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Saturday, July 28, 2018

Code name "Swiftlet" - PCB Fab

Projects / Project Swiftlet  Original post date: 07/24/2015

Going to take a little break from codenaming PCB after Comic book characters as they don't quite have the fit for this project. Code name for this PCB is "Swiftlet". It is an agile little bird that use simple but effective echolocation for navigating caves in total darkness.

Here is the the latest PCB in a panel. I am going to go over that and might order the PCB later tonight if everything looks right.



Files sent to PCB Proto place. Time for this little bird to fly. Initial proto PCB build are now on my Github.

The PCB vendor sent me this picture this morning. That looks like my PCB. The main PCB is slightly bigger than a 2 AA battery case. The silkscreen alignment on the front actually looks right too. That speaker grill came out but looks different. I'll have to measure it at some point.

It is going to be taking the long way home on the postal system. They are using paypal postal labels and I have been told that tracking won't be available for 3-4 days. China Post seems to be slower since earlier this year.

Paypal package:

It is going to take a slow trip up north to Beijing where the International mail get sent out. My other project is taking the same trip a couple of days earlier.



Last entry: 5th Aug: Flight departure from Bejing. It would take about a day to arrive in Canada.
It missed the flight on 3rd Aug by a few hours and got on flight on 5th. It would seem like flights are every other day.

Still no status update on the arrival. Hope it didn't run into Super Typhoon Soudelor. Meanwhile the PCB of my other project that left China is still sitting at the Canada Custom for the 3rd day.


Right now the postal delay really ties my hand. I was hoping to get the PCB assembled and have at least a week working on the firmware. Given the slow Canada Custom, I would be luck at all to get the bare board before end of next week. Canada Post isn't know to be speedy, so it'll take them at least 2 days (and likely more) to just move a package from the west coast to the east.

This is crazy. My package went all the way up to Bejing, then took another trip back down south to Hong Kong (which is 45 minutes next door to the PCB place), then supposedly arrived in Vancouver the the 6th. It basically wasted 1 week for a big tour in China. Canada Post still have no record that they have received it.

Hard to tell what's going on here as now there is no longer tracking. There is a new date on the status of my other project. that was sent out 2 days earlier I can only assume that the first package might have passed through the Customs on the 17th. Or could this be the IT upgrade this Friday?

Editorial note: This is exactly point when Canada Post decided not to share it internal tracking info.  For a couple of months after this, I could still get some tracking info using a bug in their system.  This is first time I have seen downgrade in IT system.


I got a package notification card for my PCB that was sent 2 days earlier in the mail today, so I guess it is a matter of next week if/when this package would arrive assuming that for whatever reason Canada Post decided to shut off the tracking. Since there are no info all, there are chances that custom could take a longer time or that it was lost for some reasons.

Looks like the slow customs finally let the package through and now the lazy delivery person would rather hand filled a notice, go into the mailroom to put for the card than to try to delivery the actual registered mail package. Looks like I am going to do some soldering tonight when they drop off the undelivered packages to the local outlet across the street. I am going to pull my trick of getting information from supposedly untracked packages.

Reminds me of the TV show "True North" about a Canadian mountie in the US.  One ep. they had someone at the Canadian embassy with perfect French saying she doesn't understand French.


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