Good news everyone! Production of the Bee Motion S3 is fully underway! Using my Pick and Place machine I have finished assembling every Bee Motion S3 for this campaign! Thats right, they are all built!

Here is a short clip showing one of the panels being built recently. A panel has 10 Bee Motion S3’s in it.

Inspecting

After coming off the pick and place machine and reflowing the panel in my reflow oven, I then optically inspect every board to make sure all the components are in the correct location and orientation.

Occasionally during the reflow process, components can shift a little bit when the solder melts. If a component has shifted slightly, I only need to reheat the solder under that component and give it a little nudge with tweezers to move it into the correct position.

Testing

After visually inspecting every board, I then need to test every board to ensure all the features work. I load every board with a custom Circuit Python script that runs through all the GPIO and features (like the PIR motion sensor) and verifies they work. I use the onboard RGB led and LEDs on a test jig to show me visually if things are passing or not. If the board passes all the checks it is then loaded with test results file and shipping code.

Here are my bins with Bee Motion S3’s. The black bin contains boards that need tested and the green bin contains the ones that have passed testing and are ready for the next stage.

The Next Stages

After I’ve tested every board, I then will clean them using an ultrasonic cleanser to remove any flux or dirt that may be on the board from the building process. Once that step is completed, then they are ready to be packed up and shipped to Mouser, where they will then be shipped to every backer.

A reminder: You can still pre-order the Bee Motion S3 and those pre-orders will also ship with this first batch of Bee Motion S3’s!

I aim to have these shipped to Mouser in the coming weeks, at which point they will be distributed to those of you have have backed or pre-ordered the Bee Motion S3.

Thank you for your support and I look forward to getting these into your hands well ahead of the original shipping estimate!