Pandora Update 20/06/09 - 2 Fresh Items of Pandora News

[wraggster]

Today the openpandora blog posted 2 new items of news, here they are:

At least I'm not dead.

Things are always a learning curve the first time you try them. Apart from maybe suicide.

Anyway, the point is the last couple of weeks have had delays caused by a most unexpected event - US Taxes and UPS.

See the thing is we ship the parts to the USA, Dallas to be exact, they put them on a PCB and then all that comes back to the UK. But here is the weird part - UPS keeps wanting us to pay taxes on these parts - even though they are to be re-exported soon after. We have tried the recommended routes 'Temporary export' and 'Controlled goods' but still, randomly, a huge tax bill arrives. It's frustrating stuff which we are having to try to deal with yet UPS keep moving the goal posts.

Now, here is the community involvement part - does anyone out there know the real way to deal with this? The real rules? As UPS just keep changing the story every time.

So is there anyone out there who can shed some light on how we should be doing this to avoid those taxes? An expert on US customs and taxes maybe? You can answer over on the forum.

Aside from this we are very pleased and happy to have chosen to manufacture in the USA rather than China - I hear, alas, that's a pretty rare thing these days.

It has begun.

Well, sort of. We placed our order for the production run of the first 105 boards today!
Yes, it's really happening. Production of the boards does take about 4 weeks from now on, around July 24th (they need to be shipped to us), the first REAL boards will arrive. One of it could be yours, as those boards will be used in final units!

On the case side, things are still being worked on, but the to-do list is getting shorter and shorter.
It's really hard to say how long DaveC still needs to work on this, as he has very little time, but he is barely doing anything else except going to work and working on the case... thanks for that, Dave!
That's our short snippet for today, I'll keep you updated when more stuff happens.

http://www.openpandora.org/blog.php

[Da_ALC]

Im so disappointed with how long this has taken, and still at least another month to go.... id guess more at 4.

Im glad i didnt pre-order, and I feel sorry for those who did.

I hope they give an extra bonus of free memory cards or something for those who did pre-order, as you have basically paid their wage in advance for the past, what, 8 months of delays?]

I wanted one of these a year ago, but technology advances so fast that this is already starting to get on the dated side.
I'd like to think, that like with the gp32x, this will go thru some hardware updates, hopefully very sharpish, and while that will piss off everybody that ordered the older crappyer version, its prob the only way im gonna be convinced to get one now.

For the makers, if you read this, in future, do not make pre-orders available, whatsoever, its embarrasing to yourselves and the community and anybody who thought to trust the "it will be here soon" attitude. Make a product, then sell it.

[cujoking84120]

Hi I tried to PM you but i haven't posted enough. When I was in QATAR for the military i dealt a ton with DHL, UPS, FEDEX, shipping from QATAR to Kuwait, America, Germany. The only thing you will need is the correct paperwork. I will look through mine and see what I have. PM me your email address and I will send what I have.

[brainguy]

For the makers, if you read this, in future, do not make pre-orders available, whatsoever, its embarrasing to yourselves and the community and anybody who thought to trust the "it will be here soon" attitude. Make a product, then sell it.

The preorder money was basically investment capital, the only source of funding for R&D, manpower and prototypes. Making the product would have been absolutely impossible without having this money in advance.

The makers of this product were very straightforward about this aspect of their development.