Bitcoin Forum

I'm sorry to open this thread but it looks like no one is worried about this.
What's really happening? Can we have an ufficial word?

Only ~5% of the units works properly?

No, not by TOMORROW. Tomorrow is the 27.  They promised to ship all 300 units by the 28th, which is the day after.
Thus, they can ship 145 units tomorrow and 145 units the day after.
/sarcasm

Its not that people aren't concerned (worried), its that we need to wait and let a deadline actually come before filing your complaints.    See when someone says "X Date" then it usually means "X date" not 5 days before or 2 weeks before.   For some reason people can not seem to handle that.   

What I hope is really happening is that they are building units everyday and shipping them.  Likely a whole mess of them were held up in customs and they are working that out.  Don't forget there is customs in your country too.  Yifu was really clear about their plan and when communications would come out.   You will need to just wait this one out.

But that's two more days away, and some of us are jonesin'. Can't wait for for tomorrow's one-more-day update.

Generally customs only comes into play for the receiving country, not the shipper. For it to take this long they didn't ship them individually. They chose to ship them freight or cargo and then reship. That's the only explanation. Assuming they actually shipped them. A handful of people on china claim to have them. And they one guy who ordered several only received one machine and confimed that anyone else who ordered several also only received a single unit.

exporting stuff is also concerning the customs in your country. especially cryptography..

To give some reference: I just ordered one case of industrial material from china using chinese EMS service, order date 22nd FEB, and I received it today morning (Europe), that's 5 days include weekend  ;)

What you can export, in what quantities and to where is something for which each country has its own regulations - things can and do get held up in customs in their country of origin (even using a customs broker doesn't guarantee this won't happen, especially with products being exported for the first time).

They already said prior to CNY that they had shipped 53 units in one batch and were waiting to learn whether those units had made it out of China before CNY.  It would be silly to ship more units by the same route/method before knowing the fate of those 53.

Yifu has made very clear in past posts that they are hoping for people to become Avalon re-sellers, which could make the shipping process much easier for future batches.

I agree that Yifu needs to provide an update on this, but comparisons to other products for which the customs issues were solved long ago are pretty meaningless (hell, even things which should have no customs issues whatsoever randomly get held up, no matter which carrier you use).

@OP, I don't know.

I hope so, just so that BFL suckers can start mining at an even higher difficulty.  :D

http://www.klingon-empire.org/photopost/data/500/Sith_Lord_00.jpg

Your hatred is strong. Come to the Dark Side....

Yes except there are people in china who have ordered 10, who have only received one unit.

Somewhere there was a post that claimed Avalon only had a few working units. It's seeming more plausible now. Anyone have a link to that post?

Avalon proved to have a few (<10) working units, here is some help: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/working-avalon-asic-confirmed/

The problem is that they don't have the other 290 and since that they don't say what's happening to them, i presume it to be something bad.

YIFU said avalons will arrive in ~2weeks. So just wait 2 weeks

lol, wat? where?

He said that 45 days ago, 2 weeks later 1 single unit arrived.

Lets not forget about Chinese New Year.

I don't believe the CNY story about not being able to ship half of the batch before that. As someone already pointed out, some of their Chinese customers received only 1 unit even if they ordered more.

This only works out if they have production problems.

An update on these problems would be great.

Beliefs and facts are different.   He has up until March 5th for all Batch #1 to ship.   I suggest we just wait it out then hold his feet to the fire for answers once that deadlines passes.     

Where are the units coming from China ?

Problems? What problems? China strong.

Why March 5th? I think this is the last post about batch #1 shipping

The avalon ASIC store still says that the units will be shipped before the first of March.
I guess that we will receive an update tomorrow saying that everything was shipped and that they don't have the tracking.

I read some posts from him that state March 5th as the Batch #1 shipping range.  I have seen others dates mention as well from various sources.

By March 1st all 300 units in batch #1 shipped. March 5th starts shipment of Batch #2

Source: http://launch.avalon-asics.com/

Batch Size: 300 Units
Shipping Time: Jan 20th – March 1st, 2013

Batch Size: 600 Units
Shipping Time: March 5th – April 5th, 2013


However, with this letter I think many people where expecting to hear word about their orders by now. Notably
http://www.btcmu.info/pools/135-a-letter-from-the-avalon-team.html


Also IF it is true that DHL can confirm your shipment by simply calling General Customer Service 1-800-CALL DHL (1-800-225-5345) you would presume that Monday the 4th you should have information about your package.

I ordered in batch 1 wave 1, about 1 hour after they first went on sale.

I can't even login to the webstore to check on my order any more.  The link from the order confirmation email 404s.

http://store.avalon-asic.com/customer/account/

I'm hoping for good news tomorrow, but preparing for bad news, or worse, no news at all.

If I were to speculate, I'd say that maybe they had severe yield problems with the first wafer(s) that called for a respin.

If you will recall, the plan was at first to produce a prototype on a MPW in late Decemner, and then to produce full wafers, and to ship in early March.  This plan was changed, and they instead went directly to full wafer production.

So, if the first set of wafers didn't really work out, they would need to try again with a new set.  Yifu had mentioned that the project was already in the red, so it fits that they needed to take batch 2 orders to fund the respin.

It's a risky strategy.  I hope it works (if it's true).

try http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-batch-2
and see if you can login there. Not saying it will work, but little downside  ;)

Nope.

If you guys have looked closely at Avalon's webpage, the ship dates for Batch #2 have slipped between Feb 17 and today from

Between March 5 and Apr 5

to

Between Mar 10 and Apr 15

"If you order now this batch is scheduled to start shipping by March 10th and before April 15th."
Keyword is "now" i think :) We all ordered before changes...

This is interesting, here is what I am reading under the Batch #2:

"

    Batch Status: Not Open
    Unit Price: $1,499
    Batch Size: 600 Units

    Orders Opened On: Feb 2nd, 2013
    Payment Processor: WalletBit
    Shipping Time: March 5th – April 5th, 2013
"
Link (http://"http://launch.avalon-asics.com/")

Here is the store link
http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-batch-2

Batch #1 customer can't login to the store: http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-batch-2

Are you a troll Junior?   This has been covered, try using the search feature.   The old logins don't work.

I'd like to hear from Yifu about batch no1.. even though I am batch no 2.

Oh, you are so provocative!   I'm just a Avalon Batch #1 customer.

Well, I'm a batch #1 and #2 customer. I would be satisfied just by hearing something about batch 1 :P. So far, since late January, I sent several e-mails, a support ticket and a private message to BitSyncom and I promptly received no answer to any of them. None of them asked where is my order, what's happening to it or something like that and they weren't pushy in any way. I just asked them if they could ship my first order via EMS and had a couple of customs questions. I don't mind them being late and I don't mind BitSyncom being hard to reach, I realize this thing is keeping him busy. But it's been more than a month since I asked a couple of fairly simple questions and it's starting to feel a little disappointing.

+1
I am in the same boat here and i feel other folks are also.

BitSyncom pls do your best and try to answer us
Thank you very much in advance!

Best

While Bitsyncom is holding up a ton better than the other attempts at entering into the market, I am still skeptical about it.

And, so?

is batch #2 gonna ship before batch #1 customers get their orders?

Doubtful.  Either we will get an update about a delay, or people will start getting units like its Christmas in March. 

Or everyone gets shafted and the avalon team makes off like a pirate?


/I actually have faith in them

I wonder why they mentioned 2 weeks. What is special about 2 weeks?

Does this mean they are seeking certification to do exports properly?

(A long time ago, they mentioned that CE certification would take like 2 weeks when I brought it up on the forum)

Maybe for bulk, but these things are like unicorns, customs wouldn't have any idea what they are. Could just mark them as virtually any electronic doodad and it would sail through if the valuation was right.

They really need to offload customer service to someone as they're too busy to perform even the most basic levels of support. I have infinitely more confidence in the Avalon team than I do their competition, but the lack of communication is again getting silly.

I remember when they said they shipped 50+ in the end of January....  Still no evidence of that.

for the short of memory:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.msg1486111#msg1486111

emphatically agree. not sure why they want to purposefully tarnish their reputation if they're legitimately trying to create a business out of this.

Cause they are chinese, they like show thinks, and not trash talk...

I was talking about fundamental levels of customer support, like acknowledgment of orders, confirming shipping addresses, and the like. Stuff that makes paying customers very uneasy when they're left hanging. I don't need to be told if they got a new toy to analyze their chips or that they think they're better than their competition because ______, but I do need to know if they've received my payment and have my shipping address correct. Because I ordered a batch 2 unit before they fixed their ordering problems I still do not have an order number TWENTY FIVE DAYS AFTER ORDERING. It's not the least bit comfortable.

Seems like they "talked" about having shipped lots of units (at least 40 + 53). Show me.



selling technology is more than just technical skills. show me the business acumen.

welp it's march 1st forum time.

good job avalon team. glad you were able to ship everything on time like you said. no news is good news, right?

/

OK, we can pretty sure that they did not ship 50+ miner one month ago. Yifu seems was lying about the shipping status.

Dishonesty seems to be a pre-requisite for ASIC vendors...unfortunately.

It's pretty annoying that Yifu's last activity shows him as online 5 minutes ago and yet no updates on the shipping of Avalon units have been posted.  Bad news would be better than no news.  Avoiding the question just makes businesses look sketchy.

Being first to market is pretty meaningless if you can't actually get units into the hands of those who've ordered.

Bitsyncomguy: units are all shipped, you will receive them in 3 weeks top. No tracking, I'm sorry.

(I'm trolling but that's the update I'm excepting)

Let me see if I have this right. They have no time to pen because they are too busy assembling, but have time to read several times daily.

Since he didn't say squat, I assume he's just torturing Batch 1 just to surprise the customers.. Kinda like how Satoshi dice 0 will scare you with a monkey.

https://i.imgur.com/KzY4tPF.jpg  ;)

w00t.  Now if only they had wings so they could fly to their destinations.

other companies also have pretty housings... http://mineforeman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/EndOfWorkRoom1andTheDoublePowerSupply.jpg

also - didn't you receive the email?

"Clear for take off, abide a week late.

Deadline has arrived so an update is in order, earlier this week the shipping problem is more or less solved and we are gearing up to dispatch the units, due to the week of delay from before compounded with lingering issues with the recovery from CNY the outlook for shipping time-frames are the following:

Starting from next Monday, units will be en route to their country of destination and tracking numbers will follow maybe 2~3 days after (it is at this point onward which you can expect an email from us with the tracking information), we expect this process to continue to the 10th of March until all the units have been shipped out, if all is well people will get their units in-hand in the middle of March.

 
Trade-In Situation
After much thought, we believe we have figured out the best system for Trade-Ins that will allow people to continue to mine with their FPGA as long as possible yet still able to get their ASIC on the second batch on time. The process will work as follows:

A week before batch #2 is ready to ship, we will make an announcement to those who wish to trade-in their last generation units to sent in their units, once we receive the units a custom order will be made for you to pay the difference depending on what you have trade-in, remember 1 trade-in discount/coupon is allowed per 1 Avalon unit. For clarification the shipping priority is as such:

Sorted from Highest to Lowest.

Developers - e.g. bitcoin core dev and other bitcoin contributor we feel deserve this treatment.
Trade-Ins/Old Customers - your unit will ship soon as we receive the FPGA and you've paid the difference.
Regular Batch #2 Customers - Unfortunately you are not special.
 
Other Fun News
This scheduled newsletter had failed because we surpassed the free 2000 MailChimp quota and manual action was required.
Christmas comes early this year. The present we got was the BFL March 1st bet earnings.
Looking back, it was not terribly surprising that failure and delay comes from the only thing not taken cared in-house, Shipping.
Lessons learned. Batch #2 process will have improvements, minor design adjustments and other goodies."
 

w00t.  Now if only they had wings so they could fly to their destinations.
[/quote]

REDBULL can fix IT :)

Amazing!

Actually he said they were *attempting* to ship 53 units.  It appears that the attempt was unsuccessful.



I count 24 units in that pic.  I hope you guys have more than that.

I hope that all the boxes visible in the background are filled with ready-to-ship units.

I see the unboxed units have their wifi antennas attached.  I hope this doesn't cause any Customs issues (they're funny about radio transmitters sometimes).

Proof of the attempt:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Herbie.jpg/250px-Herbie.jpg

I missed that... I guess the part missing in the picture is also the power cords attached and the machines running on a test net, the cables nicely hidden from sight.

Claimed ship date: January
Real ship date: March

Avalon:
Claimed ship date: January 2013
Real ship date:  January, February, March 2013

BFL:
Claimed ship date: October 2012
Real ship date: October, November, December, January, February,March 2013 (We hope!)

FTFY. BFL did not claim that they shipped.

Avalon said they shipped in January.


You may be confused by promised ship dates, but promises don't mean shit these days.

BFL will become a drama - wait until the units wouldn't even be profitable any more if you had them now.

Double standard, I see that you allow BFL to get away with a repeating 130+ day "shipping soon..later this year or the next" but don't give the same treatment to Avalon if they do the same for...all of 8 days. (When their first unit shipped after the appointed time.)

-------------------------

Now if you want to hold a double standard for mass shipping I'd be willing to hear you out. Then again, Avalon is the only one that actually shipped any units.

BFL is still (yes still) working on it.

Today passed by and there was no word if the chip exploded at 500Mhz or if it pushed into the 1.1GigaHertz range successfully.

I guess no one noticed?

I have my order at half of the batch and I think I will be lucky if I receive it by the firsts of April. I think that the worst case scenario is 20ths of April.

Myself, I wanna enjoy some easy mining with my batch 1 unit before batch 2 lands right away to pwn up more shares.

Proof of the attempt:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Herbie.jpg/250px-Herbie.jpg

Damn, I had heard UPS was going through tough times, but DAMN...

He could be doing just that.  Busting ass to ship 300 units by the 10th correctly. 

I can only hope.

Ship all units for great justice.

It won't happen... We will see batch 2 mid April.
I don't think to be pessimist, why do everyone here think they will become rich fast? (Irony!)

Just like I don't know, you don't either.  So why not just wait and see what happens rather and throwing salt over and over again?   

Because while I have a big batch 2 order I don't act like everyone else here. I'm realist.

I guess that means I am a pessimistic idealist. But an Optimistic realist.

I want customer service like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MEv36tJptA

I'm actually only hoping to receive my Batch 1 order in March.  I fully expect that my batch 2 order will be April+.

Acting like everyone else doesn't mean you "have" to complain.  I have a large order as well, so we are in the same boat.   Not point this at you, but much of the discontent is partly to do with where bitcoin prices are at the the profits people expect.  Its just greed coming out in another way.   You are just going to have to sit and wait and when it arrives, you can gauge you performance based on the risk you took.   Just accept it and move on until new information comes in.

I actually do, I have no problems with that at all.
If you want a point I argue people that think will receive their batch 2 order on the 15 of march ;)

If they really have corrected the shipping problem from early batch 1 (like by using a different shipping method than they first had decided) then they should hopefully be catching up quickly. As a build-to-order company, I think they really dislike having to warehouse unshipped units rather than units going out the door as soon as they're assembled and tested.

Also, they said they were looking or resellers to help with shipping, so if you're experienced with shipping from China - and proper customer service and web store operation - perhaps you could get in touch with them?

BitSyncom, is DHL still the method of shipping you guys are using?

even chinese customer have no unit coming over, so all i can do is waiting for another excuse

Who thinks that?   If you are reading what has been said, that is the earliest shipping date for Batch #2 plus you have ship time.  You just need to point that out.