Production Update, Software Changes, Moving Office
Happy Wednesday Everyone,
Production timeline update:
4.1 Upgrade Kits:
The ship Nordia is arriving in Los Angeles as we speak. Over the next week our packages should be unloaded from the ship, delivered to the warehouse in LA, inspected, and handed over to USPS for final delivery.
They’re getting so close!
We have also gotten some good news that the halt on USPS delivering packages from China was repealed as was the de minimis tariffs limit change which means we should be able to deliver those packages totally as expected. We will keep you posted if anything changes.
4.1 Full Kits:
The CNY holiday is over and we are getting back up to speed on producing the full Maslow 4.1 kits. We’re hustling to get it done as quickly as we can given the uncertain tariffs situation in the US.
At this point all of the parts that we need to start packing kits are made and are being delivered to our factory.
We’ve been getting a lot of requests for an updated estimate for when those kits will ship which is tough to say. There is a universe in which everything goes absolutely perfectly and we are able to start shipping full Maslow 4.1 kits next week. There is also a universe where the truck carrying our custom made motors swerves off the road and falls into a volcano and we are set back three months. We expect the reality to be somewhere in the middle.
I can’t give you an exact date, but I can promise you that we’re doing everything that we can do to get it done quickly, and we will keep you informed every step of the way.
Every week there are dozens of small things that come up, any one of which could derail the delivery schedule and I am doing my best to stay on top of those and keep things moving. One example is that the power supply manufacturer needs some paperwork showing that we will export the power supplies immediately so we don’t have to pay local sales tax on them. It’s not an existential threat, but it is something that we need to handle quickly to make sure that things stay on schedule.
Software Update -
There has been a lot of work happening in the background on the Maslow firmware. @MD8N has been rewriting the WebUI code to be more modern and maintainable. @willpuckett discovered that a small change to the software compiler can give us DOUBLE the amount of memory available to us on the control board, and I have been working cleaning up the Maslow part of the code base to make it more readable and set the ground work for a big state machine re-write. None of these changes bring many tangible benefits, but they lay the groundwork for long term improvements to come.
If you are interested in helping out with testing any of the changes, you can find the latest version v0.88.1 in the interstitial firmware releases forums thread.
Moving Offices -
Finally, we will be moving offices next week. The building where our current office is located was sold and we have to move out. It’s a little bitter sweet. On the one hand this space has been great for us and it's such a cool funky old building. On the other hand it’s kind of falling apart and the elevator has been broken for six months. Our current space is also a little bigger and more expensive than we need.
Our new office is going to be in Smith tower downtown.
Photo credit to Wikipedia
It’s a less industrial space so we won’t be doing wood working there, but we can do everything else. We still plan to hold a build day there, and if you are ever in the neighborhood come by and I’ll sneak you up onto the roof, on a clear day the view is spectacular!
Have a great week everyone!
-Bar
