By popular demand, the camera slider assembly instructions are online.  I had the images already, so it didn’t take too long to type them.

All orders beginning 130809 are packed and ready to be collected by the couriers. You’ll receive your shipping notifications tonight.

Orders from 130810 to 130815 are almost ready (need just the outer boxes) and I’ll try to get them ready for collection tomorrow too.

Our exceedingly popular NEMA23 0.9°-per-step motors are finally on their way to us, due to arrive around 1 October.

I’ve just finished packing all non-eShapeOko orders, and almost all of them (see below) have address labels or are booked for collection by the courier tomorrow.

I promise I’ll handle new orders on time from now on.

If you are in the UK and you ordered MakerSlide up to 1 m long, or the 1 m camera slider kit, your order will be sent by Hermes.  The Hermes website is down for maintenance, so I’m going to book those tomorrow.

The night is still young, so I’m off to pack a few eShapeOko kits.

The last of 130807 and 130808 orders are out, just collected by UPS.

We’re working on 130809 through 130814.  We have the rail packed for all of them, all the little bits bagged, and additional items, if any, picked but still in plastic bins.  I’ll finish as many as I can tonight.

The spacers have arrived earlier today, so we’re going to pack the few remaining baggies of components for 130815 onwards as soon as we can.

Look what the postman brought me the other day: nice solid stepper motors with Tr 8 × 2 leadscrews.  Perfect for the Z axis of the eShapeOko or Shapeoko. The motors seem good and the leadscrews are very, very nice.  Tr 8 × 2 is just right for this application, unlike the four-start Tr 8 × 8(P2) available from RobotDigg, which does not have enough mechanical advantage and is too easy to backdrive.

Too bad the acetal (Delrin) lead nut on these is crap.  Oh well.  I really don’t have time to search for good nuts, so this upgrade will have to wait.

While I was writing this, the UPS guy came and collected the kits I had finished packing last night (except one already dropped off with Hermes, and one waiting for ParcelForce).

All but three of the orders beginning 130807 and 130808 are now packed and ready to go.  I am updating order status and generating shipping labels for them now.  They’ll be picked up by the couriers tomorrow (Thursday).

The three orders still to be packed are the ones with 1400 mm Y axis.  I’ll pack those tomorrow, along with as many of the 130809-to-130815 as I can.

No word about those spacers yet.  They did say “around the 16th”.  I’m going to chase them up in the morning.

Several things conspired to eat almost all my eShapeOko time: I had to run around to take the little helper to a doctor on Sunday, he couldn’t go to nursery on Monday and Tuesday (he’s sick, thankfully nothing serious), and there was a bug in production software at my day job (I’m a software developer) which had to be fixed now (and when that happens, there’s no time for leisure activities slash fledgling business).

So, no kits packed yet, but very close on 130807 and 130808.  I am really, really sorry for the stupidly long wait.

One small piece of good news: we have enough spacers for orders up to 130815.

Back to bad news: there’s more damaged MakerSlide in this batch than I had estimated.  I took the eShapeOko kits and the MakerSlide down (marked them “out of stock” in the shop) until I can go through the whole lot and check every piece.  I’m pretty sure there’s enough for all outstanding orders: I just don’t want to risk selling more than we actually have.

Oh, and I caught up with non-eShapeOko orders up to the beginning of last week, meaning we’re now only, err, ten days behind.  Sigh.

I just got a delivery of power supplies (the same nice LiteOn 24 V 5 A units we’ve had before — I managed to locate them at a decent price after all).  They came without power cords, so I’ll have to find some of those too.

I also got a sample of Mean Well cage-type power supplies, and some cheaper units (but still reasonably well made).  As soon as I have a chance (so not for another week), I’ll evaluate them, and if I’m happy with them, I’ll order a decent quantity for the store.

Many have asked about a “full kit”: everything one needs to build and run the machine, in one box.  Because we offer a lot of flexibility in configuring the kit (size, motor mounts, spacer type, single/dual X etc.), inventory management is a nightmare.  There can’t be a full kit until that is solved.  It’s the very next thing on my list, after catching up with the outstanding orders.

Things are going much slower than I would have liked. Here’s where we stand:

Orders placed this week: haven’t had a chance to do anything about them yet. We’ll post them as soon as we can, definitely by the end of next week.

Orders without eShapeOko kits, without MakerSlide, placed before this week: all done, all shipped. Phew.

Orders without eShapeOko kits, but with MakerSlide or camera sliders, placed before this week: all MakerSlide is quality-checked and packaged securely, and all the parts are picked. Some orders are on their way already, some are packaged and will go out tomorrow, some have the parts still in plastic bins waiting for me to pack them. A few will make the courier cut-off for tomorrow, the rest will be ready for pick-up on Monday.

The one order with tapped MakerSlide, received just before I had decided not to offer the tapping service anymore, ships tomorrow.

Finally, the sore point: the eShapeOko kits. You’ve overwhelmed us! We’re working hard to count the little bits. That’s about 80% done, but there has been a setback. To my dismay, I have discovered that, months ago, I had labelled a box spacers incorrectly, so we now have plenty of a kind of spacers we don’t need, and not enough of the kind we do need. The supplier did not have them in stock. They are due on the 16th. We have enough for all kits ordered on the 7th and 8th of August (that’s lots of kits: those were busy days, first two days after we had turned ordering back on), so those we’ll finish packing this weekend and send out on Monday. If your order number starts with 130807 or 130808, expect a tracking number from us on Monday.

For the rest of the kits, we’ll get all the other orders ready for the spacers, so as soon as those arrive, we’ll ship your kits too. After that, I’ll sleep for two days straight.