Project update 25 of 35
You’re probably wondering what is going on with the project and whether you’re going to get your XTRX any time soon. The short answers are "a lot" and "yes," respectively.
While waiting for the components we need to manufacture the current batch, we tested samples of the final revision of the XTRX-USB3 adapter, PCIe adapter, and XTRX rev4 boards. Now we have high confidence that the batch will be manufactured correctly. After a couple weeks of ordering all the components, dealing with suppliers, checking and double-checking everything, the manufacturing is now underway and we should start receiving boards from our fab next week. We’ll then perform functional tests to make sure you’re getting working units. Given the time testing usually takes, we plan to start shipping late in August and continue through September. If something unforeseen comes up, we’ll notify all the backers as soon as possible to manage expectations.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a sample of the synchronization board for Octopack on time, which pushes a realistic shipping date into October. This board is used for clock and time synchronization across multiple XTRX boards and is required if you want to use your Octopack as a massive MIMO system and not just as a pack of independent transceivers.
If you need your Octopack package before October and you don’t need the sync board, please let us know as soon as possible and we will ship it in two parts - Octopack itself first and the sync board with instructions how to mount it later. If we don’t hear from you, you will receive an assembled Octopack as soon as the sync boards are ready.
As some of you already noticed, the delivery date for new orders is now set to 31 December. The current batch of XTRX is sold out (yay!) and we’re now collecting orders for the next batch which we expect to manufacture by the end of the year. Note that this is a tentative date and may change. We tried to be conservative and expect to ship the next batch earlier rather than later. If you need an XTRX by a specific date, write to us and we’ll see what we can do.