Today's email from Seeed says they now have 200 units in production. The delivery lead time is as follows:
#100 Aug 11
#50 Aug 30
#50 Sep 20
I don't know what "lead time" means precisely. These dates may not reflect shipping time to distributors. My guess is that the additional 100 units is because you NA guys have been buying from the EU distributors causing them to reorder.
Again, my apologies for the supply delays. These are the realities of small batch production, by a company I don't have a lot of control over, during turbulent times.
On July 20, octopart.com indicated that RS Components had 4 in stock. I placed an order through RS Components and it went through, and the credit card transaction completed for the quantity of 2 that I purchased.
After not hearing anything for a week, I sent an email to RS Components asking for the shipment tracking information.
I just received a reply from RS Components stating that Seed indicates availability is currently January 28 2021.
So now I am really confused and upset... They have my money and I will not receive the product until next year.
What a terrible start - and furthermore, I have already received the cases from Mouser.
That's utter nonsense. Their order system should have determined there was a backorder situation *before* allowing you to place the order. This is industry standard practice.
Cancel the order with RS and reorder from ML&S (ham equipment dealer).
Are you sure you're looking at the "excluding VAT" price on the ML&S website? RS and ML&S both show £217 ($280) for me.
I just sent Seeed an email to try and find out why RS thinks it can't get more Kiwis for 6 months. To me that sounds like some computer program default when it doesn't have current information from the supplier. Let's see what they say..
Seeed says there is an open order from RS for 5 units and that they will ask RS to update their availability time to Aug 11. That's all they said, so I interpret this to mean RS can get their allocation of 5 from the pending build of 100 units. I don't know if Aug 11 includes shipping/import time from Seeed to RS and other possible delays.
I checked the RS site today (8/2) and it now says "backorder to 2/2/2021". So clearly some mindless computer program is stuck advancing the backorder date 6 months into the future every day.
ML&S (UK) and WiMo (DE) seem to be out-of-stock at the moment (I know someone who bought eleven units from ML&S, lol). I think ChrisTech in Norway has one if that helps anyone.
Mouser has updated their "expected date" on the website to be 8/12 for the Kiwi kit version. Let's hope that actually happens.
Yes. I hope that is not misinformation. I'm waiting for similar stock indication from others like WiMo, Mouser or Amazon. Or even the Seeed site itself.
I'm only guessing here, and I don't mean to show favoritism towards particular distributors, but my bet would be ML&S (UK) and WiMo (DE). I wouldn't order from Mouser (USA) until they show units in stock (they had an issue earlier in the year with not filling a large backorder in the correct queue order).
As of this morning the total count of Kiwis that have been through factory final test since Aug 19 is 186. So depending on the delay shipping to the distributors we shouldn't have to wait much longer now.
ML&S (UK) has received their shipment and the Kiwi is now back in stock.
Check the http://kiwisdr.com page for the latest availability status. The kit version is now out-of-stock at Seeed but it's possible it will be restocked fairly quickly.
Out-of-stock at WiMo and ML&S currently. But in stock on Seeed's web site, both full version and board-only: https://www.seeedstudio.com/s/kiwisdr.html More in transit according to WiMo, due in November.
Generally out-of-stock now except for a few here and there and some board-only versions at Mouser. But telemetry reports 75 Kiwis are in final test at Seeed. So more on the way.
@KB8DOA: I have emailed Seeed asking why RS didn't (apparently) receive their order of 5 units from the last build. I can't understand why that situation is so screwed up.
Comments
Again, my apologies for the supply delays. These are the realities of small batch production, by a company I don't have a lot of control over, during turbulent times.
I placed an order through RS Components and it went through, and the credit card transaction completed for the quantity of 2 that I purchased.
After not hearing anything for a week, I sent an email to RS Components asking for the shipment tracking information.
I just received a reply from RS Components stating that Seed indicates availability is currently January 28 2021.
So now I am really confused and upset...
They have my money and I will not receive the product until next year.
What a terrible start - and furthermore, I have already received the cases from Mouser.
Cancel the order with RS and reorder from ML&S (ham equipment dealer).
Whereas with RS Components the total was = US $573
I replied back to RS Components and informed them that I will wait until January 2021...
I just sent Seeed an email to try and find out why RS thinks it can't get more Kiwis for 6 months. To me that sounds like some computer program default when it doesn't have current information from the supplier. Let's see what they say..
ML&S (UK) and WiMo (DE) seem to be out-of-stock at the moment (I know someone who bought eleven units from ML&S, lol). I think ChrisTech in Norway has one if that helps anyone.
Mouser has updated their "expected date" on the website to be 8/12 for the Kiwi kit version. Let's hope that actually happens.
As of this morning the total count of Kiwis that have been through factory final test since Aug 19 is 186. So depending on the delay shipping to the distributors we shouldn't have to wait much longer now.
The kit version is probably not far behind. But it has a few more components they might be waiting on.
They also show 12 enclosures in stock, 14 Expected 11/23/2020
https://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine?Keyword=kiwisdr
Check the http://kiwisdr.com page for the latest availability status. The kit version is now out-of-stock at Seeed but it's possible it will be restocked fairly quickly.
Out-of-stock at WiMo and ML&S currently. But in stock on Seeed's web site, both full version and board-only: https://www.seeedstudio.com/s/kiwisdr.html
More in transit according to WiMo, due in November.
I guess RS Components must have lowest priority to receive units.
I ordered 2 and payed back in July - and am still awaiting notification.
They told me back in July that it would be Jan 2021.
I guess they really mean Jan 2021............
You should really cancel with them and order from Mouser.
Generally out-of-stock now except for a few here and there and some board-only versions at Mouser. But telemetry reports 75 Kiwis are in final test at Seeed. So more on the way.
@KB8DOA: I have emailed Seeed asking why RS didn't (apparently) receive their order of 5 units from the last build. I can't understand why that situation is so screwed up.
Seeed is showing 10+ in stock as of 1830 UTC 1 Dec 2020. So I guess those units made it through final test 😀
As of this morning Mouser claims to have 18 metal enclosures in stock.
Back in stock at ML&S now.