc included the final product, outside of Kickstarter, will be considerably more expensive. However we will do our absolute best to keep this at a reasonable price point.

Timeline

We have been given an estimate by Embest for delivery and that is 10 to 12 weeks. We're discussing various ways to get this down - using alternative components for long lead time components, paying more for components to get a shorter lead time, shipping them in smaller batches rather than all at once etc.

Please understand this is only an estimate. We're doing our best to hit or better this but can't promise anything at this stage.

Thanks,

Aaron and the Pi Supply team

PiJuice guide and software
almost 10 years ago – Tue, Jun 07, 2016 at 12:23:32 AM

Hi all,

Production progress

Still waiting on exact dates etc from the manufacture process, and we know this is what you are all desparately waiting for. We will update you as soon as we possibly can on this.

We have, in the background, been perfecting the programming and test procedure for PiJuice so we are ready to go on that once they start coming off the production line.

PiJuice Software

We have started uploading the PiJuice firmware and software to the PiJuice GitHub. This includes the firmware for the ARM Cortex M0 onboard the PiJuice (in case you ever want to customise or upgrade this), the GUI and the software APIs.

Most of you probably won't care to look at this until you have your PiJuice(s) in hand - this is mainly for any of the more technical/advanced backers to take a look at for their interest/input.

It is a work in progress and we have more docs/code to upload so please bear with us while we complete these. Any input you want to have on the code side would be greatly received - going forward we would love to have firmware/software updates done in conjunction with community ideas and feedback - so why not start as we mean to go on!

PiJuice Guide

The PiJuice Guide that will be included in the packaging is now completely finished. Here is a screnshot of the front page:

 

The full guide is available here - https://github.com/PiSupply/PiJuice/blob/master/Documentation/PiJuice%20Guide.pdf

More PiJuice Console Pictures

For those of you maker kit backers, we now have pictures of the final prototype games consoles, for which we showed you an Eagle CAD design in the last update.

Thanks for reading,
Aaron and the Pi Supply team

New improved console design
almost 10 years ago – Thu, May 19, 2016 at 12:41:31 AM

Dear Backers,

Here is a picture of the new improved PiJuice games console design for the Maker Kits. This is an export from Eagle.

 Beyond the initial design it now features haptic feedback, neo-pixels, front finger buttons, a buzzer as well as four mode buttons. For these versions we will likely use a through hole GPIO header and use the Adafruit 2.2" screen for the makerkits.

We thought this was some useful information for those 100+ of you who have ordered Maker Kits. We think the end product is going to be pretty awesome and hope you will agree!

More news soon.

Thanks,
Aaron and the Pi Supply team

Full quantity of solar panels arrived, manufacturing developments
almost 10 years ago – Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 11:03:24 PM

Hi all,

Things have been a bit slow the last month in terms of manufacturing as we have been waiting for extensive quotes to come through from three manufacturers and due to the fact we are working to tight budgets we have had to refine these a number of times.

However we have been very busy behind the scenes making sure everything else is ready to go for when the quotes come in.

Here is a little video update:

Here is a text based version of the update also:

Packaging samples

We showed a picture of the packaging design in a previous update, but we have now received the physical samples. Here are some pictures of the packaging in the flesh:

As mentioned in the video, the packaging looks a lot bigger than a HAT module and that is because it is! There is protective packaging in there to protect the board and the LiPo battery and it is also so that there is room for the printed guide.

Solar Panels all arrived

As mentioned in a previous update, the solar panels had all started manufacture, and we have now received all of these (over 1000) for all of the PiJuice Solar backers:

Guide

A few of you have been asking about the PiJuice guide that will go inside the packaging. This is nearly finished and we will post pictures here shortly.

Other manufacturing developments

We have got all of the three quotes back now and are working through them all to see which will be the best option.

Once we decide on a manufacturer we will task them with starting to source all of the components immediately and give us as accurate lead times as possible on those, with a view to providing an estimated shipping start date for PiJuice backers.

Partnership developments

In keeping with our respective strategic planning Agilic Ltd and RAAMaudio UK Ltd t/a Pi Supply have reached a mutual decision to allow RAAMaudio UK Ltd t/a Pi Supply to take sole responsibility and ownership of the PiJuice project going forwards. We can now progress the project to completion and expect to fulfil the Kickstarter backers and pre-order customers’ orders within the next few months. Neither company expect there to be any compromise in the PiJuice project going forward.

Thanks,
Aaron and the PiJuice team