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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 :)

Group Buy: Budget CRI 95 LED Strip Lights

Hey Brandon, hope all is going well. Please update us on the status of the controllers - 100% passed and ready to ship? When will they ship? What's the real deal timeline? Please update sooner than later.

Thank you, B
 
Les Hillis said:
Is it possible to get invoiced for shipping of Invoice#0051 (Paid 14th Dec 2014) and have that order sent before the Solaris controllers start going out?
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Your order is going out today, Les. I emailed you the details.

Bryan Koss said:
Hey Brandon, hope all is going well. Please update us on the status of the controllers - 100% passed and ready to ship? When will they ship? What's the real deal timeline? Please update sooner than later.

Thank you, B
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I was just updated an hour ago. The controllers have passed all the manufacturers tests, the latest being various battery sources. They asked me to test a couple scenarios myself, which I will do today. As for when they will ship, that isn't entirely in my hands since I still have ~$10,000 in unpaid invoices. I'm sending out reminders again today. 90%+ of the people in this Group Buy have paid, but not everyone. I am working on an a more detailed update that breaks down everything.
 
Hi Brandon,
$10K is unpaid ? That is very disturbing news to me as you will probably never get the 100% to come through. where does that leave those of us in the 90% ?
 
Poi Boy said:
Hi Brandon,
$10K is unpaid ? That is very disturbing news to me as you will probably never get the 100% to come through. where does that leave those of us in the 90% ?
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Everything will be fine. Don't worry.
 
Thanks Brandon, communication is key.

Please let us know how these tests go today if you are performing them.

Also, my order(s) were paid for a very long time ago and none of those transactions were ever meant to be connected to other individuals and their ordering/paying process. Please elaborate on "everything will be fine" in regards to something as critical as the last and most important step in this process... Shipping to customers. Please, it's very important to all of us.

Thank you and hope it all goes smooth!
 
Wouldn't it be more likely that if most of us get our controllers and like them that we would order more of them... 90 percent of us being tied to 10 percent that probably haven't paid out of frustration of the seemingly very little forward progress. Maybe that's not true Brandon, but on our end the only thing that's happened is us paying for something. Weve barely gotten the videos you've promised. There haven't been any comprehensive tests shown as far as I know. At this point the 2500 dollars I plunked down here can buy other lights with the same good qualities. I have my variable strips that are sitting in a box. Please don't think me insensitive to your health problem, but if help is needed by someone maybe one of us that lives close can help.
 
I definitely share your frustration, Joshua. I can assure you there has been a ton of progress. A half dozen prototype controllers have been in the wild being beta tested on real shoots for months now. As soon as I get more finished units in hand, I will be sending out to people, some of whom have agreed to help with the tutorial videos you mention.

During the tests over the weekend I confirmed one bug that occurs when running a very heavy light load off of batteries at near full brightness. I sent the results of the tests (videos and notes) to the manufacturer. They assure me it will be a quick fix.

Making hardware is not easy. Especially when there's no way to update the firmware, which is always the case with products like this. What ships has to be rock solid from day one and it will be. And yes, you could buy other lights that are comparable to these, though very unlikely to be better in terms of color quality, but you'll pay 3-4 times the price and you still won't have controllers to make them work. There is no existing controller on the market that does what these do at any price. If you pieced together everything from Lite Gear, it would cost you several thousand dollars and it would require several items.

As for the people that haven't paid yet, that's not a new problem. A large number of people were very late in paying early on and I took a loan then from PayPal so things would not be slowed down. See for yourself:

zOJYiO8.jpg


Fortunately they all ended up either paying or I found other buyers for their lights and it was paid off in a couple months.

The minimum order quantity for our budget controllers is 1,000 units. Our group ordered around 965 "budget controllers", so 1,000 units should not have been a problem. Unfortunately, since I made the Solaris controllers able to handle both single color and variable color strips (and now RGB and RGBW, as well), which did originally require 2 different "budget" controllers, a lot of people cut their orders in half. This brought us down to around 600 units. I took a new loan at this point:

HmG6yWQ.jpg


As you can see, I've got $2,200 in loan fees and I'm $9,000 in debt, still. Unfortunately, I've had to pay back half the loan already, so as I've said many times, I want this controller ordeal over with more than anyone :)

The good news: Over 800 controllers have been pre-ordered and since my Facebook post about this a lot of people have paid off their invoices, which helps a lot. If everyone pays that puts us up over 900 units pre-ordered, which has to be some kind of group buy record. I'm also talking to a couple large companies interested in selling them, which would give us the numbers we need without any problem. I've also been contacted by people offering to invest in inventory, which also solves the problem.

Worst case scenario, I have been planning to sell all my gear this summer to help pay for treatment I'm scheduled to get starting September 6th (chemotherapy, and a stem cell transplant) since insurance doesn't cover it. As soon as I finish the last of the filming for the movie I've been working on the last 4 years, everything goes. If necessary, I will put the money towards the unsold controllers and see if I can delay the treatment. I've already lined up buyers for some of my gear.

I'll do whatever it takes to get us over the finish line as quickly as possible, believe that.

What happens next:

• The manufacturer is tweaking the firmware to fix the bug I found. I'm told it's an easy fix.
• I have more units on the way to me which will be sent out to a couple forum members who are well known here. They will publicly share their feedback.
• I'm still planning to do the tutorial videos, as I mentioned before, but if anyone is willing to help can get moved to the front of the controller line. Write me if interested.
• Power supplies will be sent directly from the manufacturer, once the controllers are produced, to save time.

Oh, and I get messages almost every day from people wanting more lights. These are people in the group buy who have received their lights, are using them, and want more. I'm adding everyone to a list and if the numbers get high enough we'll do a small run of more lights. As I'm typing this, I just got 2 emails from people wanting more lights.

And here is one last cool thing I was shown yesterday. These guys wanted to light a scene with a bunch of LEDs in a helium balloon for a night shot for a film they are working on. I told them I'm not sure it would work, but it did...

rUJrXkj.jpg


I haven't seen the results, but they asked yesterday if they can buy 3 more rolls, which I don't have, so they seem very satisfied.

I'll post some more bts shots from the film I'm making soon. Everyone that has worked on my film that also shoots themselves has wanted lights and controllers, after seeing them in use. In fact, the Steadicam operator we worked with for a day took some to Russia to build lights for a shoot on a remote location. The lights worked great and now he wants to buy (or trade, for Steadicam work) all the pre-bult panels I have used on the film once I'm done with them.

I guess my point is, while the controller delays suck, it will all be worth the wait. :)

I'll have more news in a day or two.
 
Great to see progress... still wrapped up in my own CGI nightmare at the moment, so I'll only hassle you later on - LOL.
 
Here are some set photos from my film. I used panels over the window to punch up the daylight coming through the windows. This meant I didn't need to blow out the windows and everything looks totally natural and not "lit" at all. All these sources were run off batteries and used controllers.

2 rolls of daylight per panel on corrugated plastic with diffusion:

6DLAcNb.jpg


A photo in the same room as the above photo:

nTsrSbt.jpg


Another room (the elephant is not in the movie):

QAubjWt.jpg


A car setup later that night (dimmed the dashboard lights way down):

ypYBLP8.jpg


I'll see about posting some shots from what we filmed on Facebook. Those can't be public right now.

Andy White said:
Great to see progress... still wrapped up in my own CGI nightmare at the moment, so I'll only hassle you later on - LOL.
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You know where to find me... :)
 
As soon as I get more finished units in hand, I will be sending out more to beta testers
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What?? I thought the testing was over... So.. an extra beta testing round before the manufacturing begins?
 
Lawrence Steele said:
What?? I thought the testing was over... So.. an extra beta testing round before the manufacturing begins?
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I misspoke. I will be sending FINISHED units first to people that have beta tested and/or will help with tutorial/demo videos.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Why don't you just send them by ordering time? I think I don't need more videos, just the lights and controller.
Thanks
Pat
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This is only for the final samples I get before the production run is done. I may only have 1 spare to send out. The bulk of the order will go out in order as you describe.
 
Quick update: The aforementioned controller bug is not a controller bug, but rather a battery feature. High load (lots of bright LEDs) plus high PWM frequency (what makes it flicker free) can make the battery go into protection mode. This only happens when the load is more than the battery can handle. I just tested the same load with 2 matching v-mount batteries in parallel and it works great. Problem solved. Adding batteries in parallel is easy. All you need to do is connect more batteries, in my case via d-tap, to the same input terminals. The load a battery can handle will vary depending on the brand of battery you are using. Also, a d-tap connection on a battery usually maxes out at less of a load than if you use a battery plate.
 
Brandon, that sounds like really good news! Thank you for the update. Is it now safe to say the controllers have passed all tests and will be entering the production phase? Thanks again for all of the testing.
 
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