Limited number of iGPS360 modules left

With the upcoming Holiday Season, the year 2009 is coming to an end.

Orange Gadgets will be closed between Christmas and New Year's Day and the last day for shipping packages this year will be on Wednesday December 23, 2009.

I will be taking a break from December 24, 2009 through January 1, 2009. During that period, you will still be able to place an order online, but packages won't be shipped till the new year. Although I will be around, email will most likely not be answered during that period either, unless I have time to spare ;-)

If you are still looking for a present for friends or family, the iGPS360 makes a great gift. Of the second production run that is coming to an end now, there are less than 75 units left as of today. If you are planning on getting a unit before the end of the year, you will have to be quick...

I would like to thank the community and all Orange Gadgets customers for all their support during the past year+ since the establishment of Orange Gadgets. Thank you for all your business, support and feedback.

It has been a great and fulfilling experience for myself and I am looking forward to what the New Year will bring for all of us!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

PmgR

New modules are in stock

As of this week, we have new batch of iGPS360 modules from the second production run in stock.

For everyone who had a pending order, your module was shipped on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 :-)

Also, if you are interested in selling the iGPS360 module in and around your own country or continent, send an email to distributors@orangegadgets.com

Second production run has started

Amazingly, we are right on schedule for the second production run of hte iGPS360 module :-)

The remaining parts for the second run arrived this week:

• The new batch of GPS engines arrived on Tuesday and just to make sure everything is OK with them, I built another GPS module by hand with a freshly arrived GPS engine. My startup experience has taught me that it is always a good habit to check what your suppliers provide you with as everyone can make mistakes. The hand-built module worked flawlessly.


• New PCB boards for manufacturing were delivered on Wednesday.


• I picked up a new batch of housings today. Due to the relatively large screening-out that I had to do last time, the housing manufacturer layer packed the housings with foam this time. I just finished inspection of the bottom part of the housing and things are looking good so far.

The first batch of assembled PCB boards is expected to be ready for testing by the end of next week. The first fully assembled and completely tested modules are expected to be ready for shipping around May 15th.

As you might also have noticed, I have cleaned up the poll from the left hand side of the blog as I am preparing for a new poll regarding the next potential product that I have in mind. I'll keep you guessing in the meantime what that might be... Feel free to post your wishes!

Exactly 200 GPS modules left!

It's been a little while since the last post. Things have been very busy for a number of reasons.

As the title of this post already announces, at the time of writing this post, there are only 200 GPS modules left for sale.

I expect these remaining modules to be sold out within the next 5 weeks, so if you are considering buying a GPS module, you have to be quick!

Back when the first production run was initiated in September last year, I wanted to make 1000 modules available to you all. As a matter of fact, at that time, it was unclear what the yield of the module in production would be and as such I decided at that time to make 1100 modules instead of 1000. As nothing yields perfectly (100%) in production, I decided to put a safety margin of about 10% to cover for any yield loss.

Interestingly enough, the yield has been a lot better than that! To give you some statistics about the 1100 modules that have been produced so far:

1. Assembled PCB boards
   
   • One board had a short in a copper trace. This short was removed.
     
   • One board had a defective blue LED. The LED was replaced.
     
   • One board had an open contact on the USB connector. The connector was resoldered.
     
   • Three boards had a non-communicating GPS engine, rendering the boards in-operable (real yield loss).
     
   
   
2. Injection molded housings and lenses
   Considering the issues that had come up during the housing development, I had 1200 housings with lenses made instead of 1100.
   
   • Housing top: about 90 pieces were screened out because of imperfections.
     
   • Housing bottom: about 55 pieces were screened out because imperfections.
     
   • Lenses: about 65 pieces were screened out because of imperfections.
     
   
   
3. GPS performance (open and clear sky)
   
   • All tested modules passed (1097 pieces)!
     

So when it comes to the PCB, the yield has been extremely good (>99%). Only the housing has a relatively large yield loss (5%-10% overall) and I have already talked with the housing supplier to get this improved for the next run. The housings will no longer be bulk-packed and shipped by a courier (which I think has been the main factor of the imperfections). Instead each housing top and bottom will be layer packed with foam for the next run and I will go and pick up the housings myself to avoid possible damage during shipment.

Looking back over the last six months, sales have been a slower than expected, especially January was a slow month. Sales have picked back up in February, and especially March has been very busy.

As the remaining units are expected to be sold in about 5 weeks from now, I have had to put myself into high gear the last two weeks getting everything ready for the next production run. Typically, it will take another 4-6 weeks before we can expect new modules ready to ship from this second production run.

Since this is a second production run, hopefully things will go a lot smoother than was the case for the first run and hopefully no unexpected problem will show up.

In any case, I want to thank everyone for their support over the last year (yes, it's been already more than a year; the first post on this blog dates back to February 2008).

It's amazing to see that when one person in a certain country orders a module, shortly afterward a couple of more orders from the same area in that country come in! So keep on spreading the word about the module!