Hi all,
We’re in the final stretches of our largest manufacturing run yet, and we look forward to our new batch of customers joining the FarmBot fun soon! Here’s an update of where we’re at with the production, and the resulting estimated shipping times for everyone who has been patiently waiting:
Genesis and Genesis XL v1.5
The 125 new Genesis and 150 new Genesis XL kits are en route from our manufacturing partner to our warehouse in California. We found a few minor issues with the first production kits during quality assurance builds last week, with all but one of those issues already being resolved. The final issue is with the UTM cables, which unfortunately need to be reworked. To save time, we’re reworking the cables in parallel with the freight shipment of the kits, and we’ll add the cables to final kit boxes as a final step at FarmBot HQ before shipping to customers.
At this time, we’re hoping that the Genesis and Genesis XL v1.5 kits will be on their way to customers mid-February.
QA build of Genesis v1.5
Updated plates
Express and Express XL v1.0
The 175 Express and 250 Express XL kits are in the final stages of pre-assembly and packing. We experienced some delays in the design of the two custom egg-carton inserts that will cradle and protect the sub-assemblies and other parts during transit, but I think ensuring the goods arrive without damage is much more important than arriving a little earlier. This is the first time we’ve ever done this level of pre-assembly of a FarmBot, and the large and awkwardly shaped subassemblies proved difficult to efficiently arrange and design inserts for.
It is still unclear when exactly all of the Express and Express XL kits will be ready to ship, though we are working to rush-ship a handful of units to customers on deadlines before the end of January, with the remainder likely toward the end of February. Due to the unpredictable nature of manufacturing and our commitment to not ship anything pre-maturely, we cannot at this time provide any firmer dates.
Express insert sample
Other parts and MAX kits
Once all of the pre-ordered kits are sent out, we’ll be updating our online shop with availability for some our newest parts that people with older kits can upgrade or expand with. Think: new Farmduino boards, Pi Adapter Boards with RTCs, new modularized cabling, gantry-mounted seed storage, etc.
Hardware from the new Genesis kits
And as previously communicated, the Genesis MAX and Express MAX kits will be produced in a separate manufacturing run later this year. The good news there being that those kits share 98% or more of the same components as their smaller siblings.
Thank you for your patience
I understand that the new kits will be shipping 10+ weeks later than originally anticipated when we began accepting pre-orders, and I thank all of our pre-order customers for their patience. We remain committed to providing the best product we can, and sometimes that takes a little longer to pull off than we predict.
