I too have 'invested' with BFL and want to reassure you I think they are genuine so far as I follow it nearly daily. Yes they are
incredibly behind schedule and I think part of it is intentional to get cash in early (ethically I have an issue with this but equally they're a business and I've heard of worse practices), the other part is just naive-ness of venturing into the unknown.
The reasons I think they aren't a scam:
- To come up with the detailed reasons/images/videos for the delays is probably more work than actually making the things and not having the risk of people hunting you down
I've learnt a lot (as I bet they have too) about chip manufacturing so they are very technically capable.
- They have shipped working FPGA units in the past which is the usual step in making an ASIC.
- Every project inevitably has setbacks. BFL are just not realistic in the project planning, they budgeted a few days to 'test' the chips before shipping. It's pretty obvious if you test something it's bound to find problems which you solve in an iterative style and just takes hardwork. They keep telling customers 'it's nearly there' but in truth it will only be there when they've got the completed product and they just don't know how long it will take as it's not been done by them before.
- They offer refunds to people which appear to be honoured (assuming the poster's are real people which I do believe)
- They have been making progress on a reasonable rate for the tech they are making, their expectations were just waaaaaay out.
I expect they'll start shipping in May but is really just a personal guestimate based on how many issues they've solved and how close it is to shipping.
The main part is they appear to finally have the chip proven to work now and there is a video on youtube showing it which was incredibly reassuring.
. Yes there are power issues and inevitably that will cause another small delay but it's insignificant compared to the earlier issues.
Now the caveat, they're proposed production rate seems incredibly optimistic. They're not budgeting on wafers being damaged in transit, difficulties in fitting/testing the devices, software installs, USB issues, faulty pcb's, etc.. from what I've heard. I really want to be proved wrong on this as I'm actually impressed at BFL's openness and they seem convinced but I believe they'll be churning out a small fraction of units/day compare to what they say. There must be 20,000+ orders in their queue and if they're able to produce even an incredible 100/day that's still over a year's worth just there.
I'd budget on ordering today and receiving your unit next year given the queue, if it arrives earlier excellent! It should still be the best on the market for a long time if they work as intended. Also when they do start shipping the order books are going to be fill up very very quickly so the gamble is getting in now with the pre-production stage or wait until everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
