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China Business Trip and More!

Discussion in 'News & Announcements' started by Coby Robo 3D, Sep 14, 2013.

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  1. Coby Robo 3D

    Coby Robo 3D Administrator
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    Hey Backers, As many of you know, we just returned from a long trip to China where we visited our manufacturing partners. It was amazing to see all the different people helping to bring this product to life. We went and visited the Injection Molding facility for all of our parts and the assembly house where 500 printers were fully assembled and ready to be shipped.
    All of this together reassured us that our manufacturers share our vision and are working with us to help make a great product. They had engineering suggestions and ideas and were very helpful when we stressed the urgency for more products to be built. They had a plan and are already beginning another batch of 500 units. This, along with the units we are building here in San Diego will cover all kickstarter orders. We brought a trusted QC company with us that will serve as a 3rd party quality control company to ensure the printers are made to our specified checklist before being sent to us. This is all very important for us. We will have incoming quality control on parts and outgoing quality control on units assembled.
    The trip served as a great learning experience and an understanding that the team we have over there is working very hard to make sure our product is successful.
    On to the printers, we have shipped over 250 RoBo 3D units from here and have that first batch of 500 coming in from overseas currently. As soon as they arrive we will be QC checking them and shipping them out daily. We should be able to get over 30 of those out a day so that will be good for us and good for fulfilling more backer orders. On top of that, the next 500 are in the works and those should be finished in 20-30 days according to our manufacturing assembly house. This is all good news for us moving forward. Being able to ramp up production and have quality assurance is very important to us as we strive to deliver the best quality RoBo 3D Printer possible.
    Thank you to all those who have been patient with us. We really appreciate it as we are building an amazing product for you all. If you have been asking about when your printer will be shipped, we cannot give you an exact date. We apologize, but we are producing product as fast as we can with our space in house. I just want you to know that we are going to be delivering the rest of the printers very soon!
    Pictures below:
    Just some of the pictures we had from the trip. The two gentlemen you see below run the assembly factory and also have helped us in a number of areas with the printer. They showed us their facility, introduced us to our Chinese team and even took us out for some sight seeing while we were there. They had just finished 500 units and were making sure our QC company was happy and that we were happy with production before the next 500 units were made. Things were looking real good!
    A few pictures of China sprinkled in. One is the 7 star hotel we saw before we left to Ningbo. Really cool stuff.
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    #1 Coby Robo 3D, Sep 14, 2013
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  2. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Very nice! Looks like you have made some major strides in the packaging and QC since the early units shipped! This isn't the 'sexy' part of product development, but it is definitely extremely important.
    Great to see the progress.
     
    #2 Printed Solid, Sep 14, 2013
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  3. SPyKER

    SPyKER Active Member

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    Thank you for a great update.
     
    #3 SPyKER, Sep 16, 2013
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  4. Megascar

    Megascar New Member

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    Great update! Thank you! But I have some thoughts about this. If you have a QC company out there in China, is there any possibility that you ship some of the items directly to Intenational backers? It would shorten waiting time for someone.
     
    #4 Megascar, Sep 17, 2013
  5. David Mortlock

    David Mortlock Active Member

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    I asked this earlier and their response was along the lines of ........ The QC company was not in place for the first batch of 500 so they want to ship those to the States and fully QC them there. The second batch will be QC'd in China and shipped directly to backers/buyers.
     
    #5 David Mortlock, Sep 17, 2013
  6. Delphy

    Delphy New Member

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    So is the "first batch" of 500 PLA, ABS, a mixture, what? Does it have the boro glass for the ABS models? A more detailed breakdown of whats in the first batch would be appreciated for us ABS backers.

    I notice information is fairly light (again) on how many (and what type) of units are actually being shipped to backers. Lots of stuff about high volume shipments from the factory but still light on actual details on which tier is being fulfilled, etc.
     
    #6 Delphy, Sep 18, 2013
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  7. David Mortlock

    David Mortlock Active Member

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    They have reported that enough Boro Glass has been received to supply all backers so I have to assume that ABS is being shipped.

    Shipping does seem to be a bit haphazard though as keraynopoylos indicates that his March ABS un-assembled has not been shipped, whereas some April backers have received theirs. No explanation yet from RoBo3D on why this should be except that they are shipping from 8 separate lists.
     
    #7 David Mortlock, Sep 18, 2013
  8. Thamer Albahiti

    Thamer Albahiti Active Member

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    would be great to have a date set instead of "few days" "this week" "this month" getting tired of waiting tbh
    lost all the thrill of having a 3D printer
    hope it doesn't show up and end up in the basement at the same time
     
    #8 Thamer Albahiti, Sep 18, 2013
  9. David Mortlock

    David Mortlock Active Member

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    For sure, mine won't end up in the basement.

    I will be going away in a week and be away for a month, so I am hoping it will be here when I get back. I also hope my son hasn't broken it when I get back :(
     
    #9 David Mortlock, Sep 18, 2013
  10. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I don't think they have enough information right now to give a good shipping estimate. Once they get the order of 500 and they can determine how fast QA takes they can give us a more accurate estimate.
     
    #10 Mike Kelly, Sep 18, 2013
  11. djchew

    djchew New Member

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    Pre-order people got an email from Robo 3D the other day. That combined with this update gives me hope, but leaves me guessing on how long it will take.
    Robo 3D says that they will test 30 or more ("30 to 50" in the preorder email) per day. I really hope that is true... but at the rate they have been shipping so far, I cannot see 30 to 50 being tested and shipped per day with the quality control check one every as they said that they will.
    But I hope they will do it... but I also hope I will win the lottery... which it pretty hard since I don't buy lottery tickets...
     
    #11 djchew, Sep 19, 2013
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  12. cosber

    cosber Active Member

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    What is your definition of "pre-order"? A backer? I'm a backer and I didn't get any emails.
     
    #12 cosber, Sep 19, 2013
  13. Xepol

    Xepol New Member

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    I think the email he is speaking of is the kickstarter version of this article.
     
    #13 Xepol, Sep 19, 2013
  14. djchew

    djchew New Member

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    I meant 'preorders' from the Robo 3D store. AKA, purchases after the Kickstarter backers.
    It would be nice if they gave everyone the same info, but it looks like they give more details some places and less in other places. It is likely just wording related and who knows what within Robo 3D, but it sure is annoying to have to track down information like "30+ units per day" vs "30 to 50 units per day".
     
    #14 djchew, Sep 19, 2013
  15. NickW

    NickW New Member

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    I ordered from website after kickstarter. The email has the same info, if not a little less then the forum so for kick starters you shouldn't feel like those after you are more in the loop then you. Or at least more info then those who actively pursue and are interested in the information. This post from them has kept confidence in me, imagine if they didn't say anything about the trip...
     
    #15 NickW, Sep 20, 2013
  16. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    for posterity:

    10:35 AM - Coby RoBo 3D:
    hey guys Im in here if there are any questions or concerns I can clear up

    Me: let's see, autopsy wants to know how international shipping is progressing and what "next in line" meant for her, they'd like a more detailed shipment count if you can calculate it, boat name if you got it, and the facebook person should post more internal news

    Coby RoBo 3D 10:39 AM -
    Mike has the list so I'll try to get the next few names on the list.
    Autopsy can you PM me your kickstarter name and I'll check on that for you,
    I cannot give out the name of the boat sorry guys,
    shipment count should be around 300,
    We are making room for the shipment to come in our warehouse so that takes a little time to rearrange,
    the social media guy is an external employee. We thought we would try him out to help us spread the 3d printing news for you all, I'll try and post some pictures every couple of days there of something in the warehouse or new prints weve done
    We still have parts and are building printers
     
    #16 Mike Kelly, Sep 24, 2013
  17. Thamer Albahiti

    Thamer Albahiti Active Member

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    cheers
     
    #17 Thamer Albahiti, Sep 24, 2013
  18. Deadwood

    Deadwood Active Member

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    "We went and visited the Injection Molding facility for all of our parts and the assembly house where 500 printers were fully assembled and ready to be shipped."

    "shipment count should be around 300,"

    500 - 300 where are the other 200 printers?
     
    #18 Deadwood, Sep 24, 2013
  19. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    You're twisting words. They have 500 en route from china that they are referring to. The 300 are completely separate and are the ones being made in SD.
     
    #19 Mike Kelly, Sep 24, 2013
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  20. Matthias

    Matthias Member

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    #20 Matthias, Sep 24, 2013
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