Foley's Christmas

I sent an email to the vendor of the resistor networks and left a phone message about getting a tracking number for the replacement parts. If I do not have an answer by Monday, I will order the Bourn’s suggested alternative. This means one way or another, I should have all the replacement resistors on hand no later than Wednesday. Please do not delay paying your shipping charges or your shipments as I have to clean out the wife’s sitting room before I end up divorced over this. I have had some folks want to pay for the additional shipping and increased cost (the replacments are more than twice the orginals). I am not going to ask anyone to do this as this is my responsibility to make sure that we have the right parts at the right time. However, If you wish to contribute to this, the shipping is $1.63 for a padded envelope, the envelope is $0.50…and a $1.50 for the parts. I have removed the small donation info as Ken has found the correct part at Allied and I have just ordered their entire stock. Stay tuned for updates.

General Note…we have a problem in Quickbooks…the software does not seem to track when an order has been shipped. So we transfer each order to a large spreadsheet. So it goes like this….Paypal->Quickbooks->Spreadsheet. I have doing all my QC on the spreadsheet. All of the order issues that we currently have are related to one of these multiple entries…transposing…wrong cells and so on. There is only one issue right not that cannot be explained by this (just me not thinking). We are now checking off on all the orders by the Sales Receipt in Quickbooks. Everyone should have had their receipt and been able to verify its accuracy. So you check your receipt…I check the order vs the receipt and we should be able to eliminate all of these problems.

They have sent us the wrong resistor networks…right numbers on the bags but the wrong part. They are sending replacements now and I will be getting these out as soon as they come in. PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL THESE!!

Okay folks….I am taking the first 5 packages to UPS today.  Here is the deal…we are pulling and packing orders up through #26 (at least this is what my “help” is doing).  I have to QC each package and if nothing is wrong, I pack it into the correct sized box. If something is missing, then I have to fix it (and that takes more time)  If you pre-paid your shipping, it goes right out.  Otherwise you get a shipping quote via email.

If your sales order is higher than 26, please do not ask if your order has shipped.  It takes time to respond to each email…this is time NOT SPENT GETTING ORDERS OUT.  There are over 100 participants in this and it will take time to get all this done.  If your order is between 1 and 26 and you do not have a shipping quote or a shipping notice, then I am working through an issue with your order.

I will post updates to this Post on where we are over the next few days.  If you ordered enclosures only then you should be seeing these ship any time now.  I just noticed that I have a few outstanding and I am going to try and clear that up tonight.

7/13/2011 0500 Hrs Update:  Shipping Orders up through #72 with 2 exceptions, ALL Orders have been pulled  (waiting for QC and packaging).  We are trying to get at least 6 orders done each night.  The international orders are causing us some pain.  I turns out that I cannot drop off these packages at the UPS store (yes even for USPS) unless they are small.  So I have to PERSONALLY TAKE THESE TO THE POST OFFICE .  I am trying to get in touch with my actual postal carrier to see if I can work something out with her on this.

NOTE: Some of you have way overpaid for shipping.  It would be nice if I could just refund the extras via PP but given that one of our vendors has pushed the delivery wayyyy past where it should have been, I cannot do this without paying additional fees (60 day limit on refunds via PP).  I have ordered a set of checks for my business account (no I did not have any before) so that I can write real refund checks.  I expect the checks to arrive in about 10 days.

ANOTHER NOTE: I am sending out about 6-10 shipping invoices a day…I am lucky to get one or two paid each day.  If your sales receipt is less than the above number, and you have not paid for your shipping,  please get with me ASAP.  If is trend continues, I am going to have to consider canceling orders if the shipping charges are not paid promptly.

All the sales receipts for all orders received today by 10am CDT are done. I do seem to be having an issue with emails being rejected as spam but I am not getting the notices. Please verify your email addresses and make sure that the sales address is included in your safe senders list.

I just got a notice from UPS that the last of the Renard parts have arrived. I will need one evening to split up all the RS485 chips as they are small qty and that’s a lot of cuts in tubes. The LEDs will take an hour or so but you should start seeing shipping notices this weekend. Now I start from the top of the list and go down. If you ordered at the beginning, then you get first dibs! PLEASE PAY THE QUOTES PROMPTLY!! I have had packed boxes sitting in my wife’s sitting room for weeks sometimes waiting on the shipping cost payments. She is going to make me fire myself if this continues! lol

Now one note that I forgot to tell everyone. The REN64XC has two side entry RJ45 jacks on the bottom for RS485/232 communications. Given the way this board is installed in the enclosure, I replaced these with top entry ones. They fit in the same holes without any problems. If you MUST have the side entry ones, please let me know as I do have a few around. I neglected to mention this up front

Also, some bags in the Kits have more than one part in them. These will be EASILY recognizable like a 1/4W resistor and an 1/8W resistor in the same bag (HINT..the larger one is the 1/4W ) These bags will have multiple labels on them so you know what you can expect.

I have had only one person asked for programmed PICs. This is reminder that I do not program these unless you have specifically asked for it. This includes the PICs in the spare parts kits. Everyone doing this needs to be able to program their own!!! I actually have only one copy of a HEX file that I know positively that works and its for 115k baudrate that I use in my show.

Watch your emails!!!!

The final parts for this years REN64XC Co-Op should be here tomorrow. One shipment from Texas and one from Memphis, TN are the final bits. I finished sorting all the PICs that came in and they are ready to go as well. For those of you wanting the extra kits, stay tuned for the announcement on DIYC later this week.

Half of the Vampire Plugs and SPT2 have been spoken and paid for. This pre-order pricing is available for three more days only. Get em while they are cheap!

okay…the problem vendor has been fired and I have demanded a refund. I am short the ST485BNs..and I have them in stock at several vendors. I also have the rectangular LEDs sourced. There will be a new order placed today one way or another. I should have the parts on MONDAY. I will then begin to ship out each order in the order that they came in.

I will also release the extra kits for sale but I will not do anything with the orders until the pre-sale orders go out.

On the Vampire Plug front….the vendor has our down payment…we are now committed as $7k is gone to China lol.

Okay the vendor from which we ordered the PICs from had them seized by Custom as counterfeits. I ordered replacements and they are here BUT the other items that were held waiting on the PICs are still not here. I am trying to get some answers on this today. I hope to begin shipping any day now.

As for the Vampire plug/SPT2 wire deal….the down payment is being wired to the vendor today. I have been promised an August delivery. These are going fast and I cannot increase the quantities ordered after today. The lowest prices are only through the 30th so get it while you can. Once these are gone, there won’t be anymore until next year.

***Update: All the order confirmations have gone out to everyone who has placed an order before NOON Monday June 20th. If you have not gotten an email with your confirmation or your confirmation is not correct, please send an email to the “sales” address. Thanks!

Hmm, things just got ugly – See the quote below. I am ordering the PICs from a new vendor right now. I hope to have all of these by the end of this week. This has been a literal nightmare for me and I hope that everyone understands. However, some good news…I have opened the Vampire Plug Co-Op page!

The PIC parts that we received came in as Fakes. I am not able to get the in a timely manner. I have released the %%%%% and the %%%%’s today. They are in shipping as I write. I will advise tracking this afternoon.

At this time since we are having such issues with these PIC parts I am going to have to close out that item. I am determining the credit amount owed to you and will advise that number shortly for your records. My main system is down for a few hours due to a neighborhood power outage. They are saying not up till 2pm MST.

I do apologize for the issues with this PIC part. It has been a nightmare on our end and therefore on your end! Currently %%%%% has over 8K of these item on shelf for a very similar pricing. I hope they can full fill your need. Again I apologize.

No, I do not mean the end of the world! I am still out of town and will return in the next week. I should have all the parts in (will follow up with the vendor on Tuesady). Then I will begin shipping the orders in the order that they were received.

For those of you looking for the leftovers (yes I have some to sell), I am not listing these until the pre-orders are taken care of. Its just not fair to them to keep them hanging while I work on others.

I appreciate everyone’s patience as one vendor has really given me the run around this year.