K3 Status Update - Sept. 29, 2007
We are continuing down the final stretch and so far things are looking
pretty good.
Last week:
Wayne and the Field Testers continued to test the firmware for the K3
and the '1 button press' K3 firmware downloader. We'll be releasing new
K3 features on a regular basis (both planned and in response to customer
feedback) so make sure to keep an eye on our website (and our email
list) after receiving your K3 for announcements of new firmware releases.
Wayne and our tech. publications crew are reviewing and making final
edits to the K3 operating and assembly manuals. We'll print these late
next week. (And put the Op manual on the web.) We electronically
transmit the manuals to our printer and they can turn initial quantities
in 24 hours.
We received additional K3 boards from our assembly house and have been
testing these as they come in.
We hand wound and delivered to our assembly house enough of the toroids
we were short from our supplier to cover the first week of K3
shipments. We also wound KPA3 100W input and output transformers for
the first shipments and delivered them yesterday. Thanks to our crew and
especially to Mychael (a.k.a. the 'Toroid Guy') for getting these done!
We expect more toroids from our production supplier next week.
By Monday we will have received all of the needed K3 board assemblies,
except the 100W KPA3 assembly, to cover our first week of K3 shipments.
We expect the KPA3s mid next week. To put this in perspective, there are
19 PC board assemblies for the K3 and options, plus 10 more for the
optional filters. Our crew is working overtime to receive, test and
align everything.
Next Week:
Continue to receive, test, align and integrate K3 sub-assemblies.
Beginning packing K3 kit versions and assembling, aligning and testing
built K3s.
Make final edits on manuals and print them.
Continuing firmware and downloader testing for first ship units.
Contact first ship K3 customers to confirm order details, cc info etc.
You can feel the high energy buzz when you walk in the door at Elecraft
HQ in Aptos. :-) Everyone is getting excited to see our baby get ready
to go out the door. (Plus its hard to miss the large amount of K3
in-process assemblies everywhere.) So far, no major new surprises have
popped up. I think we still have a good chance of starting shipments on
our target date of Oct 8th, or possibly the week of the 8th if we have
any last minute surprises.
Stay Tuned!
73,
Eric WA6HHQ, Wayne N6KR and the rest of the K3 team.
_..._
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