Thousand Dollar stupid question

Zitat von APPLEUSER80

Can anyone guess when I "should" "might" "maybe" receive my MEGA65?

January 17, 2023 at 8:16 am ...

... or to be honest: No one really knows. In any case, the later orders won't come until 2023.

For this question i dont pay 1000 Dollar. Sorry

I have order number 38051 from October 1st, 2021 - and from what I heard delivery should happen before christmas this year.

Note that order numbers are not tied to the product "Mega65". Trenz sells all sorts of stuff.

Anyone had any updates/news yet? My order number is 394xx but apart from receiving my order confirmation email I've had no correspondence at all since. I would have expected occasional update emails to let me know the status of the project, likely wait time etc. I have to confess I do find it a little concerning given I've handed over the best part of £700 to them, hence my google bringing me to this forum post...

Zitat von stylon

Anyone had any updates/news yet? My order number is 394xx but apart from receiving my order confirmation email I've had no correspondence at all since. I would have expected occasional update emails to let me know the status of the project, likely wait time etc. I have to confess I do find it a little concerning given I've handed over the best part of £700 to them, hence my google bringing me to this forum post...

A few weeks ago it was announced that more mega will be delivered this year. But there was nothing to read about it so far. At least the next 400 IIRCs should be delivered by early 2023.

Hello, I can understand your concern but your money is well invested.

I was among the first to order and got my Mega65 from Batch 1.

We also had to wait a long time and we had the problem that there was no cardboard for the packaging.

Trenz is a German company with a good reputation.

The Mega65 is made in Germany and that means all components have to be stocked here.

Because of Corona, the war in Ukraine and the tense relationship with Russia,

it is currently a very unfavorable time for manufacturers who come to components from China or Russia.

At times there was a lack of Euro-Pallets because the nails came from Russia and then

there was a lack of truck drivers to transport the goods.

The list of problems is long and Paul is working on a keyboard for Batch 3,

for example, which does not need the small FPGA, because it has a delivery time of 90 weeks.

Trenz not only builds the Mega65, they also make a variety of other products and I think

they're just busy sourcing the parts from somewhere and building new supply chains most of the time.

Just support them by not canceling your order and just wait (even if it's very annoying).

Warlock - you hit the nail on the head there with that last sentence. I have seriously considered getting a refund due to the complete lack of communication. I don't mind waiting if I'm kept informed - case in point; I've been waiting for my Spectrum Next (Issue 2) for over 2 years now but they send out regular updates and let me know what's going on. Still annoying and disappointing that I've got almost another year still to wait though!!

Anyway thanks for the feedback guys, I'll continue to keep the faith for a while longer! @Sam231 - where are you getting your info from about the shipments? If I at least had a reliable source of news updates to keep checking I wouldn't feel so in the dark.

stylon My newsletter is the official MEGA65 newsletter, even though my name is in the title. I have as much access as the rest of the MEGA65 team to updates from Trenz Electronic, and we collect announcements and review the text as a group.

https://m65digest.substack.com/

On the one hand, there's not much info on shipping status. On the other hand, it's as much as the Spectrum Next project has published in their Kickstarter mailings. The Next project community updates are excellent: they benefit from having shipped 3000 units prior to the onset of supply chain issues, so they can fill a newsletter with cool screenshots of community projects. The actual info they share about shipping is on par with what we've been able to share.

Re: communication in general, MEGA65 is constrained in that we are not allowed to access the list of people who have preordered. We just sent a wide email to the list of people that have expressed interest in the project over the years, but that includes a bunch of people that haven't preordered and probably don't want monthly updates. That's why I set up a separate Digest newsletter. I insist that the Digest be opt-in; I don't think it's right to auto-subscribe everyone. But that means we have to promote it to make sure everyone at least knows that it exists. It's a tough spot for the project to be in, and I wish we had a simpler situation like a Kickstarter, but that's where we are.

So far, it looks like the next 400 units will ship throughout December and January. The current constraints on that batch are on assembly and testing throughput, so we should continue to give Trenz Electronic some slack. They will send out individual shipping notices when they're ready.

— Dan

Thanks, Dan, that's great. One question about upcoming batches. We've seen some issues with the first batch: Some cases not fitting together well, RTC issues and Mega65s not booting when connected to certain HDMI monitors (personally I suffer from 2 of those 3 issues). I would be interested in buying another machine, when all of these issues have been fixed. Is it known yet when that would be the case? I know that this will need a new PCB revision. Most pressing issue for me is the HDMI issue, since I have to disconnect my monitor every time I want to restart the M65.

There is nothing to announce at this time regarding board revisions. For now, it's best to assume that future shipments will use the same board revision, and a percentage of those may experience the RTC and HDMI backpower issues. I can say that we're interested in pursuing fixes, but as this is all done by volunteers it's difficult to make any guarantees until a solution is in place.

When we deplete the stock of plastic cases, our case partner will make more, and they're aware of the issues with the first set. My understanding is we have more preorders than cases, so anyone preordering today would get a newer pressing of the case at some point in the future. For what it's worth, in my own experience, I was able to resolve case fit issues with a screwdriver.

Anyone with an affected RTC can request a replacement unit that connects to the Grove port on the main board.

The workaround for the HDMI backpower issue is to run it through an HDMI switch, such as: https://www.amazon.de/Blukar-A…er-Schwarz/dp/B08V8XD945/

Thanks, Dan, for the insights. I will try the switch. I was aware that a switch might solve the HDMI backpower issue and ordered a switch a few months ago, but it didn't work. So in my experience, not all switches solve the problem. But if this one was used by others and worked, I'll give it another try.

Cheers Dan, I've just subscribed to your newsletter and hope I'm in that next batch of 400!

grubi If you find other switches that serve as a sufficient workaround, let me know! The working theory is that cheaper switches are more likely to block backpower. The one I linked has been mentioned in previous conversations on the topic so it should work. I don't use a display that causes this issue so I haven't been able to test personally.

I added a mention of HDMI backpower to the Welcome Guide. It might be worth a Filehost article too.

Does anyone know what order numbers they have reached up to so far with this current batch? Would be useful to know to see how close our own orders are to being dispatched?

I asked Trenz Electronic GmbH yesterday about my order 196610 from 2022-02-18.

The very frustrating answer was:

_____

der MEGA65 befindet sich derzeit in der Produktion und abhängig von der rechtzeitigen Lieferung der bestellten Produktionsteile,

wird die Erfüllung Ihrer Bestellung im Jahr 2023 erfolgen.

Ein genauer Termin wird noch bekannt gegeben.

Wahrscheinlich Q3 / Q4 2023.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Steven Abbott

_____

the MEGA65 is currently in production and subject to the timely delivery of ordered production parts,

your order will be fulfilled in 2023.

An exact date will be announced later.

Probably Q3 / Q4 2023.

Best regards,

Steven Abbott

_____

This is very disappointng...