RAVEN Update – November 3, 2023

We know everyone is anxious for updates, as we are just as anxious. We got word last week that the container ship has been delayed and instead of arriving on November 7, the machines should arrive on November 14. Hopefully, when they arrive they can get it off the ship and clear it through customs quickly. The port is in Houston, so once cleared, it should get to us the same day.

The electronics order is in progress, but we are still awaiting the sample boards made from the manufacturing line. The boards have all been hand-soldered during our development process, so the automated boards need to be tested to make sure all the solder points are solid. Unfortunately DigiKey hasn’t been able to give us an ETA on that delivery yet, but we expect it soon.

We had five machines air-shipped to us for evaluation and we found a few manufacturing mistakes made during assembly—nothing too unexpected for the first run without having electronics to test them at the factory. We’ve cataloged what we found to ensure the problems are addressed in every machine while we install electronics and do our QA. The only major concern at this point is that three of the power supplies sent to us for testing have failed. These are off-the-shelf supplies from a reputable supplier, so we hope this isn’t an indication of a larger problem, but it is a point of great concern for us. We’re working with the supplier to make sure this is resolved. So far, all the other power supplies are running and testing fine. 

In the meantime, we continue to test and refine daily. Our firmware team is tweaking and tuning the code constantly to create more and more improvements to make sure this product is a joy to use. 

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more!