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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

VFS Inclino, Imperio, Origo News ??

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Guys,

Part of the delay that you've experienced is because Curt has let a few people give feed back on the system to make last second tweaks. The product is not vapor ware, it's not something you'll have to wait much longer to hold. The motors feel super solid, the controller has more options that I can remember being there when we sent in our deposit. Curt and crew are going to get you a product that is worth more than you paid. You'll thank me later if you just give VFS a small bit of credit and trust them when they say they're working as fast as possible.
 
Now steve, i'm glad at least beta testers like you can chime in and give your opinion. We're still under impression that beta testers dont even exist yet, so looks like the truth is it's been tested out.

I'm glad to hear that, let's see what Curt has to say later.
 
Curt,

Where do Birger customers fall in this schedule? What's the status of that relationship?

I'm dying to get using your products!

Best Regards,

Thom

P.S. any chance of you showing off a working Birger mount with your controller at the Los Angeles Users group meeting this Saturday?
 
Copied and pasted from the View Factor website:

I'd like to start by thinking all of our customers for their patience and understanding of the delays in our Inclino and Impero products. I had created a schedule back in February that I believed was realistic and included more than enough buffer time for unforeseen delays in the electrical, mechancial and software portions of the product design. Unfortunately I failed to factor in the amount of time that supplier delays would introduce into the schedule and how much time those delays would develop into delays in other segments of the production schedule. The time I spent dealing with our suppliers on the phone, flying back and forth to inspect parts/tooling, sending emails back and forth, and having to debug inadequate parts consumed enormous amounts of time and specifically time that could have been spent on other things such as firmware update code.

Another mistake I made was to modify the Impero board design mid stream when we already had a functional design. I was always warned to avoid feature creep but there was an opportunity to significantly decrease the programming time that I would have to do to provide firmware upgradeability on these products. The alternative would have been to spend 8 months developing software to run on Mac/PC platforms that would require more specialized adapter cables to provide an upgrade path. The new process for you(the customer) to upgrade these units is to merely drag a few files onto a USB stick and power cycle the impero with the motors and controller attached - If anyone wants a detailed explanation of why this has taken me 3 weeks to achieve then I could go into excruciating detail. The side benefit to this is that we now have access to a vast storage medium that we can use for lens databases, user customizable programs/configuration files and storage of motion control movements of all the motors connected to the impero receiver. The grand scheme behind all fo this is to provide as many options as possible so as to allow VFS and the cinema community to develop extensive software upgrades in the future that will only make the system more versatile.

Fortunately I believe these delays are behind us and we can finally concentrate on the task at hand.... shipping Inclinos and Imperos to eager customers. We will be commencing shipments of the first 10 units on Wed, Jan. 14th. I am holding out that the USB firmware updates will be ready by then but if not then we will be shipping regardless and replace them at our expense with fully functional units when we start shipping higher production volumes. We are also going to have a gathering here at VFS to demonstrate the units to the local customers in this first batch of 10. There are a few things on Impero that are significantly different than what people are used to that we want to cover (namely motor addressing, gearing, and 3d motor slaving)

Shipping for the remaining orders will happen as soon as humanly possible after all of the components are received. We will ramp up this month with stock that we have on hand and will significantly increase volumes as soon as we receive the bulk orders towards the middle of Feb. (see schedule below). Orders will be shipped in the order received.

For now I can give you the schedule based on the current state of affairs:

INCLINO:

* Our supplier finally finished the first 500 sets of parts and they will be shipping out Tuesday - we have them by the end of next week
* We have over 300 Inclino electrical sub assemblies ready to go into housings when received.
* Our connector vendor will have 500 4-pin lemo connectors to us by the end of next week
* 200 harmonic drives arrive Feb. 20th. - we received a preliminary shipment of 50.
* 50 brushless motors arrive Feb 19th. - we already received 200 untis.
* 200 sets of bearings arrive Feb 19th. - we already have 50 sets.
* 250 encoders already in stock

IMPERO:

* 450 sets of mechanical components will be delivered on Jan 29th. - we currently have 50 sets.
* 500 Controller and 250 receiver PCB Assemblies will be delivered by Jan 28th. Delays we incurred by the holidays and lead times on two electrical components
* Our connector vendor will have 1000 4-pin lemo connectors to us by the end of next week for receiver/controller.
* 500 encoders allready in stock

All components necessary to assemble all Inclino and Impero units will arrive by the 20th of Feb. and based off our actual assembly times we will be shipping all remaining units during the week of Feb 23rd thru the 27th.

I might as well tell you now that it has become clear that we will need to raise the price point of all of our products across the board. High end bearings, customized harmonic drives/motors, Lemo connectors and escalating tooling costs and general R&D overhead for a year adds up to some significant development costs that we need to reccoupe to be viable on an ongoing basis. The following pricing is effective immediately (Jan 9th, 2008) All existing orders will be honored at the original purchase price.

* Inclino:.....................................$1295
* Impero:.................................... $995
* Bus cables:................................ $99
* Red power Cables:....................... $99
* DTAP cables:.............................. $109

* Origo: .....................................$119
* 2.5ft straight:............................$99
* 2.5ft coiled:...............................$109
* 10ft straight:.............................$109
* 30ft straight:.............................$125
* 50ft straight:.............................$157

Please note that the store will be shut down for a day while all the products are updated with the new pricing.

Another piece of news to note is that we are formalizing arrangements with distributors in the US, Japan, Europe and the Middle East. This will allow us to provide our products to a wider audience and significantly reduce shipping costs and repairs. We will provide more information as we get everything solidified.

Thanks again for your support. If the plan changes, I'll do my best to let you know as soon as I can. The new web site will be online soon and we will have a better mechanism for distributing infomation to our customers via emai so that future updates will not be so sporadic.





« Last Edit: Today at 01:02:33 AM by CVB »
 
Well at least I beat the price increase by paying early. Remember my glass is half full.

It's nice to have a seemingly realistic schedule. End of Feb.
 
Yeah, while end of february isn't what I wanted to read... I have to say that this is the first update in a long time that actually gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling and I know what's going on.

My job that was supposed to shoot 10 days from now that I need the Impero for has been postponed until mid-March. Haha. Fate, I guess. I'm happy, the delay may will save me money if I don't have to rent another wireless solution!
 
From what I read....
it looks like there is enough parts on hand for 50 units...the remainder of parts arrive mid-feb

so maybe those 50 people will get there's in the next few weeks...

I am about 105 or so so it dosn't help me but it sounds like the product is much improved and probably well worth the wait
 
Really looking forward to late february! (I'm number 121)
 
Does anyone know how you know your serial number for delivery? Is it based on the order number?

Thanks,

Z
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Yeah, while end of february isn't what I wanted to read... I have to say that this is the first update in a long time that actually gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling and I know what's going on.
Click to expand...

Same here...
 
I hope so. I'm Impero #20 with motors 23, 24, & 25
Click to expand...

3 motors...smart

i regret only ordering one....especially since the price increase plus the fact that the canadian dollar is down about 20% against the US since I ordered.
 
From Curt's update:

Dominic Cochran said:
We will be commencing shipments of the first 10 units on Wed, Jan. 14th. I am holding out that the USB firmware updates will be ready by then but if not then we will be shipping regardless and replace them at our expense with fully functional units when we start shipping higher production volumes.
Click to expand...

So tomorrow is January 14th, I hope to see user reviews on here real soon :)
 
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