EtcherPro progress updates

hello, when do you expect to ship the etherpro (gray).

We are impatiently awaiting our update of our home automation box and industrialization of the production thereof;)

is it possible to use a nas (Samba) to put our images on it, and the etcherPro can go and search for them?

Tks

Hi @rocket13011, the rough estimation is about 3 months. We are preparing a detailed progress report to post here today or tomorrow, please keep an eye.

With regards to NAS, it is not possible at the moment but it is a great suggestion so we’ll work towards implementing it. You’ll be able to find your network drives via the built-in file browser when ‘flashing from file’. If you have further questions, let me know.

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Hey everyone,

It has been 6 weeks since the last update, when we launched the EtcherPro pre-orders, so just wanted to give a progress report:

  • Final case production samples have arrived (see picture below) and first production run is nearing completion.
  • The first pallets (of displays and power supplies) have started to arrive in our warehouse in Athens ready for production to start! You can see the pictures below - looking a bit sparse right now but will fill up I am sure!
  • Sourcing is going well but some things were on hold temporarily for the Chinese New Year holiday. Most companies in China are back to work today so this can now resume.
  • Andreas in our Athens team has been setting up all of the new machinery (and wrote guides for these processes) - in the picture below you can see the wire cutting and crimping tools for example.
  • Due to popular demand, we have samples of our first “Flash Stick” incoming (picture below) which is a quick way to program Raspberry Pi compute modules with Etcher / Etcher Pro. CM4 and other versions to follow.
  • Ongoing issues with certification - identified offending EMC emissions as coming from Gigabit Ethernet signals and/or Compulab compute module. We have a fix (spraying the inside of case with an EMC shielding spray). It is not ideal for manufacturing purposes, but it means we can definitely ship a certified device. We are also investigating some further PCB modifications that could address the issue directly.
  • Unfortunately, due to Brexit we are facing a lot of friction and delays with shipment and on top of that covid makes it difficult to visit EMC emission testing labs. This means we’ll most likely have to delay the production and therefore shipping of the first devices by 1-2 months. We feel sorry for this and trying to come up with solutions that could accelerate our process.

Let us know if you have any questions that we haven’t answered here yet :slight_smile:

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Hello everyone,

We have some exciting news to share:

  • We have finally started the certification process and it should be over in the next 2-3 weeks. This was our biggest blocker as we encountered some unexpected radiations from the PCB. After spending a couple of months on this issue we managed to come up with an effective solution that reduces the emission and therefore we are able to certify the device.
  • This week we are also kickstarting our updated PCBs’ production which means that we’ll be able to start shipping EtcherPro Special Edition devices around late May/ early June and standard devices probably a month later.
  • Software-wise, most features are already rolled out on Etcher and available to use. We’re still missing daisy-chaining and we are working on it at the moment. Most likely it’ll be ready by the time we’ll start shipping devices.

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Hello, do you have any updates to share please? I need it more than ever :wink:
Best,

Yes, last update indicated hopefully shipping end of May/Early June. An update would certainly be appreciated!

Hello people,

Sorry for radio silence as we have been fighting with the global component shortage and we wanted to have some concrete-ish news before sharing.

  • We have passed the EMC part of the CE certification and we should be done with the rest soon. We are also getting an FCC certification right after.
  • The PCB production continues but unfortunately we have delays with some components. At the moment, there is a massive global components and materials shortage due to covid-19. Despite that, we have managed to source most of the components and we even made some minor PCB changes to be able to use available components and reduce lead times. There are however a couple of components that have rolling lead times at the moment. We estimate that we can produce an initial very small number of devices in a month or so while we expect the rest of the components to be available around August.
  • Never the less, we also have some exciting news! We have started putting together subassemblies in our assembly line! This is the first real use of our plant and it has been a very exciting process as we have to optimize all processes to reduce assembly time and ensure quality. We have slightly changed our approach due to the current situation and the plan is to have the bottom and top subassemblies ready. This will allow us to start shipping as soon as we receive the PCBAs since the remaining assembly time will be minimal.

Rest assured that we are doing everything we can to start shipping devices as soon as possible. We have been working on this project for about 4 years and we can’t wait to start fulfilling orders. Thank you for your immense support and patience so far, fingers crossed EtcherPro will be real soon!

Enjoy some recent pictures!

cc @hadidon @redpomidor ^

Hi Igor, I pinged the team to find out the best way to accomplish this, and we will let you know, thanks!

Hi Balena Team,
is there a way to get the Card IDs from the Etcher Pro Hardware? Will the software on the Etcher Pro be customizable?

Hi @Mawiguk0, what ID are you referring to specifically?

EtcherPro runs Etcher, the free and open source application that you can install and test on any computer. The features are the same, what changes is the speed and capacity due to dedicated hardware. In terms of customization, instead of using Etcher, you have the ability to write and run anything you want. Happy to help further.

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Thanks for your reply @konmouz

Card Identification (CID) Register is a 16 byte code that contains information that uniquely identifies the SD card, including the card serial number (PSN), manufacturer ID number (MID) and manufacture date (MDT).
It is usually accessible under /sys/block/mmcblk0/device/cid for this to work the SD-Card must be used in a “special” type of card-reader. It would be great if such one is used in the EtcherPro.
The CID is a feature of SD-Cards not used that often. For some still really interesting.

Hi @Mawiguk0, it seems that we have this info and we could potentially expose it on the drive selection table. Can you share more on why this info is useful? We want to understand if this would be helpful for other users too. Thanks.

Hey there! EtcherPro team here, with the exciting news that EtcherPro is now officially CE Certified!

This is exciting news for us, as we’ve worked hard for months to find a solution to reduce the EMI emissions. Passing CE Certification is a huge milestone for us, as we are now able to ship to EU destinations.

We will be receiving the final components needed to fulfil all orders at the beginning of August. And, having completed the setup of our subassemblies in our Athens assembly line, we have been able to start production and expect to be able to begin shipping the first complete devices very soon!

We’re also working really hard on getting FCC certified and look forward to being able to give our customers in the US the news that we will be able to ship to them shortly.

Thank you for all your time, patience and understanding along the way. It’s been a long journey, but we’re definitely a huge step closer to getting EtcherPro into your hands!

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Hey Team,

Glad to hear CE certification passed. It’s been a month since the last update. Any ETA for US customers?

Thanks!

Hi @redpomidor,

Which email did you use for your order? You can email me at konstantinos@balena.io. I just want to check where about you are in the queue. We still haven’t received the FCC certification, but we are considering sending beta devices to customers from the US until we get the FCC. Production is pretty slow at the moment due to the component shortages but we follow a first come first serve approach.

EtcherPro is shipping :tada: :tada: :tada:

We just shipped the first EtcherPro device to a real customer :raised_hands: It only took us about 4 years hitting countless walls :sweat_smile:but we learned a ton, we shaped a great internal hardware team, we developed a product we are proud of and we even ended up designing our own assembly line!

EP-Voila-4MB

Next steps

  • We are still facing shortages on one particular component that could block production
  • The team has a promising alternative we are testing and we should have news soon
  • We plan to fulfill all Special Edition orders plus a few more in the next 1-2 months
  • Just a note that despite we are shipping EtcherPro, ‘daisy-chaining’ feature is not available yet and we’ll be released soon, possibly before the end of the year
  • We have started the FCC certification process, which will take around 1-2 months
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Congrats :slight_smile: - has been a long road, but you did it :slight_smile: !

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We ordered one of the special edition EtcherPro units, but have not yet received any notice that our unit has shipped yet. That said, we are based in the US. Are devices to be shipped to US-based customers being held pending FCC certification? Is there any way for us to check the estimated ship date for the EtcherPro we ordered?

@rgstech we can’t officially send devices to US before getting FCC approved. For the moment, we are only sending some beta devices. Can you please email me your order number at konstantinos@balena.io? Thanks