How are you? For a long time we had no news, well, the last mailing was almost yesterday — April 7, 2020. We decided to correct this misunderstanding and now we will tell you about the most important and unimportant events that have happened to us recently.
The previous year 2020 was difficult for all of us, we hope you already have immunity. While everyone sat on self-isolation and went out for a walk with passes, we didn't waste our time. But, despite our heroic efforts due to restrictions in connection with the COVID-19 epidemic and the closure of borders, our production plans are f....d up, or rather, they have undergone major adjustments.
We lost about four months, weren't allowed into our workshop due to epidemic, then we were in quarantine, then the transport company, judging by the timing, was carrying the cargo from the Alpha Centauri on a hitchhike. In general, we experienced great logistical difficulties when ordering pizza and constant delays in the delivery of electronic components and coffee. This year we will try to shorten the production schedule as much as possible (dreams of naive engineers), taking into account the constant preparation for mass production.
To the news!
Terms and Conditions of Sale and Warranty We have written detailed rules of sales and guarantees, which you can view at this link. We warranty there is no warranty. We hope you get answers to any questions you may have while placing a pre-order or when you are faced with the need to obtain warranty service. Firmware Updates In 2020, we had seven controller firmware updates and three display updates. We did not expect such performance from the developers!
The current firmware versions are now:
controller v.0.7.18
display v.0.60B
Check your firmware version and update, the peoples says — the newer the version, the more power! You can read detailed descriptions of updates and download the current firmware version here. We are preparing the next big update.
New product imposed by developers We have developed and released a new product — the uLight controller.
One more brick in the foundation of our ecosystem, or another crack in that ceiling, how it goes! This is a very compact controller for controlling lighting equipment: turn signals, brake lights, headlights, or LED strip. Now it's even easier to turn your e-bike into a Christmas tree! Easy to connect to controller and display, well, if you have controller and display. If necessary, you can connect all controller control peripherals to uLight via the CAN bus without using an on-board computer. You can watch a video review below. The uLight controllers are probably still in stock and you can order them on our website.
We are also working on a few new products that you will like, this is not certain, but we hope so! :-)
BMS 16S и 24S We promised you and still haven't released BMS. This is a rather complex and responsible development that no one wants to take on. At the moment, the seventh version of BMS16S is already on tests, and soon our two and a half testers will start testing it. If the test is successful, we will launch the BMS16S into production. If not, please contact us to take part in the next test. Additional recruitment of testers will be announced later. BMS24S is in the PCB design stage, the responsibility is even greater, as is the fear of the developer.
Waiting time We receive a huge number of questions regarding waiting time. As one client wrote: "My father also ordered a controller from you." Waiting time is our sore subject. As we wrote above, the 2020 pandemic has increased terms even more. Each new timeline question delays the release of controllers by a day, keep that in mind.
The surprises don't end there! This year, all manufacturers of electronic equipment faced a new problem, which was a consequence of the shutdown of production in China during the lockdown — a large shortage of electronic components in factories that produce them. Do you know what the delivery time of microprocessors is now? 45 weeks!
As a result, the prices for components have increased at least twice and there is practically nothing in stock. We make great efforts to provide the necessary stock of components in the warehouse. Our entire purchasing department is like stockbrokers trying to profitably buy Tesla's stocks.
Finally, we had to significantly increase the prices for the 24F controller and display. Prices for 6F and 12F controllers will also be recalculated. We hope that by 2022 the component market will bounce back. But this is not all the difficulties we faced...
The new casings for controllers With 12F and 6F controllers, there will be large delays or very large ones. The reason is that the manufacturer-supplier of controller enclosures unexpectedly stopped production for us and we had to design our own enclosure. Hopefully, they don't look like Apple's casings, or we'll need to hire lawyers.
Since in our production plan (yes, we have a plan), there was the development of new casing for all controllers, we didn`t stay postpone this process and since we had to change the supplier, we decided to immediately make new casings.
In the photo below, the new casing for the 24F controller, it has become smaller in length, changed its shape and significantly increased the number of cooling fins, now the whole surface of the casing is one large heat sink.
The casing for the 24F and 12F controllers is identical and differs only in length, so we decided to first make and test a new casing for the 24F, because cutting off is easier than building up. The tests went well, we made new casing and the next batch of 24F controllers will be with them. We are planning this batch for the middle of May this year. Again, if everything goes according to plan (which we definitely have).
Further, on the basis of the 24F case, we plan to make a case for the 12F controller, there is a minimum of alterations. We plan to do this closer to the summer of this year.
And the most difficult and long time is to make a new case for the 6F controller. It is so small that engineers are performing miracles of layout to fit all that power and at least half of the functionality inside the new case. Perhaps we will be able to design it only in the fall, perhaps not, it depends, again, on the number of questions received by email.
In this regard, 24F controllers will be released continuously and without any special delays (possibly), then we will start parallel production of 12F controllers in a new casing, and only then, 6F controllers.
We understand that many of you may miss the season and will wait a very long time (especially the 6F controller), but we cannot speed up in any way, because in parallel a lot is being done to prepare for the launch of mass production of all types of controllers. As Elon Musk said: "It is very easy to make several prototypes, but to launch them into series is a production hell." Now, we are in hell now and everything is on fire, this is fine.
Our goal is the constant presence of queues and the absence of controllers in the stock, wait, mistake, this — the absence of queues and the constant availability of controllers in the stock. Therefore, we will be glad if you wait for your order.
Even more protection from users With the new casings, we also prepare an update on controller boards. Thanks for your work on destroying devices! We've addressed a lot of bugs and are adding new ways to protect against our awesome users. We planned to add an active protection system against butterfingers, but since the developer has only two hands, we had to abandon it and leave only passive protection.
We also remind you that you can support us on Patreon, there is definitely no inside information, at all!
Special thanks for your feedback, we read each of them carefully. You often say hello to some Vasiliy. We don't know who is this, but just in case, we say hello to you from him!