It has been a wild few weeks of programming, boxing, and labeling. We have been working hard to ship out batch two. We’ll also have news about upcoming features and add-ons.

The parts pictured here are not the final production units. The production plastic parts have a clean surface finish.

Batch Two Shipping Status

Unlike the first batch, the scale of batch two assembly is more than a two-person job. We recruited friends and family for our production line that converts raw materials (blank FlippyDrives, boxes of plastic parts, Ethernet modules, etc.) into completed products destined for backers.

As mentioned in the previous update, a delay in receiving the final product packaging caused our shipping schedule to slip. To compensate, we’re shipping boxes of 500 units at a time to Mouser’s warehouse instead of waiting for all 5,000 to be produced. There are currently more than 3,000 units on their way to the warehouse. If your order is in batch two, we expect your order to ship by the end of February. Please look out for a shipping confirmation email with a tracking number from Crowd Supply. If you need to change your address or other shipping details, log into your Crowd Supply account and contact support immediately.

Batch Three and Beyond

Like we’ve said before, threatened and actual tariffs could pretty dramatically affect the delivery timeline for batch three, which is currently scheduled for April. Luckily, we already have some of the parts we need for batch three, such as the flex PCBs, product boxes, and DOL-001 and DOL-101 backplates. We continue to closely monitor our supply chain and we promise to keep you updated as we learn more.

Upcoming Features and Add-ons

This is all good news from Trevor’s desk.

FTP Access

The Wi-Fi-based FTP feature is ready to release after lots of validation and stress testing. It will be included in a software release next week. You will need to upgrade via the normal method and follow the Wi-Fi setup guide.

Make sure the GUI App is open on your desktop before turning on your GameCube. Hold X to get to the FlippyDrive bootloader, then select an on-board DOL file called remote. This app will start the FTP connection. You can then use your favorite FTP client to connect to the IP address specified in the app.

USB Add-On

We’ve put some research and development work into a USB add-on, which will support USB mass storage devices and HID devices like GamePads. We are also considering producing a cheaper version that only supports HID devices.

After testing the thoughput of various USB 2.0 host chips, we now have a working prototype and we are moving on to PCB design. The final version will likely include a plastic adapter so it can fit into the Ethernet-shaped slot on our replacment I/O plate. Expect more news later in the year.