...and things got so busy I had to cancel my doctors appointment and just got home now...awesome.
Ok, here's the quick and dirty version
Initially there were some delays caused by people who said they were in and either never paid, or paid very late. Up until a certain point the whole thing was going to be canceled as I simply could not afford to proceed without a decent amount of pre-orders. In the end, many of the people who said they were in came through, but it pushed the timeline back by quite some.
-Parts kits-
Most of the stuff is here, still waiting on a few things, but I imagine they will be here within the week. I had two different suppliers mis-ship parts, which meant returning them and having to wait until they received the return before being able to re-purchase as we have almost every dollar we have invested into this run and there's simply nothing left...
-Meters-
The meters have been ordered, and we should get them in the next 2-3 weeks assuming everything goes well. IE, customs doesn't hold them for an absurd amount of time.
-Chassis-
We're on manufacturer #3 now, as I have been really unimpressed by the quality of work seen from the first two. I'm not the first, and I'm sure i won't be the last, but good metal manufacturer's are hard to find. I have a meeting early next week to see a proto, and the company we're using does a lot of rack enclosures for the telecom industry so my hopes are high. If the sample is acceptable, production will begin immediately and they should be ready in 3-4 weeks. This badboy will be worth it, I promise you this!
I realize that many of you are itching to start stuffing your boards, so I looked into how much to ship one package, versus how much to ship two (parts first, chassis and/or meters second) and the difference in price is a couple dollars. So that is an option if anyone wants. Don't post here whether you want to go that route or not, I will e-mail you all with details this weekend.
I fully appreciate that this has been dragging, but I assure you that I have been trying my hardest to get this done as quickly as possible. Unforeseen complications always seem to arise when something of this size is taken on, but in the end you will all be very happy.
thanks for your support and patience.
Bryan