CircuitMess Batmobile™ — Production and fulfilment delay

Dear backers,

We've hit some road bumps with Batmobile's development and production.

Despite that, we are marching on and confident that we'll deliver a truly fantastic product to all of you amazing backers.

TL;DR:

• The CPU model that we've used in the initial motherboard design vanished from the market two weeks ago
• We had to redraw the circuit boards to accommodate this change
• We're experiencing difficulties sourcing components and manufacturing parts for the Batmobile
• We've managed to solve most of the problems
• Unfortunately, the shipping date was pushed to October for Kickstarter and Indiegogo backers and November for webshop preorders.
• Thank you for sticking with us
• If you have any questions, please reach out to us via contact@circuitmess.com

We had to rework the mold for producing the Batmobile's plastic shell

Batmobile's complex geometry turned out to be an issue for the factory we're working with.

We've sold this issue by hiring an external consultant that helped us optimize the 3D model for injection molding.

Injection molding is the manufacturing process used to produce plastic parts — in a nutshell, you have a steel mold, and you inject plastic into it.

Thanks to some external help, we've optimized the 3D model for production.

We had to split the design into three different plastic parts that would later be assembled by press-fitting them into other parts.

We're currently waiting for a sample from the factory and will proceed with the manufacturing as soon as we receive the goods.

The CPU model that we were using vanished from the market

As you might remember from Kickstarter Update #39, we've switched to a different CPU to lower the production costs and improve the device's performance (ESP-S3–12K).

Unfortunately, this semiconductor vanished from the market a few weeks ago and left us in a bad position where we were uncertain whether the component would be back in stock in time for motherboard production.

We have decided to prioritize for certainty and stability and have reverted the design to the previous CPU model that was used on the prototype shown in the Kickstarter campaign (ESP32-WROOM-32).
We have seen a stable supply of this component in the past two years, and we have been using it on most of our previous products.

This change, unfortunately, slowed down the development process since we had to scrap the motherboard design we had so far and start from scratch.

We're currently working on the new motherboard design and plan to have it ready in two weeks' time.

COVID lockdowns in China and supply chain issues

These are the two main issues we're facing right now that have been messing with our plans for the past few months.

We, unfortunately, have to rely on a large number of external suppliers and contractors in the development process of every product.

A lot of these suppliers are located abroad.

The current economic and logistical situation has not made things easy for us. Constant shipping delays and lockdowns in Shenzhen (China) have been making our development process longer and more challenging than we have anticipated.

New estimated shipping date — October

The shipping date was, unfortunately, pushed to October for Kickstarter and Indiegogo backers and November for webshop preorders.

Here are the most important milestones that we plan to accomplish by October:

• mid-June — electronics sorted out and ready for production
• mid-July — mechanical parts and components sourced and ready for ordering
• Mid-August — final approvals from Warner granted
• Mid-September — goods manufactured and ready for shipping
• End of October — all Kickstarter and Indiegoog orders shipped
• End of November — all Webshop preorders shipped

We will update you weekly

We take delays seriously and will work hard to deliver the product to all of you as soon as possible.

To keep all of you informed, I will personally make sure to post weekly updates about our progress.

Thank you all for sticking with us and helping us make this amazing project happen.

Stay tuned for more updates
- Albert and the rest of the CircuitMess team