Bitcoin Forum

Just got this in my inbox from Avalon:

"Lots things to update.

1. We are currently investigating on the three or so shipments that have shown up badly damaged to the customers. They do no appear to be simple delivery damage: they are not dents but some corners of some of the units have been snapped off. It takes a great amount of force to snap 3mm aluminum that's been bolted down with 0.9mm screws in a box with foam padding. We are not ruling out the possibility of sabotage.

In future, when receiving an Avalon package, if there is any rattling sound coming from inside, open the package in front of DHL/EMS and inspect the inside, if there is damage immediately return the package to the sender. The receiver must submit the complaint so us, the shipper can receive this information from DHL/EMS and we can investigate.

Do not worry, even if DHL/EMS does not compensate for the damages, once you send the damaged unit back, we will send you a replacement free of charge.



2. Our new SMT equipment has arrived, it is expected to be tweaked and fully functional by the second week of May. Expect an updated gallery of our facility soon. In the mean time we are going to send out ~20 units through our new shipping channels and test the waters. We expect to go full throttle once the new SMT line comes online.



3. We also recently released a new firmware that is our most stabled version yet, it also increases the performance by about 2Gh/s and lowers idle power consumption, see the wiki for full details. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon#20130419
 
p.s. few people in the Avalon team is sick, so we are moving rather slow at the moment."

I got that e-mail too.  I dont have an Avalon, and the e-mail link actually directs somewhere else.

Phishing?

Nope looks legit. Also got that.   Maybe you forgot you signed up to the newsletter?

So there is our news.  3 weeks behind I can handle. And I believe these guys.

Sorta puts a bit shame on their motto "Asics on time, business done right" but hey. Totally can handle a few weeks...as long as it is 1/10 less late than BFL that is fine in my books.

Sounds like them to me. I didnt get the email and im on the mailing list.

*edit* nm just got the email.

You have to be lucky if the postman waits for you until you have the package opened. They dont have time. And you only can open it when you got the package. Otherwise he cant let you open it.

So just in case, if i get a valueable shipment i use my smartphone to make a video of it. So that i have proof that i got the package, opened it and the results inside are like the video proofs.

Just in case the postman doesnt want to wait.

The link goes to the Avalon wiki at en.bitcoin.it -- Atleast thats where its going for me. What link did you get?

I hoped some news about batch #4

http://avalon-asic.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=238a9ecd2e5192e3cd3ace26d&id=83cfd14a6c&e=afaab4749a

It's just mailchimp. So I guess it's ok.

Nice to see there's progress, but a little disappointing they said they'd started shipping 2 weeks ago but are only just getting the SMT machines set up now...

Man, this whole fucking SMT crap / delays all the sudden feels like BFL spewing excuses for delays =( first its a week, now its 2 more weeks, whats next...a  month more?

I am glad to hear anything but my faith will only be restored when DHL rings my doorbell.   Does not seem like a ton of information and totally contradicts what they said 20 days ago.  They said they were shipping in the next week 20 days ago but they did not have equipment yet?   That does not make sense.
I am a little worried about people being sick.   Is it zhang or Yifu?   I hope not, that would make travelling hard since this whole bird flu paranoia in the news.  Hope everyone gets better soon

I guess the good news is that we have been given an update and they have 20 boxes that are capable of being shipped immediately.

I imagine some of the work can be easily staged for whatever is the long pole in this tent. I.e. the TP-LINK routers can be modified and flashed with firmware, the enclosures can have the power supplies installed and what not.  The logical assumption is limiting step is the populating of the miner boards in the hashing modules.

It would be nice to know how fast full throttle is...

I hope those Avalon folks recover quickly  ::)

+100

I hate when they delay the delays :/

Hope the sick is not H7N9.
God bless them.

Well I guess that gives a date when they might stop mining on some of the rigs they have ... and send them out ...

You saw a date?   I did not see a date in the letter at all.   And, the 20 to test shipping sure seems like a strange number.   How many are finished and ready to ship?   Why wait for the new line if the old line is still making avalons?

Well, by the second week of may they should have at least tried to send out 1 of the 20 ... I guess ...

That is my point, it does not say much.   Is this the first week of may?   Or is next week the first week of may since it is the first FULL week of may?   A little clarity would be appreciated as well as some comment on why 3 weeks ago they thought they were shipping "next week" and now they think they are shipping in two more weeks?   What happened to change this when you thought you were "days away" from shipping?

BitSyncom, thank you for the update.  They are always appreciated, no matter what news you have.

I would bet that whoever they got the SMT line from over promised, and Avalon decided to wait until it was online, only to discover the SMT people lied and ended up delivering late.  Unless you're a big company, it's hard to plan for and work around issues like that.

Honestly, I'm surprised Avalon even has their own SMT line.

Give it an hour or two; I've gotten every email in their newsletter, but I find that sometimes it takes an hour or two,

ETA of Avalons July 30 by most hands. Maybe.

That would piss me the fuck off! They would be useless by then....ugh
ESPECIALLY of BFL ships everything

Don't worry. BFL will probably screw shipping or something. They can't ship that fast.

Good news: We got an update

Bad news: We are delayed. Just hoping my units are among the 20 test ships

Bowjob;
Remember how these were priced?   the formula?   Batch III is going to look like crap compared to what it was pitched as.   Could be more than double the difficulty.

What was the formula again?

I am going to buy a couple of Avalons and need to know how much for each.

Even at double difficulty, batch 3 will still make a killing. ^

There are many people predicting the hashrate will increase by 500-700% by July 30th but since those increases are based on a lot of BFL/Avalon chips hitting the network then the delays from both parties will of course reduce that. I guess both BFL and Avalon customers can sleep a little easier knowing both parties are experience significant delays. I personally would not want to be a batch 3 customer but I think they will still come out ahead. If only I had the balls to get in on batch 1!

I do not think there is any reason why the chips will be delayed since this line has nothing to do with the chips.   It is likely some people will receive chips before the batch III people.   How will that affect batch III's (that most expensive batch) return?   Hard to say but not pleasant.

The chips will still need to be made into a working product, which is no trivial task and will take time.

I'd be surprised if any of the people planning on assembling Avalon chip miners are ready for production when the chips arrive (and I even ordered some myself..)

I got the impression they were referring to a second SMT line, to supplement their first, though this could be an incorrect assumption.

I don't know what that is, but I had some nasty flu or something knock be out real suddenly on Sunday.  I'm still not back to work yet on Wednesday, though I'm planning to go tomorrow.

Very sudden and brutal.

I'm located a few hundred miles south of Yifu.

Thanks for the update.

Sounds like a 1-month delay. BFL is on a 6+ month delay. Not even the same ballpark.

confirmed

https://i.minus.com/iwwQE351OjGnm.png

:(

The difference about Avalon is that they actually tell you straight up the length of the delay.

They don't try to sell you unicorn hairs and rainbows... "we'll ship next week" or "we're shipping now" bullshit.

They tell you straight up. Obviously, they have ran into some problems in mass producing and shipping their units, but they've outpaced BFL by miles. I have faith in them to start delivering when they say they will, and I can't say that for BFL.

So everyone just chill out. I'd much rather be on Avalon's boat considering when we ordered, compared to when BFL customers ordered, and the rate that we will get our product.  ;D

This makes me think they never shipped anything heavy around the world before.  Out of 300 units (I don't know that there are this manym this is just the number I saw) packed the way I saw them I would expect between 5-20 of them to be damaged.  


This is not practical for many reasons.  The box is not light enough where the average person is going to be able to 'shake it around'.  Drivers do not normally wait for packages to be inspected unless the box is mangled but more importantly one would NOT WANT TO RETURN the item if one thought it might work or could be quickly fixed.  There are thousands at stake here.  If one of the blades was bad, one would still want to keep it and just return the bad part.  

Yeah except there is a big issue here.
They already started shipping (300 units) 3.5 months ago. As everyone knows - they won - they released first - go Avalon!

So either they all stopped working and took a couple months holiday, or they have been making a killing mining on Avalons that people have funded.
Remember, the Avalon payment method is no refund because they are using your money to buy the hardware (their words)

I guess they could have bought all this very large amount of hardware and left it sitting in a storage facility for more than 2 months?
Yeah right ...

BFL has failed to deliver on time ... yes we understand that ... yes they are late ...
However, once BFL does start to deliver in quantity, what would your impression be if they stopped for >2 months for no reason ...

i personally think the 20 units are the last missing batch 1 units that have been sent yet

Our only hope is seriously becoming a crash of the exchange rate, to buy a lot and cheap.
As predicted, the roi of these units will magically be exactly 75btc.

Don't they do that already...all of the time?

There's another bird flu paranoia in the news ??  Same old story, new show, new what.. Is this serious ?   Mass media are again spreading fear via "bird flu" again ?   They cannot come with something new ?  Or this show as been such a success in the past, they try "take 2" ??

I'm pretty happy that we dont have TV in our house.. What a relief...  Peacefull time,..

BTW, do you dare to bet on the bet on my signature ;p

<-- TV-free since 2004, baby.

Well, I guess I do have *a* TV, but I don't have TV service, so I don't receive all the crap that floats by in "the stream".



Given the site involved, no way.  I've been burned once.

Post it up on bitbet.us, and I'd think differently.

South of Brooklyn or Beijing?

Start to deliver in quantity ... no not yet.

Dr. Zhang has not been on forum for almost one month, maybe he's sick due to too hard working  :-\

Our prayers are with him...

Yifu and NgZhang are the brains behind behind the success and probably together with some other engineers, so
hope they recover and rested .. anyway they are tweaking their new machinery now so not much they could do..

I agree.. I hope they are well.

Also, I think Kano shouldn't make accusations that he can't back up. Enough with this Avalon is mining with our equipment business, it is silly. You have no proof of anything. It seems like they are just going through growing pains in the manufacturing process.

Thats why i put kano on my ignore list. He is only here to rant on Avalon and try to safe the BFL image. Just ignore him he isn't even a Avalon customer.

I was glad to see the update this morning.

Yifu and Nzhang have over $15,000 USD of my bitcoin that I could have used to buy a house or cash out for $60,000 when it hit its peak levels.

Avalon delays and BFL stating May 1st, 2013 that they are shipping their ASICs by the masses has increased my concerns.

I will be extremely disappointed if my batch #2 and batch #3 investment opportunities goes bust because of more significant delays or other arbitrary reasons.
I work 9-15 hours a day to make the money I use to invest in you guys because I believe this is the best option for me at this point in my life.
I will continue to have faith in Avalon, please just do not disappoint the community that is placing their faith and hard earned money in your hands.

-GreaterNinja

不用担心，你是在良好的手中，他们只是有一些轻微的感冒及流感引起的流感病毒中。 :)

那就好，希望5月能收到第二批

尽快月底

Units need to be assembled, and that's take time, stop the FUD please.

Can you tell me wich issue makes you quit BetsOfBitcoin ?

Google Translation of the above for the huge majority of our non-chinese speakers:


Yifu I know that you don't want people coming to the factory, makes sense.  But if I'm in Hong Kong can't I just meet somebody, somewhere in the city to pick it up?  It would save you guys on shipping costs!

too many hookers and blow :D

Ugh. This would have been good to know PRIOR to shipping my Icarus back to them.

The 2nd week of May starts in 3.5 days  ;D optimism!