Chips.

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Got them delivered in the afternoon, too late for immediate re-shipment.

Package contains 4 smaller packages with 3x sealed ESD bag with 2600 chips each + 1x opened ESD bag with 2200 chips.

I was hoping to get them in reels and be able to cut them easily in smaller portions. With the 26x10 QFN48 trays they are delivered in, distribution becomes difficult. I tried hard to get empty reels to split them in smaller chunks, but could not find a distributor for low volumes. Now I'll have to ship them in small ESD bags - like I did with the samples.

It will be a long night for me to re-pack everything for distribution, hopefully ready in the morning to drive to Germany for shipping.


Cheers

Thanks for the feedback.

Seems to be a matter of luck in the end. I noticed that most sample chips overseas arrived faster than in EU (like delivered after 5 business days in US an AUS, but e.g. took almost 3 weeks to get to burnin / Germany ). On the other hand, I had two cases where the mail was delayed in NY for a full week for no reason.

I'll try German DHL for the first batch and see how that works.

^This, highlighted by me.

Folks, the first batch of chips is around the corner, but there are still people who did not enter valid shipping data and locked it. Please note: without valid shipping destination, I can't send the chips to you but will skip your order and serve buyers from second batch. Please hurry!

Seriously, you knew for three months that you will need to sign with the address to get the chips - and now that chips are on their way you notice you can't

I can't really help you much there, other than offering you a refund if you fail to complete your registration and claim the chips. You need to be fast, though, since from the tracking I see chips are already in Switzerland and should get delivered very soon. You might want to check blockchaininfo or brainwallet as online-wallets that support address signing.

No, I can't take over accounting and responsibility for shipping data for all manufacturers. We have an agreement already which includes me sending pre-verified data (i.e. people signed with their payment addresses).

There are several layers of security included here: first, while most users' orders can be identified (due to their posting in the thread), it is not known where the chips are sent to. If someone would try to post false orders (pretending to be an other user with chips in order) three things can happen:
  a) he orders at the wrong manufacturer,
  b) he orders at the correct manufacturer, but the rightful owner does also, and
  c) he orders at the correct manufacturer, while the rightful owner does not.

Case a) reveals him as scammer immediately, b) does the same after he can't prove his order (by signing), while the rightful owner can. The only critical path is c), but this would require that a user was going through the registration and claim process, delegate chips to a manufacturer but failed to place his order there. Given how unlikely this would be, plus the risks involved to scam this way (scammer has to pay manufacturing costs and provide some valid postal address), I personally won't expect too many attempts.

Since I have no information on how the chips are declared and therefore do not know what additional costs (VAT, customs, handling, etc.) to expect, I'll ship first and ask for payment later.

For reference, prices for sending parcels through SwissPost are listed here (rate: 1CHF ~ 1.07USD). I'll try to lower those costs by sending from EU, otherwise the prices listed there for Urgent parcels (handled through TNT global) are the worst case shipping costs to expect.

This. Plus once you finalized your shipping data, you can't change it any more => as long as it is mutable, it is not final.


No related info yet, will update as soon as I know more.

This will maybe not happen

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Update: 1st batch shipped

I got a a status update from Avalon - the first batch of chips has been shipped, including DHL tracking number. It should get delivered this week.

Important reminder: If you have chips ordered from the first batch and did not yet enter your shipping address and locked it - do it soon! Orders without finalized shipping data will be postponed.

Yes, the first batch was ordered mid April, 10 weeks passed end of June - so we are overdue. AFAIK, no chips have been delivered so far, so let us hope and see how much the delay will be.

Yes, if there is a manufacturer missing in the list, please let me know and I'll add.

PM'd.

I was reported that some OS/browser combinations have displaying problems (e.g. Win+Chrome). Could you please double check if it does better with a different browser?



I have only a partial view so far, but currently there are at least 50 shipping destinations, so it is an issue to be prepared for.


I tried to explain this here and here. In short: chips will be shipped to the locked addresses; you can get a receipt as an undeniable proof that your chips were shipped; manufacturers will get a list of chips assigned to users with each delivery.

Does this help?

Hm, I was expecting people to be eager to get their chips fast, but you are right, for small orders  it maybe is not worth it. No sense in making shipping more expensive than the chips themselves. All I can do at the moment is to promise to consider any potential approach for an optimal solution. This e.g. might include traveling to Germany and send via DHL from there - with prices 80% lower than what is charged here in Switzerland

Generally, this all is relevant if you ship to your private address only. If you otherwise delegate your chips to a manufacturer, all orders from a batch will be combined into one package with shipping costs evenly split, which will significantly reduce costs per user.

Update


Sample chip shipping payments
Those who received their sample chips, please ignore the invoice I enclosed with the parcel. It is meant for customs, just in case. The S&H for the samples is a flat 0.4BTC value, please do not adapt it due to the recent fluctuations in the BTC/fiat exchange rate. If you have the coins at hand, please send 0.4BTC to 184g4gAJqtM1BTDmDwRPB4AokXbqtZ2wnG. If you don't have, please post here you received the chips and want to take them as donation.

Sample chips shipping time / shipping of final chips
Some of the developers received their chips within 5 days, others are waiting for two weeks and more. I sent those out as registered priority mail via SwissPost, which gives a delivery time of 5 days. From the tracking information I see that they are delivered to the destination country within 2 days, but then it becomes slow. Interestingly enough, those folks around the globe (USA, Australia, Asia) got heirs delivered fast, while in the EU the delays are significantly longer. I talked to SwissPost and their feedback is that they do guarantee delivery into destination country, but have no control over the processing times there.

As a consequence, I will not ship the final chips via SwissPost, which will be challenging to come by: DHL offers only express here and charges ~$200 for the smallest parcel (that is, sending a 100g chocolate block). Other parcel services are even more expensive. A user from a USA pointed out that for that amount of money I could send chips directly via air-freight overnight, which would be an option for those living nearby an airport. Alas, this would require me to drive to Zurich airport for each shipment, therefore not a real alternative. Still I do not have a clear picture how the chips will arrive (all at once or one parcel per day), so I'll investigate further and try to find a good solution.

New shipping destination added
steamboat is now available as destination for your orders.

Yes, to get shipped, it must be locked to prevent buyers from changing addresses after I shipped.

Still, no need to hurry, before locking at least you should get some proof that the manufacturer of your choice has some approved working prototype.

I was hoping for feedback of type: "Yeah, that's something I always wanted to do - and now I can get even some coins for it!"

Maybe after the recent exchange rate drop, 5 coins for 5 days of work is not enough as compensation.

But anyhow, I have one develper already looking at it, hope it can be contributed soon to the community.

Sorry if that was not obvious: in the shipping destination drop-down list first select a different destination, then go back to your previous and tick the finalize check-box, and finally sign your change request.

It was intentionally left in the change area and is not visible outside, since this is such a strong feature (the only way for me to fix a wrongly set lock is to delete the user and allow to register again), it is too risky to place the locking check-box at the overview page.


HTH

200+ views, zero feedback

Is this too challenging, or am I missing something?

You need to give me an address you can sign from. Please check whatever wallet you are using and select one address to assign to your order.

Please do that over PM.

Yes, and one post after the linked I asked you for an address to associate to your order and you gave me 1Kjvxd9CbnYbigcC13gS5VAd2asNcdVSyH

Is there some other problem?