A shipment of 240 isosticks has arrived safely and it looks like they are all in working order! The build quality is excellent, the US manufacturer has done a superb job.
The bad news: In changing the board design for press-fit, I calculated a distance incorrectly, resulting in cards getting stuck or failing to click into place.
The good news: Only a 2-4 day delay is expected. Friends and family are being enlisted to help unpack the isosticks, file down the offending edge, and repack them.
We should still have ~200 isosticks in stock by the 21st, with the rest in stock the next week.
The details: one tiny edge of the circuit board is 0.02 inches off. This is my fault, it is exactly where the design files say it should be, but I made a mistake when calculating that distance.
The result is the board sits at a slight angle; just enough to make the cards bump into the edge of the opening, making it difficult to get them in or out without having to pop the back of the case open. It also takes considerable force to flip the read-only switch.
I will not say this won’t happen again, but a hard lesson has been learned: no matter how minor the change, always do a small sample run to be sure 😉
Also I have a much better set of tools now: PADS from Mentor Graphics, which exchanges data with the enclosure design software SolidWorks. This allows thorough and accurate checking of everything before sending it off to manufacturing. No more calculating distances and transcribing numbers between mechanical CAD and electrical CAD, just direct data exchange.
Glad to hear the problem was spotted before shipment! Cannot wait to get one of these and ditch this bag of live CDs.. 🙂
Will the redesigned stick solve both the read only switch issue and the micro sd card issue? when will those sticks be in stock?
All sticks shipped will solve both issues, yes 🙂
I expect them in stock by the end of this week. We are reworking them now with plans to ship about 200 to Amazon for arrival Wednesday. Then it is up to Amazon to scan them in and mark them “in stock” as quickly as possible.
Another 700+ isosticks should be in stock next week.