Rotary Un-Smartphone Update No. 4

[Justine Haupt]

Greetings Rotary Cell Phone pre-order customers and subscribers!

*Partial Shipments for Solstice by Request
*We're approaching a year since I first started accepting pre-orders for 
the Rotary Un-Smartphone. At the time, it was inconceivable to me that I 
wouldn't be able to fill orders even by Christmas of 2021. The rest of 
this email details that topic, but the first thing I want to say is 
that, considering that many of you pre-ordered this kit as a gift, I 
would like to offer partial shipments for arrival by December 21st (in 
time for Christmas) for anyone who requests it. These partial kits will 
include everything /except/ the electronics, which will ship later, when 
available. If you've pre-ordered and would like to take me up on this 
offer, please email me.

*Dealing with the chip shortage:*
I decided to take somewhat drastic measures to mitigate the effect of 
the global chip supply problem. Normally, one in my situation would 
accumulate all the parts needed to produce a printed circuit board 
(PCB... hereafter "board"), preferably enough to make thousands at a 
time to be cost effective, and then send them off to an "assembly house" 
to have everything soldered together in a mass production workflow. 
Given the current situation, waiting to accumulate thousands, or even 
/hundreds/, of all the needed components simultaneously would take too long.

Instead, I decided to build up my own PCB assembly line, which will let 
me be dynamic and produce boards in arbitrarily low quantities as parts 
come in, potentially having them in the mail the same day that 
bottleneck components arrive. Below you can see my new solder reflow 
oven and used paste printer, with the floor marked out for a used pick 
and place machine. This undisclosed basement on the North Fork of Long 
Island is effectively my new manufacturing and fulfillment center, with 
the last couple machines set to be delivered before the end of this 
month. With all this in place, if I accumulate parts for, say, 10 
boards, I can just run them off and send them out, and keep operating 
that way indefinitely.

Basement1

So, how do we stand regarding the chip shortage? I've managed to obtain 
most of the components that were originally problematic in quantities 
between 100-1000 units, but some of the other chips that originally 
showed no sign of being affected by the shortage -- which I delayed 
ordering to accommodate my funding profile -- are now unavailable. 
Because I know many of my customers and subscribers are engineers or 
have technological connections, the part numbers I can't find /at all/ 
are FT230XS, EE2-3TNU and TOBY-R200-82B. Similar alternatives to the 
FT230XS are just as scarce though I"m not sure about alternatives to the 
EE2-3TNU yet. The TOBY-R200 is the global variant of the cell modem. I 
also only have about 100 of the ATmega2560V with no stock anywhere, 
which is concerning.

*Projecting Availability of Complete Phone Kits
*Right now, it's looking like the N. American version of the phone will 
be ready sooner than the Global version, as I have stock of the former 
modems and not the latter, but the other components missing above, 
however trivial in appearance, are a bottleneck. I could wind up finding 
these parts tomorrow, when I do my daily search, or in months.

*2 Regions, Not 4
*Over the summer a prospective customer pointed out an important 
technical issue with the cellular modem I selected. This led to choosing 
a different version of that component from the same product family, and 
the new version only has two regional variants: N. America and Global. 
This is a good thing. I have 200 of the N. American cellular modems 
in-hand, but the Global version is still Unobtainium. I'm pretty sure 
the N. American version will work globally, and vice versa, but the 
Global version supports a couple of extra bands that the N. American 
version doesn't, which makes it more versatile on disparate regional 
networks. I'm guessing this is why that version is so hard to find right 
now, as it seems the more desirable of the two. Anyone who pre-ordered a 
region other than "N. America*" *will be getting the Global version, and 
I'll be updating the website to reflect this change in options imminently.

*About 5G*
YES, the phone works on the new 5G networks. I'm stopping myself from 
writing an essay on how what the big carriers are calling "5G" actually 
isn't (AT ALL), and how the LTE standard that the rotary phone uses will 
work on the 5G/4G networks even after /actual/ 5G proliferates. Actual 
5G adds mm-wave bands to the LTE standard for very high data rates in 
dense urban areas, like streaming video, etc. Not something that's 
useful for a voice-only phone, and there aren't any devices or carriers 
I'm aware of that are actually exploiting the mm-wave bands at this 
time. Hence, what's being touted as 5G in aggressive add campaigns (at 
least in the US) are not actually 5G in any way, shape, or form. It's a 
schemeto get people to trade-up to newer phones. The Rotary 
Un-Smartphone is a fully modern device, totally compatible with the 
newest LTE networks, whether you call it 4G or 5G.

*Design Status*
For better or worse, I've allowed the chip shortages to pace my effort 
on design finalization. Regardless, I'm proud to be able to say that the 
phone works great on the new 4G/5G networks, that I'm pleased with the 
call quality, and that the RUSP became my main personal phone again as 
of a couple weeks ago. I'm excited that the rotary mechanism really 
feels as good as I wanted it to. The bigger ePaper display (for which I 
had to write new drivers) works and will be protected by Corning Gorilla 
Glass, the SIM and MicroSD slots are all working, and the bell ringer 
mechanism works. This was a lot of work. A lot of frigging work. There 
/are/ a couple loose ends I'm working on resolving, though. The OLED 
display isn't cooperating yet, and the impedance matching networks for 
the antennas need major optimization, but all soluble problems in the 
next month or so.

Oh, and the injection molding tooling process is complete. I'll take 
good, complete photos when I can, but here's a quick shot of the casings 
in all the colors:

All RUSP Colors


*Thank You
*I really mean this, especially to anyone who's placed a pre-order. I 
would not have been able to make this happen without the pre-order 
funding, which has gone to manufacturer procurement, parts orders, 
machines, and test equipment. Thank goodness I don't have to pay 
anyone's salary [yet]. And of course, if all this waiting and chip 
shortage business is getting to you, please don't hesitate to ask for a 
refund. I do think we're getting close, though.

~Justine

P.S., to unsubscribe, email me with that word.


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