SP140 Batch 3 shipping status?

Ya I get it. I hope they ship by end of next week. Are you reaching out to them and they aren’t responding? Or you just haven’t heard from them on them not reaching out to you on their own?? Every time I reach out they get back to me pretty quick.

Last I heard they had shipped a few out but they are mostly assembling them all at once and the netting alone was taking 2 hours to assemble… not sure what that really tells me as we don’t know all the other factors but that’s the info I received…

If you haven’t please email me for updates. I don’t always check the forum regularly but I do go though every email and answer them as soon as I can.

As for shipping units. We got the remaining parts in the 23rd (mostly will come back to this). Then took that weekend to unpack parts and make sure all of it was there and parts were made correctly. So doing assemble of some units is required to check this. So some parts like the ABS standoffs, gooseneck bar nylon washer and wiring harness were made incorrectly . So those parts had to be made again and ship. Take a week to make and ship at the very least so that’s way checking and doing some test assembly is important.

In the mean time frame assembly and netting on the frames has been taking place. For reference we have a warehouse/company doing the building/shipping of parts and motors. They helped out a bit with last batch of SP140, we did this to get them up to speed and to make sure they were familiar with the unit and our parts. So they did about 60% of the assemblies for batch 2, but I was also there with our crew helping the make the parts and so on. So for this batch I thought stuff would go a little faster/smoother then it has for assembly, especially the netting. For the first week it was taking around 2hrs to put the netting on each frame, should take around 30mins. They are better now but still some improvement to go. At least at this point they are around 60% though the netting, then they can move onto finishing up the power packs and doing final testing and shipping.

I been over that most every day helping things along and making sure stuff is being done correctly. The thing is I would also like to bring a few of my guys to speed things up more but it is kind of awkward to bring outside workers into a company that already has employees and do the work we agreed upon that they would do and start doing it ourselves again. The whole point is to off load that manufacturing and shipping to them so we can focus on new designs, development, support etc. Also I am sure you guys don’t want it if I am sick or on a trip or something replacement parts or orders don’t ship out because I’m not at the warehouse (and im not great as shipping parts). So I think this is best long-term just wish it didn’t come at a cost of a slower turn around period for shipments right now.

There other factors but that should give a good idea of the setup and situation. So as of now frame assembly and netting should be done by the end of this weeks (at least for the pre-ordered units). Then testing on the power packs can start. Then we should have those corrected parts in next week and we can get all pre-order units completed. This is looking like the last part that will be in 1Z30AV560495451144 UPS just for transparency. Then this is for those ABS standoffs 1Z6922TT0492552787.

Then for PCB on the controller boards those should be shipped soon, we do have 36pcs that are ready to go with pre-order units but will need those others to come in to fulfill the rest. They are finishing up and some already shipped so the controllers shouldn’t be a holdup.

Anyway it just takes me a long time to write up detailed report, this took me like and hour because I’m slow at typing and a weak writer and its not even very detailed. So it just take away time from getting stuff actually done so I generally think its better to focus on getting the stuff done over talking about it. So please forgive me for the lack of communications as I’m focused on getting units out. If you see me talking a lot on the forum or something that probably means nothing is getting done :slightly_smiling_face:

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I don’t think you need to reply to every message on here keeping you so busy typing a few sentences here and there that you don’t work on anything else all day but a post like this every so often after a huge delay of orders shipping out keeps your current customers from complaining to your future customers about being in the dark and never knowing what’s going on or when their unit will ship when in their head they are thinking I placed my order in January of 2022 and the website said eta on shipping was end of May and it’s now the end of July.

So in my opinion your hour of typing that message was well worth your time. Thanks for the update.

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If you haven’t gotten an update between your ordering and now I would definitely suggest emailing in, you can get updates there. What I was saying is the forum is not the best spot to get info/updates from.

And what I was saying is a more detailed explanation like this one of why the delay is so significant helps. Not just an update of hopefully next week when in reality it’s going to be another month.

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But this should be the best place to get updates. Spending a little time posting a weekly status update here will save you a lot of time responding to individual email/texts. And it will, as Michael mentioned, save you a lot of headache with frustrated customers.

Just clamming up – even if you have to give disappointing news – isn’t a good way to run a business. In my experience, people would far prefer to get disappointing or bad news than just to be left in the dark wondering what’s going on.

And it’s 100% fine that writing and typing is difficult for you. It’s difficult for a lot of people. But there are ways around that. I’m pretty sure that if someone asked you verbally what the status was, you could have given them an oral summary in two minutes. So use that. Nearly every phone and computer these days does text-to-speech. Or ask someone for help. Find someone who you can dictate to, and let them type it up for you. Heck, I’ll even do it if you need a volunteer!

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Agreed 100% … as someone who deals with outgoing customer service often, I would suggest you don’t set the precedent that everyone should email you directly when they want an update. Spending an hour a week or every few days making a post like this has to be less time consuming than a personal email from everyone with an order. Maybe I’m wrong on that but as Grigsby said… I’m sure a bunch of us would gladly type up a dictated message for you. I too volunteer. Shoot one of us a bi-daily voice message and we’ll post here no problem.

Not for us to tell you how to run your business, but customer service makes or breaks projects like this all the time so please listen to your customers =] A small update goes a LONG way. I’m sorry you are overwhelmed with this batch and it’s gotta be frustrating to be dealing with the delays. Thank you for taking the time to update us, it’s greatly appreciated.

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Good morning all. I’m new to this forum and very new to the sport. I received a shipment status update from Paul recently and just thought I’d share. I simply asked for the expected shipment date of my order and he said ‘…shipped by the end of the month’. I placed my order 21 May, so that may give others a rough idea of where they sit in the queue, if 31 July is an accurate guesstimate.

I plan to post again, as I have some gear questions. Thx

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From the sounds of it they make them all at the same time basically so all our units will probably go out around the same time. I was told mine will ship this week though. What sucks is now I’ll be out of town as I’m heading to California for training where I’ll now have to rent equipment to use and fly with a gas unit.

I can certainly understand the feeling of disappointment. I was hoping to have my SP140 when I did my training, too. I’m already a P2 (paraglider) pilot, so my training only took a few hours.

I have to tell you, though, that in the end I was glad I didn’t have my SP140 with me. The student/rental paramotor that my instructor gave me was heavy, beat up, with a steel harness and a rigid cage. The bottom of the harness acted like skid plates if the student landed on their ass. It was clearly made to withstand some bad launches and landings by inexperienced pilots.

There happened to be another pilot there (not a student) with a fairly new SP140, and the difference between the two was stark. The SP140 was beautiful, sleek, and high-tech with a flexible cage. It was like the difference between a race car and a dump truck.

So in the end, I was glad I had the opportunity to fly the dump truck so if I had some bad landings, I didn’t mess up my beautiful brand new electric motor and harness.

I also learned some basics about the two-stroke engine, so if I ever have a need (or opportunity) to fly a gas engine, I won’t be completely lost. It also further convinced me that choosing electric was a good decision. The gas engines can be pretty finicky and even just being there at the field I could see how much maintenance they require.

So after all that, I was glad I ended up training on the two-stroke dump truck and wouldn’t ding up my beautiful brand new machine while I was learning to launch and land properly.

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What’s funny is the guys I’m training with has a batch 2 SP140 and sold it.

Did he say why?

He is older and didn’t like how heavy it was.

I have received shipping confirmation!

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That’s awesome!! Still waiting on mine…:sob:

Woot! If your earlier presumption was right, maybe we’ll all be getting one! So excited

mine shipped will have it on tues

Mine is shipping Monday with 4 others.

I received mine yesterday. It is not assembled as much as the videos show.
There are some differences with batch 3. The frame is split into upper and lower sections. It is assumed that velcro straps provided are what’s meant to hold them together. No instructions in the packages, but everything seems pretty obvious except for how the throttle plugs in, and do I need to do any of the pre-programming. No USB cable came, which I do have my own so no big problem, but not providing one makes me wonder if that’s because it’s not needed.
The charger did have some instruction for charging of battery. Harness install can be found on the internet if needed.
The standoffs for motor/ESC mounting is one now rather than stacked as before.

Yep you are correct, it’s not needed! We also know that many people already have these cables. You can use the USB port to update in the future.

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