Farnell

[smithh]

Any thoughts on the situation at Farnell.

I expressed interest on the original R-Pi site.

I pre-ordered at the R-Pi site when requested.

Then we were told to register interest at the Farnell site. I did that, and RS.

Then was asked by Farnell to pre-order, who got in before RS.

Then was told by Farnell it is in on back order, with supplier lead time of 135 days.

Then for email from Farnell about compliance.

Then nothing.

My order sits online at Farnell.

In each case, I got in early for the pre-orders and ordering, in most cases within minutes.

I can see it in the 'my account' system at Farnell.

But they don't respond to email or other types of requests.

Not a good choice of supplier for such a hot product?

What can be done?

[mkopack]

Sigh...

READ the BLOG posts here....

Only 2000 RPi's have actually shipped out due to the Ethernet port issue in March. Another 8000 or so should ship next week (at least that's what we've been led to believe.)

Everyone's Farnell order should be getting a status update next week (another thread here indicated that.)

In short - if you'd read the blog posts on the front page of this site you'd know what is going on and wouldn't have unrealistic expectations...

[Chris.Rowland]

There's no magic that can make the number of Pi's required - about 30 times the number in the first batch - appear.  We have to wait for them to be produced. It's a shame but that's it.

Both RS and Farnell have been trying to keep people informed, RS with emails and messages on their site, Farnell with an order and messages on their site. The RPF have been getting and posting all the information they can.

Looking through the three sites will show this.

I don't think that any supplier could have started when they did - at the end of February - and got this done any faster. Twelve weeks is a pretty normal lead time for components and it only wants one component not to arrive to prevent the whole thing from happening. As purchasers we don't normally get the excitement of seeing this for ourselves.

[JohnW]

smithh said:


Any thoughts on the situation at Farnell.


There have been plenty  of rumours. As far as I can tell the most reliable uppdate was the one posted on the main site on April 18th.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1081

If you ordered before the 18th your pi will be delivered before the end of June, otherwise it will be in July.

Beyond that it is all open to speculation. Apart from that, I have no idea how many people were in front of me in the queue, or what the delivery pattern is for orders, so it is just a case of wait and see.

[texy]

I asked about the fee t shirt this week as I forgot to mention the size when I placed my pi order on the 1st March. They "added the t shirt to my order". I thought I would then ask if there were any updates on when my pi would likely shop and I got the same quote above.
Still, shouldn"t be too long now, eh?
Texy

[smithh]

Thank you for the replies. By coincidence I received an update from Farnell the day after posting this note, stating an ' in stock notification' and then a second email stating 'great news .... your R-Pi will be delivered in the week commencing 28/05/2012. 

Farnell have redeemed themselves.