Superstation One
- Thread starter kingtreelo
- Start date
kingtreelo
Active member
Not sure if anyone else got this but this was todays update, looks like people who ordered the dock may be waiting a while
Hello,
This is an important update about your current SS1 order.
The Journey so Far
Late last year, we started a trial order of 100 version 1.2.1 SS1 boards. We projected that we would start shipping in the middle of November. We ran into production issues, which delayed the first wave of shipping until the end of December.
While we were debugging those boards, we designed a revision to improve the consistency of the board and to bypass some component shortages. That new revision went into production in the middle of December and finished SMT before the end of that month. We started with another trial order, and then scaled up production with a 4-digit order.
We shipped that next set in the middle of January, and we shipped the follow-up order near the end of January. We used the first two waves to improve our assembly process and testing methods. SS1 has many features, and each one of them needs to undergo testing before we can ship an order. The first two waves of SS1 were produced with four full-time shipping staff, myself included, and several other full-time employees helping out. By Wave 3, we added 12 part-time staff to help assemble, test, and pack SS1 orders.
Before we started assembling wave 3, our office was completely maxed out on available space with everything needed for SS1. At that time, I decided to expand into a second office, which finished renovations at the end of February.
While 1.2.2 was a huge improvement, it still required manual tuning to meet our standards. We found ways to improve the motherboard to alleviate bottlenecks. We started production on a small trial order of 1.2.3 boards in the middle of January and tested them in the middle of February. After finishing Wave 3, I ended up doubling the volume of Wave 3 with a second order of 1.2.3 boards before the trial order finished. That revision ended up resolving all of the pain points we experienced in producing the first two.
Throughout March, we shipped the first chunk of Wave 4 using 1.2.3 boards. All of that assembly and testing happened in the new office. Even with the bigger space, we didn’t ship faster. If anything, Wave 3 was faster due to difficulties in scaling up part-time staff after the national holiday. The problem is that it takes a long time to train and retain those people.
After we finished the first part of wave 4, I started looking at other options to scale, and I was lucky enough to find a major computer assembly factory near us. With hundreds of workers and more space, they can easily remove one of our largest bottlenecks. After contracting them for assembly, I put all of the remaining SS1 orders into mass production.
After those orders were placed, we started updating tracking information with production waves. The good news is that most of that production is already done.
Current Status
As of today, all of the remaining FE SS1 motherboards are in our office (wave 4 + dock). Half of batch 2 is in the SMT stage, with the other half finishing PCB production (wave 5). The rest of batch 3 that isn’t part of wave 5 is currently in PCB production (wave 6).
So what’s the problem? The problem is that almost all of these SS1 motherboards need a SuperDock to complete the shipment, and unlike SS1, which has a refined assembly, testing, and packing process in place, the SuperDock is still new, with only a single production wave completed at this point. After completing the first wave of SD units, we found several improvements that needed to be made to the PCB to make it easier to assemble. The mold also requires some minor changes to improve the assembly process.
Because we are far behind schedule, our next SD wave is over 1,000 units based on the 1.2.2 motherboard (the same as wave 1). We also produced a 1.2.3 revision trial order at the same time. It is estimated that we will not need any other revisions to the board. If we do, it only takes several days to produce a complete SuperDock motherboard. For SS1, that process takes ~18 days. Both sets of motherboards are already in our office, waiting for SMT. We are just waiting on a mold revision to finish, which is scheduled for next week. As long as there are no issues with the 1.2.3 trial order, we will produce the rest of the boards in one go.
Originally, batches were supposed to be shipped sequentially. For orders with a SuperDock bundled with an SS1, that is still true. For orders without a SuperDock, that's no longer possible. The nature of this last leg of the journey means that once we start running, we cannot stop until we are done. This means we need a pipeline of assembled devices from the factory, we need continuous work for part-time workers so they keep coming every day, and we need to get stuff out the door as fast as possible because we don’t have storage space.
In practice, this means that it is entirely possible that a wave 6 order of only an SS1 will ship before a wave 4 that includes an SS1 and a SuperDock. I can assure you that we won’t ship SD + SS1 orders out of the original priority, but that’s no longer the case for single-unit orders now that we have so many SS1 units and we need to keep things moving for the aforementioned reasons.
As always, you can split out an order if you want, or you can refund a SuperDock if you want to get your SS1 faster. We offered this to FE customers last year, and most of the units we have shipped thus far were from those that split out an order. As I write this, I am sitting near three industrial warehouse shelves filled with fully assembled and tested Founders Edition SS1 units that are waiting for a SuperDock to be shipped. If those orders didn’t have a SuperDock in the same order, I could ship them all tomorrow.
It’s an unfortunate situation, but we are doing our best. We are still a very small company, trying our best to get this product to you as fast as possible. With the highest quality possible.
Final Important Points
If your address has changed since the time you placed your order, this is your last chance to get it updated before your order ships.
If you have DHL selected as your shipping service and you live in a region with 4PX service, you may be asked in a follow-up e-mail to switch to 4PX with a refund of the difference. DHL’s costs have increased by almost 20% in the last two months due to global issues, and it means we lose $10 on average for every shipment that goes out. There are even some Middle East countries where we lose over $80 when we ship with DHL, based on the original shipping fee. It’s not sustainable, especially for earlier SS1 orders.
I don’t anticipate that I will have enough time to sit down and write another update like this unless something catastrophic happens. If there are any smaller changes, I will post updates on the store shipping dashboard, the Retro Remake subreddit, or the SS1 community Discord channel as a pinned message. This e-mail was cut due to size restrictions; a longer version will be posted on Discord and Reddit.
Best,
-Taki
Hello,
This is an important update about your current SS1 order.
The Journey so Far
Late last year, we started a trial order of 100 version 1.2.1 SS1 boards. We projected that we would start shipping in the middle of November. We ran into production issues, which delayed the first wave of shipping until the end of December.
While we were debugging those boards, we designed a revision to improve the consistency of the board and to bypass some component shortages. That new revision went into production in the middle of December and finished SMT before the end of that month. We started with another trial order, and then scaled up production with a 4-digit order.
We shipped that next set in the middle of January, and we shipped the follow-up order near the end of January. We used the first two waves to improve our assembly process and testing methods. SS1 has many features, and each one of them needs to undergo testing before we can ship an order. The first two waves of SS1 were produced with four full-time shipping staff, myself included, and several other full-time employees helping out. By Wave 3, we added 12 part-time staff to help assemble, test, and pack SS1 orders.
Before we started assembling wave 3, our office was completely maxed out on available space with everything needed for SS1. At that time, I decided to expand into a second office, which finished renovations at the end of February.
While 1.2.2 was a huge improvement, it still required manual tuning to meet our standards. We found ways to improve the motherboard to alleviate bottlenecks. We started production on a small trial order of 1.2.3 boards in the middle of January and tested them in the middle of February. After finishing Wave 3, I ended up doubling the volume of Wave 3 with a second order of 1.2.3 boards before the trial order finished. That revision ended up resolving all of the pain points we experienced in producing the first two.
Throughout March, we shipped the first chunk of Wave 4 using 1.2.3 boards. All of that assembly and testing happened in the new office. Even with the bigger space, we didn’t ship faster. If anything, Wave 3 was faster due to difficulties in scaling up part-time staff after the national holiday. The problem is that it takes a long time to train and retain those people.
After we finished the first part of wave 4, I started looking at other options to scale, and I was lucky enough to find a major computer assembly factory near us. With hundreds of workers and more space, they can easily remove one of our largest bottlenecks. After contracting them for assembly, I put all of the remaining SS1 orders into mass production.
After those orders were placed, we started updating tracking information with production waves. The good news is that most of that production is already done.
Current Status
As of today, all of the remaining FE SS1 motherboards are in our office (wave 4 + dock). Half of batch 2 is in the SMT stage, with the other half finishing PCB production (wave 5). The rest of batch 3 that isn’t part of wave 5 is currently in PCB production (wave 6).
So what’s the problem? The problem is that almost all of these SS1 motherboards need a SuperDock to complete the shipment, and unlike SS1, which has a refined assembly, testing, and packing process in place, the SuperDock is still new, with only a single production wave completed at this point. After completing the first wave of SD units, we found several improvements that needed to be made to the PCB to make it easier to assemble. The mold also requires some minor changes to improve the assembly process.
Because we are far behind schedule, our next SD wave is over 1,000 units based on the 1.2.2 motherboard (the same as wave 1). We also produced a 1.2.3 revision trial order at the same time. It is estimated that we will not need any other revisions to the board. If we do, it only takes several days to produce a complete SuperDock motherboard. For SS1, that process takes ~18 days. Both sets of motherboards are already in our office, waiting for SMT. We are just waiting on a mold revision to finish, which is scheduled for next week. As long as there are no issues with the 1.2.3 trial order, we will produce the rest of the boards in one go.
Originally, batches were supposed to be shipped sequentially. For orders with a SuperDock bundled with an SS1, that is still true. For orders without a SuperDock, that's no longer possible. The nature of this last leg of the journey means that once we start running, we cannot stop until we are done. This means we need a pipeline of assembled devices from the factory, we need continuous work for part-time workers so they keep coming every day, and we need to get stuff out the door as fast as possible because we don’t have storage space.
In practice, this means that it is entirely possible that a wave 6 order of only an SS1 will ship before a wave 4 that includes an SS1 and a SuperDock. I can assure you that we won’t ship SD + SS1 orders out of the original priority, but that’s no longer the case for single-unit orders now that we have so many SS1 units and we need to keep things moving for the aforementioned reasons.
As always, you can split out an order if you want, or you can refund a SuperDock if you want to get your SS1 faster. We offered this to FE customers last year, and most of the units we have shipped thus far were from those that split out an order. As I write this, I am sitting near three industrial warehouse shelves filled with fully assembled and tested Founders Edition SS1 units that are waiting for a SuperDock to be shipped. If those orders didn’t have a SuperDock in the same order, I could ship them all tomorrow.
It’s an unfortunate situation, but we are doing our best. We are still a very small company, trying our best to get this product to you as fast as possible. With the highest quality possible.
Final Important Points
If your address has changed since the time you placed your order, this is your last chance to get it updated before your order ships.
If you have DHL selected as your shipping service and you live in a region with 4PX service, you may be asked in a follow-up e-mail to switch to 4PX with a refund of the difference. DHL’s costs have increased by almost 20% in the last two months due to global issues, and it means we lose $10 on average for every shipment that goes out. There are even some Middle East countries where we lose over $80 when we ship with DHL, based on the original shipping fee. It’s not sustainable, especially for earlier SS1 orders.
I don’t anticipate that I will have enough time to sit down and write another update like this unless something catastrophic happens. If there are any smaller changes, I will post updates on the store shipping dashboard, the Retro Remake subreddit, or the SS1 community Discord channel as a pinned message. This e-mail was cut due to size restrictions; a longer version will be posted on Discord and Reddit.
Best,
-Taki
Superstationᵒⁿᵉ finally arrived. Worth it just for being a tidy yet cheap MiSTer setup. Very handy that you can use a Saturn RGB scart cable (check to align the pins, not the notch!).
I've ordered from Retroremake a few times. Not had an import tax bill. Ordered two SS1s this time. Thought that'd be pushing it but no bill (yet).