Newest info I saw was this.
Guys,
I want to keep this short, but I will update our status and projects at this
point in time so everybody fully understands where we are at and how things are
going.
I was venting the other night on our personal forum in regards to seeking
creditor protection. Yes the past few months have been very slow for sales and
we have in fact asked lenders for lenience on payments. The truth is we just
increased our equipment capital by over $200,000 at a time when we just lost a
bunch of injection mould tools in China and the economy in general is sliding
backwards again. So right now I am completely overwhelmed trying to get out
machining related contracts to generate another revenue source. We do have a
large number of OEM clients and contracts; the issue is we have to be shipping
usable materials to these people to get paid. The good news in all of this is
(A) we're now able to do all of our machining and injection mould tooling in
house, and ( the additional revenue stream will enable us to reinvest in our
equipment and capability to do more of the work required for our product in
house. Already, I have seen huge benefits to being able to manage an entire
project from start to finish with no third parties or overseas manufacturing.
The bottom line is we're hurting but we're not going under, in the contrary,
Railflyer is on track to be a very powerful player in the model railroad
industry in the next few months.
http://i1192.photobu...05/IMAG0101.jpg
Tooling – most of the tooling we started in 2010 and 2011 is unusable except for
items related to the traction motors and the moulds for the Blomberg and HTC
side-frames. We are going to start machining new inserts for our mould base to
replace these lost items in October/ November. We have also started the process
of getting our own injection mould machine. This will be in place around
January. By then, we will likely have all machining done on a good majority of
our first kit releases. The goal at this point is to have everything done for
the initial kits around May 2013 which is very possible and could be sooner as a
number of key areas for other aspects of the project are near completion. We
are upgrading the injection mould machine to do MIM (metal injection moulding)
so items like the stanchions will be done in house.
Exhaust Hatch Sample – Railflyer
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Electrical – sound files for seven locomotive types are completed. We are
about two weeks work to completion on the PCB revisions and firmware for the
initial motor control units (MCU's). I actually have to stop using this term;
we are now using the ARM7 processor for all variations. We're a bit behind on
payments to our contractor due to the CNC integration difficulties however this
project is a priority to be released. With the electrical system completed, we
have firmware and hardware for any and all of our future locomotive kits in
place. There is enough memory and features to keep this system ahead of
anything on the market for years to come.
Layout Control – This is still another priority. We are going with a
battery/wireless solution that replaces track based control signals.
Essentially your locomotive is now your DCC command station, the tablet is the
interface. While the goal of our system is wireless, you can still use any of
our electrical products on existing DCC systems. The tablets are done; we held
back the shipment until things pick up.
New Products – A number of new products are in production including the plows
and exhaust hatches. We're also going to do a number of wheel variations for
our traction motors and do new heat sinks for the motors as this will speed up
assembly time.
DP 6240 CAM – Railflyer
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DP 6241 CAM – Railflyer
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Restock & Shipments– A few items are very back ordered, they are going to start
being reordered over the next few months to catch up. Mostly, we need speakers
and some photo-etch items like DP 6556, DP 6610, and DP 6612. As sales pick up,
we'll direct the money into these items. DP 6556 GE Deck Ditch Lights will ship
this week from our supplier in sufficient quantities to take a chunk of the back
log out. I am also going to work on soldering more LED's to get caught up ASAP.
Some items like frame weights will also be machined and shipped to fill this
void.
Thank you for the patience. I know our online critics loved the news of us
going under but it's not true. We really did just amp up the game, however at
the same time, I have been completely overwhelmed by this process and hence,
everything has fallen to pieces the past few months.
The good news is that in the past two weeks I have really learned some good
lessons on machining and we're starting to see the type of products that I've
wanted now for years.
All the best,
Christopher Howard, Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodel.com
