Dear Backers,

First and foremost, happy new year! I’m sorry to say that we’ve not begun shipping yet. I wish I had better news, but I don’t. I know this is frustrating for all of you. It’s frustrating for us as well.

Promises made by suppliers, etc. have proven fruitless and it’s making everything more difficult, but we are plugging away. We were not able to complete the QA testing per our last update. We actually had to change our supplier right in the midst of testing due to issues on the QA. We believe we have solved the problem and are on the right track, but it has resulted in more unexpected delays.

As a result, the earliest we’ll begin shipping to Crowd Supply’s warehouse is after Chinese New Year — late February to early March.

Here’s what’s currently happening in China. EVT Samples are now approved and we have six fully functioning boards. (We lost 15 during the build and test, resulting from production placement problems.) Part of the on-going issue has been longer than expected lead times on some components, which is changing daily. We have placed an order for 2,500 PCBs on the news that the EVT board design is OK – these are now complete and going through the final electrical testing, which will be completed in the next two or three days.

The plan is then to manage a DVT build, which will probably be 20 pieces assembled in the next seven days, followed by fully testing them. Once those tests pass, we will proceed to a final PVT run of 100 pieces, which we plan to put through final tests before Chinese New Year. Only after a successful PVT build will the actual production build commence, expected shortly after Chinese New Year.

We appreciate your patience. Nobody has more riding on this than we do, and we’re committed to delivering on our promises, despite significant financial losses due to supply chain inflation (which is also why Hackboard 2 prices are so much higher now than during the Crowd Supply campaign).

That being said if you can’t wait any longer and wish to cancel your order, we understand — please contact Crowd Supply support.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@hackboard.com. Thank you all for your ongoing support and patience as we launch a new SBC in the midst of a global pandemic and chip shortage.

Thanks,
Jon