Countdown

It's been a while and you probably have been wondering what is going on. Well, here is the latest update:

• PCB panels/boards
  Last week I received the first PCB panel with 100 boards on it (see photo above). As some small changes were made compared to the previous revision, I wanted to make sure that the panels are fully functional before committing them to production. I separated two boards from the 100pcs panel and built a module with one of the GPS engines that I still had available. Everything turned out to be working great.
  
• GPS engines
  The GPS engines also arrived last week and in order to make sure everything is OK with them as well, I assembled the second PCB board (from above) with the new production GPS engine. And guess what, everything is working as it is supposed to work.
• Antennas
  The antennas shipped a bit earlier as expected and arrived just today. I will do an inspection of them and then they will be delivered to production.
• Housing
  Last Friday, I also got the second set of samples of the housing. The logos are nicely touched up now and have a smoother finish than the rest of the housing, so they look really nice. Some other small things were not taken care of properly however and the mold will need another round of touch-ups. I am currently waiting for this new set of samples (expected tomorrow) before I can give the final approval to run production quantities.
• Online store/shopping cart
  I have almost completed the online shopping cart, but still have some issues with properly integrating PayPal into the checkout procedure. I hope to fix those in the upcoming few days. Once that is done, the shopping cart will go online. For all of you who are curious, I will keep you guessing at what other items will be in the store besides the GPS module...
• Shipping and handling
  I have also been getting ready to prepare for shipping of the modules to you. It's amazing how much overhead is involved in all this, from searching for envelops, labels, postage equipment, printing supplies to actually ordering all of them, both for domestic US shipping and international shipping. I hope I have got everything covered now.
  

The first fully assembled production parts are expected to become available next week. After that, each module will be fully tested before it is shipped out. The estimated date for shipping of the first modules will be around October 15.

As soon as modules come out of production and are tested, they will be shipped subsequently. Note that testing and shipping is going to take up most of my time starting next week, thus please understand that there can be some lag between the time you place your order and the time the module is actually shipped (as tested modules become available bit by bit from production). Once your order ships, you will receive a confirmation email.

Paid orders will be handled in sequence of how they are stored in the database. As of today, there will be enough units available in this first production run for everyone who has currently signed up on the pre-order list.