K3 Status Update - Oct 31, 2007
K3s are going out the door on a regular basis, but we're still shipping at a
rate slower than I would like to see. My gut feeling is that we are off of our
last plan by 1-2 of weeks. Last week we resolved most of our remaining major
supplier problems (after hand winding a number of additional toroids) and we
have been getting a steadily increasing stream of boards from our PCB assembly
house. We still chase minor production and supplier issues each day, but so far
none of them are show stoppers. We had a couple of fire drills (wrong caps
mounted on boards at the assembly house, a few phantom problems that turned out
-not- to be real problems, etc.) All of these have been resolved in house
(before shipping) fairly quickly, but each time a problem pops up, we end up
delaying shipments while we make sure it is corrected properly. Our top priority
is to ship a quality product, not to push out high volume before it is ready.
We're working overtime in Aptos to ramp up K3 production. Board test, final
assembly and alignment is now our main bottleneck. We have hired extra
production and test tech. staff to increase our daily K3 production rate -
Another test tech. starts with us tomorrow. :-) We've
even put out the word to local ham clubs looking for test technicians for our
production test group, and assemblers too. (Contact eric@elecraft.com
if you are local and might be interested.) We're also putting in place more
automated testing each day to speed things through the line.
The good news is that we are not seeing any major problems in the field. We've
been keeping in contact with our early customers as they bring up their K3s, and
so far we have been getting great reports.
I'll update the shipping status page to reflect our current projections. One
note - We received such a large surge of orders the first 1-5 days after we
announced the K3 that we are still working on building and shipping that group
and will be for at least another week or more. When I catch my breath some time
next week, I'll try to start posting what approximate order dates we are
shipping each week on the status page.
Lisa and our front office crew have been doing a Herculean job of both handling
our regular orders and calls along with 30-50 additional emails a day (plus
phone calls) asking for order status, making order changes etc. If you have not
ordered before May 10th, we would appreciate your holding off emailing us for
status as much as possible. We understand if you really need to contact us, but
the less time we're on the phone or on email, the more time we can focus on
producing K3s. :-)
Wayne, myself and the rest of our crew take your concerns and frustrations with
any delays -very- personally. We are 100% focused on getting K3s rolling out to
everyone on a steadily increasing basis and will not rest until everyone is on
the air with their K3.
73, Eric WA6HHQ
October 18th K3 Update
We've been receiving a flood of emails lately asking questions about K3
shipping and what we're up to here in Aptos. I apologize that we can not reply
to all of them directly as we're totally focused on getting K3s out the door.
We are slowly ramping up in fits and starts and definitely have shipped a number
of K3s. :-) We'll ship
for one day and then pause for a day or two to make sure that everything is
correct. We'll then make small changes to the manufacturing process and then
ship some more etc. Last week and this week were slower than we wanted, mostly
due to minor manufacturing glitches, delays printing the manuals, making sure
the boards were fully tested and getting a regular flow of completed PCB
assemblies (i.e. complete sets of boards) from our assembly sub-contractor. They
are finally coming up to speed and it looks like next week will be the first
time that they will be supplying more board sets to us than we can digest and
ship daily. That will allow us to get ahead on our testing of boards in batches
and to run our process more efficiently.
Most of the first shipments have gone out UPS ground and via Priority mail. I
think only one customer asked for it overnight, and that one went out today. As
a result many of them are just receiving their K3s now and may not start
building them until this weekend. The customers we've shipped to so far were
very early orders from Visalia etc. and we've been closely communicating with
them to make sure they received everything that was supposed to be there and
that there were no major problems building and getting the kit running. :-)
These are regular customers, but we are being very careful to make sure
that we do not ship a large number of K3s with infant problems (in the kit or
printed docs.) A number of them are bringing up their kits now and I expect you
will see more postings beginning next week. Just this morning we got news one of
them is 100% up and running and very happy. Also remember than not all of our
customers are on the Elecraft list and some even do not use email. (Less than
50% of the customers in our database are on the Elecraft list.)
So far we've been shipping just kits to keep everything under control. Next week
we will begin shipping some fully built rigs too. We brought up the first
factory built K3 today (that will ship to a customer who ordered it as the first
built K3 at Visalia) and it is fully functional, going through final burn-in and
test right now.
We're being careful and conservative - trying to make sure quality trumps
quantity in these early shipping days. In any case, I think we should see an
increase of K3 owner comments starting some time next week. (And more K3
shipments too!)
73, Eric WA6HHQ
K3's Start Shipping! Oct. 9th, 2007
The first production K3s started shipping today! (Oct 9th) :-) We worked
overtime last week and through the weekend to get everything in order. We had
the usual last minute glitches (missing hardware we thought we had received,
MORE toroid winding in Aptos, minor PCB assembly errors, documentation snafu's
etc.) but we were able to resolve everything in time for shipping today. Whew!
Here's a picture of Lisa with the first K3/100 kit of this batch going out the
door. :-)
After today's batch of K3s we will pause shipping for two days to let the dust
settle and to make doubly sure we have everything in proper order. We will
continue testing and packaging the K3 kits tomorrow and Thursday. We'll resume
shipping on Friday and should continue shipping on a daily basis, Monday-Friday,
after that. This week we are beginning with the kit versions of the K3. Mid next
week the first built K3s will begin rolling out the door.
The rest of this week we will be contacting those of you that will be shipping
over the next two weeks. Due to the very high number of orders that we received
the first day at Visalia and via FAX/Internet (actually the first couple of
weeks!) we will not be shipping all the first day orders on the first day, or
two, or three. :-) But we are working hard to get everyone's K3 out the door
quickly. Initial shipment rates will of course start out in small groups and
slowly accelerate to more units per day as we ramp up. But our top priority to make sure we get you a complete and quality product. Please be patient with
us. We're just as anxious as you to get your radio on its way.
The K3 Operating manual is complete and I'll be posting it and the K3 option
manuals to the web by end of day tomorrow.
Now, where is that champagne...
73, Eric WA6HHQ and Wayne, N6KR
K3 Status Update - Sept. 29, 2007
We are continuing down the final stretch and so far things are looking pretty good.
Last week:
Wayne and the Field Testers continued to test the firmware for the K3 and the '1 button press' K3 firmware downloader. We'll be releasing new K3 features on a regular basis (both planned and in response to customer feedback) so make sure to keep an eye on our website (and our email list) after receiving your K3 for announcements of new firmware releases.
Wayne and our tech. publications crew are reviewing and making final edits to the K3 operating and assembly manuals. We'll print these late next week. (And put the Op manual on the web.) We electronically transmit the manuals to our printer and they can turn initial quantities in 24 hours.
We received additional K3 boards from our assembly house and have been testing these as they come in.
We hand wound and delivered to our assembly house enough of the toroids we were short from our supplier to cover the first week of K3 shipments. We also wound KPA3 100W input and output transformers for the first shipments and delivered them yesterday. Thanks to our crew and especially to Mychael (a.k.a. the 'Toroid Guy') for getting these done! We expect more toroids from our production supplier next week.
By Monday we will have received all of the needed K3 board assemblies, except the 100W KPA3 assembly, to cover our first week of K3 shipments. We expect the KPA3s mid next week. To put this in perspective, there are 19 PC board assemblies for the K3 and options, plus 10 more for the optional filters. Our crew is working overtime to receive, test and align everything.
Next Week:
Continue to receive, test, align and integrate K3 sub-assemblies.
Beginning packing K3 kit versions and assembling, aligning and testing built K3s.
Make final edits on manuals and print them.
Continuing firmware and downloader testing for first ship units.
Contact first ship K3 customers to confirm order details, cc info etc.
You can feel the high energy buzz when you walk in the door at Elecraft HQ in Aptos. :-) Everyone is getting excited to see our baby get ready to go out the door. (Plus its hard to miss the large amount of K3 in-process assemblies everywhere.) So far, no major new surprises have popped up. I think we still have a good chance of starting shipments on our target date of Oct 8th, or possibly the week of the 8th if we have any last minute surprises.
Stay Tuned!
73,
Eric WA6HHQ, Wayne N6KR and the rest of the K3 team.
K3 Status Update: Sept 18, 2007
We are heading down the final K3 production stretch, and we can finally see
the finish line.
We received all of the first production run K3 painted and silk-screened
enclosure sheet metal late Friday. This was one of our major concerns since the
vendor was late, and if a part is bad it can take several weeks to fabricate
replacements. Fortunately all of the sheet metal looked excellent following our
incoming inspection. :-)
We have received initial shipments of the higher accuracy TCXOs, so those of you
who ordered this upgrade will receive them with your K3.
As mentioned before, our other major parts problem has been the wound toroids.
We received another major shipment from the vendor this week which filled in a
number of missing toroid values, but there are still several values outstanding.
While they are promising to get these to us in the next week, we are not relying
on that. We have started an 'all hands on-deck' toroid winding operation
in Aptos as an insurance policy to cover our initial K3 shipments. We ordered
and received the raw toroids and wire last week and we are in the process of
winding each missing value. Both our production team and anyone else in our
Aptos HQ who has time available is winding toroids. (Even Lisa is becoming a
toroid winding expert. Ask her how her fingers feel..) Our goal is to get
enough sets of the missing toroids wound and tinned so that our pc board
stuffing sub-contractor can get initial quantities the four board types that
need these values wave soldered late this week and early next. This should
cover us in case the remaining toroids arrive a week or two late from the
vendor.
The only new parts surprise we had was when we discovered that the relays we had
received for the KBPF3 option had the wrong coil voltage. Fortunately this was
caught before the boards were soldered. They were exchanged for the
correct value and the new ones should be here in several days.
Wayne and Lyle are focused on final testing of the K3's firmware and DSP code
with our Field Testers. They are doing a great job of beating up the K3 and
making sure it is as solid as possible. Wayne is also working with out team on
the release version of the K3 operating manual. We hope to have it posted in the
next 7-10 days.
We are testing the assembled PC boards as they arrive and everything is
beginning to feel like it is converging. Key sub assemblies for the built
version of the K3 are getting built and tested, awaiting the final boards
mentioned above. For a while it seemed like new parts supplier problems were
cropping up faster than we were solving them. That trend has now sharply
reversed.
So what's the bottom line? Wayne and I discussed the schedule and our open issues
today. While we both felt that we may start shipping in two weeks, we agreed we
should add a week to that and conservatively set the official K3 first ship
date for Monday Oct 8th. That gives us some additional safety margin for any
last minute issues. (Plus we can work the weekend getting the first units ready
to ship! :-) We understand the frustration it creates each time the
schedule slips and we want to avoid another last minute delay.
Every one of us appreciates the patience you have shown while waiting for the
K3. We're doing our best to make the wait worth while, and to get a quality
product out the door to you as soon as possible. We're optimistic that we are on
track and we will keep posting weekly status updates between now and Oct 8th to
keep everyone aware of how everything is going.
73,
Eric, WA6HHQ
and Wayne, N6KR
K3 Shipping Status Update: Sept 6, 2007
All of the K3 raw PCBs are in house and are in various stages of production.
(SMT reflow, wave soldering, hand soldering etc.) Some are complete and are in
production test.
We're still hunting down a number of problem parts and vendors. This is
our primary focus right now in Aptos. We've received more of the pre-wound
toroids but our vendor is still late on several critical values. They have
promised us another schedule update tomorrow. (You are not the only ones
waiting for updates. :-) This is holding up
the final production of a number of our boards, including the main RF
board and 100W PA board.
Our TCXO vendor informed us today that they will be late delivering the higher
stability versions to us, but they should have parts to us in about 10 days.
Since these parts plug into the reference module, we can add them as we do final
assembly. (We have small quantities here for basic test use in production.)
Our sheet metal vendor began delivering the final K3 sheet metal to us today and
their latest commitment is to get us all of it by next week.
We're also using this time to exercise and test the K2 MCU and DSP firmware. We
want the K3 to be as solid as possible when it ships. Our field testers have
been doing a great job giving us feedback on the K3's operation and helping us
knock down any problems that they find.
Wayne and our tech. pubs people are making a few last minute edits to the K3
assembly manual and they are now telling me that it will be ready to post
Monday. (I guess I was -way- too optimistic on that last week.. ;-)
As they say, 'We will sell no wine until its time.' But if the 'fun and
games' with our parts and fab vendor schedules continues much longer, I may be
driven to drink some of it first! (Just kidding..) Every day is exciting
in Aptos. While it may be stressful, we wouldn't be doing anything else for a
living. Bringing a major new product like the K3 to market is both the
most difficult -and- the most exhilarating experience one can have.
I'm heading down to the Southwest ARRL convention in Torrance, CA, tomorrow
through the weekend. If you are in the area please feel free to drop by our
booth to check out our K3's and ask questions. We really enjoy the
interaction, and to be honest, that's how we got many of the ideas embodied in
the K3.
I'll be posting another update next week. Stay tuned!
73, Eric WA6HHQ
K3 Shipping Status Update: August 29, 2007
Note from Eric:
I apologize for not posting earlier. I planned on posting an update for
everyone before I left town for the JA Ham Fair last week, but ran out of time.
So you can blame this delay in status on me (and the Marketing dept.) instead of
the Engineering dept.
Our revised target for the beginning of K3 shipments is now September 17th.
The K3 shipping date is now primarily determined by delays in K3 part
deliveries, PC boards and completed assemblies from our vendors. The remaining
handful of delayed parts are scheduled to arrive this week and early next week.
There are less than ten different parts in this category, but it only takes one
part not arriving (or arriving with the incorrect value) to delay production.
Every time this has happened our PCB stuffing operation has had to halt working
on one board and move to another while the part problem is resolved. The final
four raw PC boards took 2 weeks longer than expected and they arrive tomorrow.
(There are a total of 16 PC boards in the basic K3/10.) Also, our sheet metal
fabricator has taken several weeks longer than they projected to supply us with
painted and silk-screened K3 chassis parts. Final K3 sheet metal is now
scheduled to arrive in Aptos on Friday.
Our field testers and engineering team have done an excellent job over the last
four weeks thrashing out the K3's design, assembly manual and operational
features. (Thanks guys!) Wayne, Lyle and the rest of our engineering team have
been working 7 day weeks incorporating the Field Tester's suggestions and making
sure the K3 meets their expectations and hopefully yours. We've field tested the first release of the assembly manual and
we are now testing the latest update.
The KNB3 noise blanker was the last core board completed for the K3. It was
released to production last month and is one of the best performing noise
blankers I've used. It includes 8 different NB gain levels and has two stages of
internal AGC, along with three separate widths of blanking. The net result is
that I have been able to remove almost anything my local power company, electric
fences and noisy autos and can throw at it. And combined with Lyle's latest
version of the DSP NB, we have a formidable tool for interference reduction.
(The hardware and DSP noise blankers can be used simultaneously to reduce a wide
range of pulse type interference.)
We are receiving assembled K3 boards in Aptos now and are testing them in
preparation for their inclusion in K3 kits and assembled units. So far we have
received, or will receive this week, initial shipments of a number of the K3
board assemblies, including the front panel, mixer, audio and digital I/O, PLL,
crystal filter and transverter I/O boards.
We appreciate your patience as we get the final pieces in place to ship your
K3s. From now until we ship we will post weekly updates on K3 shipping here on
the Elecraft list and on our web page. We'll also be posting the pre-release
version of the K3 assembly manual on our web site later this week to give you a
feel for what is coming.
73,
Eric WA6HHQ
Wayne, N6KR