K3 Where are the production units?
From Zerobeat
Where is my K3? !!! ...Updated February 25, 2008.
The K3 was announced just prior to the Dayton Hamvention, in May 2007.
Orders were accepted via the internet and on the phone and rapidly sold out two complete batches of radios and started a third. The ambitious scheduled called for a rollout in late July for those who ordered in the first batch. At the same time, the engineers were making fundamental changes to the user interface which required a new mapping for the front panel. As a result, the schedule was adjusted to late August. Key parts were still unavailable later in August, so a more "conservative" target delivery was agreed upon as October 9th, 2007.
Burning the midnight oil, the K3 "factory" was able to make it's dress rehearsal in private with lucky serial number #21 and in public with the specially assigned serial number #66 the week of October 8th, 2007 . Needing to be precise, they kept watch of these pilot units closely to ensure there were no problems of scale and at the same time they completed the accessories documents and gathered parts for the actual shipments in quantities.
K3 shipments began the week of Nov 12, 2007 in volume.
- The first production run of an estimated 300 K3's (orders taken from April 28, 2007 to May 15, 2007) was fully shipped by the end of month January, 2008.
- At the end of the first production run output increased dramatically to 125 units in January and 175 units in February. By the end of February, K3 orders from well into the previous July had been delivered.
- As of August 1, 2008 the first 1400 units have been produced.
- It appears that the backlog of orders is now being reduced at a rate of better than 2 to 1. That is to say that August 2008 shipped orders taken in February and March 2008. September 2008 should ship orders taken from April and May 2008. This is best guess, keeping in mind that order information is private to the company.
- A list of K3's received to date is kept, the list contains only those who have posted in public about receiving their transceiver.
Since only 20-30% of Elecraft customers are on the reflector, the reflector does not show every shipment.
Elecraft is ramping up production weekly. To maintain quality at the start, they sometimes pause for a couple of days to accept feedback to make sure that the batch K3s just shipped were packed 100% correctly.
They were extremely careful in the beginning to get this right and to make sure the quality level was high. Things picked up every week, they will shipped many more K3s each week.
To keep this in perspective, Orion was introduced in January 2002 and the first scheduled ship date was September 2002. It wasn't until March 2003 that the initial version of the radio was making it's way to anxious customers.
http://lists.contesting.com/_tentec/2002-01/msg00404.html
Elecraft has kept the wait a bit shorter while at the same time including a full working BETA test activity within that time.
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K3 STATUS -- a note from the lab
[Elecraft] K3 STATUS -- a note from the lab
Wayne Burdick n6kr at elecraft.com
Fri Nov 2 13:56:32 EST 2007
Since the K3's PCB modules are pre-assembled, we have to 100% test them, whether they're destined for a kit or for a fully-assembled unit. I thought I'd give you some flavor of what goes into this.
For the K3 RF Board, we use a computer-controlled signal generator and spectrum analyzer, along with the K3's built-in true-RMS audio voltmeter, to do MDS tests on each band (receive mode). While the process is partially automated, each unit's band-pass filters, first I.F. trap, and mixer balance must be carefully aligned by hand. We also sweep each band for return loss from the antenna through the T-R switch. During this test, some low-pass filter toroid windings must be hand-adjusted. In transmit mode, each band is checked for drive range, max power output, key-down current drain, spectral purity, etc.
Performance tests of this kind are also done on all other modules (there are over a dozen in even a basic K3). The results are highly repeatable, ensuring that both kit and factory-assembled K3s work equally well.
However, this turns out to be very time-consuming, so reducing test time through automation is one of our major ongoing efforts. I'm now pitching in to help our manufacturing-engineering team (Brian, W6FVI and Rene, WR6MTR) by adding test firmware to the K3 itself. K3 owners will benefit from this effort in another way, since some tests are added to the K3's POST routine (power-up self-test), and all of the added remote control commands can be used to advantage in third-party software applications.
That's the news from the lab. Back to work....
73, Wayne N6KR
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