Oh, man. Flippers are gradually starting shipping. This is probably the most exciting moment in the project's life so far. We’re getting everything ready to ship 5k units. It’s a tedious process since we have to coordinate shipping to over 120 countries! We had to get a lot of paperwork done: customs documents, radio, cryptographic certificates, tons of other stuff. Hell of a lot of paperwork.

We’re still facing challenges related to component shortages that hinder our production. Let’s take a look at how we’re getting everything ready for shipping, take a peek at how the production’s going, and what we’re going to do next.

Compliance & Customs Documents

It's important for us that Flipper Zero is absolutely legal for import into all countries. We’re getting all the necessary certificates and customs documents to make this work.

In addition to radio, cryptographic, electronic, and ecological certifications we also had to get over 20 different tax IDs in the EU, Great Britain, Australia, and Canada.

You can find all the latest compliance documents here: flipperzero.one/compliance
We will be keeping this page updated as new documents arrive.

Production

Right now our production line is outputting 5 thousand devices per week, and we’re working hard to get it up to 10k/week till February.

We’re still experiencing issues with global components shortage, and we are constantly seeking ways to overcome them to keep the production line going. Something that was readily available yesterday may just disappear altogether tomorrow, or the supplier may suddenly cancel the delivery without any warning.

Large-scale production is all about finding things to optimize. Every second saved during the assembly equals to more devices per day.

It's impossible to solder the Sub-GHz antenna and the LCD screen by the reflow oven, so we had to construct a special rig that holds these parts in place while a robotized solder iron whooshes around and attaches them to the PCB.

It’s important to test all the elements of every PCB before assembling the device. To test the buttons on the Main board, we made a pneumatic poking machine that physically presses all the buttons. Turned out pretty cool!

Each person on the production line does only one simple task. This leads to fewer mistakes which in turn leads to fewer defects during the final assembly. It simplifies the necessary training as well, so scaling the production line is as easy as just adding more people to every stage.

After the assembly and testing the devices are packed in shipping boxes, with 50 Flippers in each. The boxes are then palletized. The resulting pallets are loaded into containers heading for direct injection to our major regions. To countries with fewer orders quantity, orders will be sent out by individual parcels.

Production flaws

We’re facing a lot of flaws during the production at the moment. These are problems that only turn up when ramping up the production, and they are hard to detect during the early stages. Most of them simply don't occur unless the devices are assembled in large numbers.

The good news is that we’re catching defects right on the production line using our thorough testing stations, so the defective devices aren’t going to be shipped to the end-users. Every Flipper goes through 7 stages of testing before assembly and two more before finally getting into the box. We’ve spent a tremendous amount of time and effort to fine-tune this process to be as smooth as possible.

Defect rate

• Main PCB — 7%
  - The SD card holder is placed incorrectly. This leads to the detect pin not getting soldered and the SD card doesn’t work. We’re remaking the placer’s suction cup to make it all suck less.
  - Plastic parts of the GPIO contacts are bubbling up due to high temperatures in the reflow oven. We’re making changes to the process so this won’t happen in the future.
  - The Sub-GHz antenna placement at times deviates more than it should, which leads to problems during the assembly. We’re fixing the solder jig to keep it within acceptable tolerances.

• iButton PCB — 1.4%
  - Crooked pogo pins. We were putting on too much soldering paste, so the pogo pins were drifting when baked in the reflow oven. This leads to the pins not poking out through the case when assembled.

• Assembled device and mechanics — 4%
  - The molding factory messed up some of the post-processing. The sprew wasn’t removed well enough on the lower lid. When assembling the case this results in a gap, and gaps suck.

Shipping

Shipping 60k devices to 120+ countries is a very challenging task. We’re tightly working with our logistics partner to make this process as seamless and predictable as possible.

Thanks to COVID-19 we constantly have to route around the local restrictions. Just recently several countries have imposed flight bans due to Omicron variant, which has an impact on moving stuff around the world as well.

• We will hand over the first 5 000 orders to the logistics before the end of January, this batch will be heading to the United States. We’re sending only orders with white Flippers without the ESP WiFi board to keep any possible defects from getting out of the factory while we improve the process further.
• We will be sending out 20k more by the end of February. And we plan to ship the rest of the orders by the end of March, both Kickstarter and pre-orders from our shop, if all goes smoothly.
• Since the pandemic situation is far from stable (of course we had to get this Omicron right when we were about to ship) and we want to keep the defect rate predictable, we’ve formed a plan of sequential shipping by regions:
  - USA / 20k
  - EU and UK / 20k
  - Russia / 7k
  - Australia and Canada / 5k
  - Rest of the world (70+ countries) / 3k
• All parcels will be sent by airmail. After your order is transferred to the shipping partner, delivery will take from 6 to 18 business days, depending on your region and distance to the nearest local warehouse.

FAQ

When will I receive my Flipper?

We are doing our best to ship everything out in Q1 2022. Please be patient and don’t bug us with this question, as we’re really busy with the production and logistics. We’re working non-stop and this question will not make it happen any faster.

How do I check if it's shipped?

All sent orders will be marked accordingly in BackerKit. You can always check the status yourself, just get a link to your account here (use your Kickstarter email).

When your order ships its status will change to “Your order is shipping” and you will get the tracking number. Check out the screenshots on the right for an example of how it looks:

How do I change the shipping address?

You can change your shipping address in your account now and we will warn you before blocking all changes to the shipping addresses. The first warning will come prior to a week, and the last warning two days before locking in the address. After it is locked, changing the address will no longer be possible.

I still haven’t paid for shipping

If you haven’t managed to pay for shipping and add-ons on BackerKit before this option became unavailable, your account may have an outstanding debt. We will enable PayPal in February to provide you the option to cover this debt. Please wait for a separate email, and don’t worry — your order will not be forgotten or lost.