Librem 14 "Road warrior" deliveries when?

Hardware
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Obviously there is a scale issue here. I can attest to the hundreds of HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Apple laptops that I have opened up, 0 have had this kind of fix applied. I suspect that it likely due to the fact that they are dealing with such large scale that if a batch of 500 or even 1000 laptops came in missing a piece they would scrap the boards and delay delivery instead of sending them to customers. Also they’re dealing with large enough scale that regulatory compliance is a part of the way testing process.

I do think it’s fair to hold purism to that higher standard though, especially since Purism does compare themselves to those companies to tout the things they do that those companies don’t. Those comparisons extend beyond just the parts that they choose to make them look good.

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174

I’m satisfied with Nicole’s response and assurances that this shouldn’t cause any issues with longevity, and greatly appreciate the transparency at this time.

Is it safe to assume with those assurances that Purism would be willing to extend warranty coverage for any laptops that it’s shown end up having complications (malfunctions/break) due to this fix? @Kyle_Rankin @nicole.faerber

I figure an official stance on that may help put others like myself at ease.

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175

What do you mean by “quality” laptop if not fully functioning and not affected in any way?

Its not an issue of functionality, but the way it was done. The poor solder job is in no way acceptable given the price tag of the unit. I, having paid over a thousand (others paying more than 3 grand) for the laptop, want no compromise on the quality of the done job.

Some will take it as is because they want their unit asap and want no further delays, but that’s their choice.

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176

Yeah I’m not an electrical engineer, but we’re talking about essentially grains of rice being held in-place by metal. My only concern would be wear from thermal expansion causing it to eventually crack but I imagine a beautiful solder job would have that same risk.

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177

Speaking as a J-STD-001 CIT, “quality” would be meeting the requirements set out in that standard.
The component placement and solder connections shown in these photos does not meet those requirements. It’s not a matter of opinion, I HAVE to reject stuff that looks like this.

Per 4.13, mounting of parts on parts need to be permitted by assembly drawings. I doubt you’d draw it like that. Even on the unit shown off in the blog post, it looks like you have a part hanging off the side and mostly above another part.

Per 4.18, the solder isn’t blending to the soldered surface because there’s a blunt spike on that one capacitor.

Per 7.5.4 table 7-4, the fillet is touching the top of the component in spots. There’s violations of side overhang, because the capacitor that slid off the side of the one it’s stacked on is effectively barely touching the terminations of the one beneath it. There could easily be no end overlap on end of these joints. I’d say there’s too much side overhang, as the land width is undefined and smaller than the component width.

Per 8.3.1, There’s a solder ball on top of one of the capacitors (in @craftkiller’s laptop). That’s REALLY likely to break off and short things out.

Per 8.3.2, per cleanliness designator C-22 which is to be used by default, flux can’t be just left on the board.

What needs to be done to address this is to redesign the fix. Make some documentation, like an official drawing, describing the fix. If you want to reassure customers, publish the drawing. I recommend using leaded capacitors that meet the values you had to insert, insulating the leads as needed, bending and attaching the leads directly to where they need to be so as to avoid problems with minimum electrical clearance, then staking the capacitor and lead wires in place, but what @NineX said might also work.

I don’t mean to sound angry, this is just is what that joint industry standard requires.

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178

Sure, while we don’t think this would cause any issues with longevity, if it would give you peace of mind we will extend the warranty on the hotfix specifically for an additional year.

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179

Thanks Kyle, and sorry to beat this horse.

Does that mean extending the entire warranty of the laptop by 1 year for those who have this hotfix? Or extending the warranty of these laptops arbitrarily beyond that if it’s shown this part was the cause of a failure/malfunction.

I’m specifically thinking of a situation where I purchased 1-year warranty, and in year 3 this hotfix breaks off and shorts something else out… am I out of luck in the 3rd year? What about 5th year, and so on?

If this hotfix does not affect the longevity of the laptop, we should assume the more likely failures (really, anything else on that motherboard) would occur before or at the same time as this failure – in which case it should be reasonable to expect Purism to stand by the statement of longevity for this hotfix beyond a 1-year limit.

At least that’s my thought… think of it as a “defect”, that isn’t a full on recall, but open to resolution if it were to cause issues in the future (Purism doesn’t seem to have any reason to believe it will).

Hope that makes sense.

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180

Will anyone with a pre-order be allowed to wait until you guys can ship laptops that aren’t hotfixed?

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181

Not the entire laptop, simply issues related to the hotfix failing specifically. We think the laptop is solid, but if folks like yourself are worried despite our assurances, that the hotfix would be less reliable, hopefully extending the warranty for that specific thing would give you peace of mind.

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182

So did I miss your answer somewhere or have you still not responded as to who exactly did the hot fixes? Someone at Purism? Or elsewhere?

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183

May I ask what is your order date?

184

In Nicole’s response:

Well, sadly on the last mile some issue popped up - not a functional issue, but an issue with the voltage regulators (that’s the area where this fix is applied) that needed to get addressed. Since the boards had already been made and populated there was no other way than to do it this way.

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185

Thanks for that, but doesn’t really clearly state whether they had the manufacturer add it on or they did it themselves and if they were doing it themselves why wasn’t this presented to purchasers right away?

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186

if it was done by purism,which i give a 50/50 of because only the easiest of questions are ever answered it seems,leaving no clarity on this question…then it becomes rather impossible for them to admit they did it after claiming for days to have been unaware of it.

I have had so much confidence and earlier in the thread defended delays (I understand delays, i would have understood delaying further because of what was shown in pictures and where we now find us) but, i feel… unsure now. And trust is everything,when thats essentially part of what you are selling.

The phone developer chiming in feigning ignorance and complete inability to understand why someone might have questions certainly did not help ,and did no favours for you,purism or nicole.

Since i cant refund,as to my understanding that feature is not available untill the order que reaches me,i will wait since i assume you ,and by you i mean purism, want to communicate internally (i hope you do,it seems like you dont,to an extent) and release an update on this adressing the many questions that on the forums have gone unadressed.

there are simply,in my opinion , far too many questions about how this happened. Who knew what,and when? Why were others not informed? Why did a customer discover it? Did purism do it or their supplier? Etc etc. Answers have been given,but none that answer the questions… (my opinion). And i am not trying to be a negative nancy. I sold friends on Purism products and values, tried to contribute and learn and have had no issues with the delays beyond trying to suggest constructively that in uncertain covid times where suppliers might give you a date ,miss it and say “Sorry” leaving you to take the blame, to not announce things untill theyre actually in stock ,storage,ready etc.

In an odd way, this thread charts my own path to going from extremely excited to extremely anxious, regardless of delivery dates or delays.

Sincerely not meant to be a hater, just asking questions anywhere else would be absolutely fine to ask. But as i said in an earlier posts, some members and a phone developer, seem to be more concerned with peoples concern,than why they are concerned.

Nothing against Nicole,Kyle or Purism or its employees.

Sincerely,
Jon Kovach

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187

For two or three days, two of which have been a weekend, and during which Chief Technology Officer was out of reach. The expectation that everyone in a company knows everything about their products is unreasonable.

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188

True, but after 6 months of delays you’d think this would be a hot enough topic internally where senior management is particularly in-tune with all current issues.

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189

So… Cool, we got an apology and pseudo-resolution (??). What does this mean for shipping? Does this mean there is a delay waiting to determine the quality of the solder points and hotfixes? Is there continued investigation that is still underway before shipping more units?

Have more than a handful of people (not Purism employees) actually received units during this ‘Librem 14 is shipping’ state?

Where are we in terms of this often talked about ‘shipping parity’? April is almost over, and there are reports of pre-orders from July that still haven’t received tracking information, so if everything is hunky dory in Purism’s eyes with the ‘fix’, where exactly are we?

A note of advice (likely to fall on deaf ears and blind eyes): Hire a PR person so the engineers can do engineering, and customers can get timely feedback.

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190

During which one employee stated purism was unaware of this issue and not responsible and looking into what happened , while nicole farbers reply indicated they were not only aware, it was purism who did the hotfix, and then a third answer saying nothing on wether this was done by purism or the supplier but indicating the supplier. All this cannot be true at once.

That a customer discovered it, when it seems purism was well aware (but didnt care? or failed to communicate internally,both equally problematic) is bad. That a phone developer chimed in to borderline taunt concerned customers and then in the other thread kyle closing it by saying well its there and we dont know how it got there,i dont know how it got there,but soldering and hardware is interesting learn more about it, now that all is resolved close the topic and “lets move on”.

What in the what what?

Mine and others questions and concerns are not only reasonable and measured. ANY other company would face a media fecal storm of epic proportions. A noble purpose only goes so far,money does not grow on trees and i put in a fair ammount,i am asking nothing that ANY other company would not URGENTLY wish to clear up.

Again, people are more concerned that customers are concerned,than why they are concerned…

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191

Excuse me, I never claimed that I have no idea what you are talking about. Instead, I asked in a naive way in order to know your answers, uncolored by what I think about it. I can’t see into your minds, after all.

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192

If you have a PR person or Community manager, now is the time where they would tell you that you added fuel to the fire, ignored multiple detailed and well written questions and feigned ignorance and that you should perhaps not be one of the now 4 people by my count to offer different answers and different treatment, rally the company and have everyone share everything they know so you can have one (1) person adressing all questions and concerns openly and unambigously… or is this ship without a captain,and individual compartmentalized (and why would you do that?) people giving whatever 1-30% of what they know or think piecemeal to the community and dodging the real questions. Which you did aswell,after multiple people in detail responded to you.

Which is why i am not the only one that thinks you need a PR/Community manager to handle communication from the company,and coordinate a unified response when an issue like this (and it is an issue, if you hadn’t noticed).

As a phone developer, are you current day to day on the librem 14? qualified to jump in and speak as Purism (as any employee does when they use their employee account to adress customers). ?

You could lock this thread too but with nearly 6k views the few voices you heard here , have a large silent or non registered following,following closely, One way or another, having recieved an L15 and ordered the L14 for a total price of 7000 dollars + insane EU import fees and VAT , its no problem for me if i feel that trust is broken or any other reason which i need not justify though i and others have, to in the end refund my 3500 dollars untill i feel trust is regained in a year or two,or not. And if me and a few others are being pushed further in that direction,alot of lurkers are going either “no thanks” or if they have an order,contemplating a refund too.

Not my company,not my circus,not my monkeys and not my problem. But its alarming that you (those of purism that have responded) dont seem to find it worthy of note or alarming with perhaps the exception of Nicole Farber who generally tries to genuinely provide information and answers, now and historically.

Shes the closest thing you have to a PR manager,

Kyle (no offense meant or intended) closing the other thread and saying “I dont know anything about this,im not really involved but hardware and soldering is interesting so learn about it well that answers all questions,topic closed and i quote ; lets move on.”

What in the actual ccmpany conduct is going on? I would not accept half of this from ANY company, again,money dont grow on trees and if you message is multiple and obfuscated and questions and concerns swept under the rug then you are not worth your price tag.

And again,im saying it,others have said it,so a lot more are thinking it.
You essentially had a foul up, turned it into a PR disaster and now youre compounding interest,
I am fast loosing the ability to remain civil so i will leave it at this for now,
I eagerly await more of the same…

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