Scannermax 506s

[Bradfo69]

Nearly two years of waiting since I saw the first one..... shame you can't just reach through the screen and grab it.

[rns0504]

ScannerMAX Mach DSP with what is quite possibly the last set of Saturn 5's that will ship from Pangolin, as we are finalizing the details on the new Saturn '5B'- datasheet coming soon!

Not exactly the Mach Mini which everyone is waiting for as well.... but this little sample for Ed is certainly related!

[andy_con]

sadly it takes pangolin 5 years to deliver products they talk about

[rns0504]

That may be true in some aspects- but certainly with the scanners we want to make sure they are fully vetted before offering for public sales. Pangolin has certainly been delivering both Saturns with Mach DSP amplifiers and Compact 506 scanners for several years now to OEM clients while preparing for public sale- our small team of assemblers (here, in Orlando, in the United States... not China) is putting out several hundred units per month- many hundreds of these sitting on a holding shelf, for when the Mach Mini is deemed 100% ready to go and up to the quality standards expected by Pangolin.

[WookieBoy]

Ok. I'll bite.

Do we have a real eta yet? :/

[andy_con]

its like ford selling a new car, look at this great car we have, its awesome the best car money can buy, oh but it doesn't come with an engine. you will have to source your own engine, good luck.

that's how it is with the 506 scanners, selling half a product

[WookieBoy]

Hmmm. Yeah. Sort of...

But I'd like to know if the amp actually has an eta or not yet. Either version. Anything that will actually make the new 506 or Saturn scanners a "complete" product rather than a project I have to finish myself... I have enough of those already!
But i also don't want to be in the same situation I was with waiting for the elusive fb4... waiting, waiting, being told to buy .nets, waiting then giving up, sorting work around with usb extenders and fb3s then five weeks later getting an email announcing the release of the product I'd been waiting for...
Now I've spent my money for the 8 dacs I was thinking of buying. I'll wait till I need more before looking seriously at fb4 again.

So to avoid me doing the same here, can we have an eta on a complete scanner system please Pangolin?
Otherwise, EMS are looking promising now... They have tried and tested product ON THE SHELF!
Sorry if this sounds a bit "ranty" but I'm sick to death of the "marketing tease" you keep posting here...

[rns0504]

its like ford selling a new car, look at this great car we have, its awesome the best car money can buy, oh but it doesn't come with an engine. you will have to source your own engine, good luck.

that's how it is with the 506 scanners, selling half a product

For the hobbyist market, very true. However up until now, we provide these to OEM manufacturers who had an existing driver which worked with the C506 with minimal changes, or built their own amps for the C506 scanners (ex. Kvant and X-Laser). That is why we havent really pushed these on the hobbyist market yet other than providing updates as time goes on; if someone approaches Pangolin about wanting to try a set we certainly hook them up but also ensure they have a driver lined up before going through with the sale.

I can certainly appreciate the frustration, and more-so if Pangolin was really screaming "Come buy our scanners!!!" from the mountaintops. But other than discussing the latest in innovations and progress (isnt that what this forum is about?) and mentions at LEMs, we've stayed fairly low-key when it comes to actually selling the scanners, until the time is right. And trust me; all of us here certainly are looking forward to that time, once we are completely satisfied with the product as a whole. Using your analogy, we certainly dont want a situation where people would say, "Ford made such a great truck, so much potential, but that engine is absolutely terrible and nobody is satisfied. They shouldn't have released it until they got it right and thoroughly tested it!" (Referring to the Ford 6.0 Liter Diesel sold from 2003-2006 or so. Considered by many to be one of the worst, if not THE worst, mass production engine of all time... Ford was up against a hard deadline by the EPA to phase out the old 7.3L workhorse and released the 6.0L engine without enough testing or development. Ford had to buy back hundreds or thousands of trucks, and nearly every single one sold came back for warranty work for severe internal engine failure, damaging Ford's reputation in the Diesel truck market to this day. Searching Ford 6.0L Diesel on Google, 9 of the first 10 results are about how to get your engine to actually run or get it running again or regarding class action lawsuits... the only result not related to this is Ford's own website!). Certainly, we want to make sure it is 100% ready-to-go before releasing to the public.

[andy_con]

excuses excuses, don't sell on the hobby market if its such a problem

give us a complete product

[absolom7691]

excuses excuses, don't sell on the hobby market if its such a problem

give us a complete product

I have to slightly call you out on this one, Andy. Most of the stuff we buy here is not a complete product. All the diodes from DTR, the drivers from Lava and SBK, all the optical and mechanical bits from LSP, kinematics I bought from you, wiring, power supplies, aluminum, and about 100 other things... all components to build a final product. That's what the hobby market is. You either buy a completed pro unit or you piece it together. As a hobbyist, part of the hobby game is DIY. Are galvos the only part of the lot that are not allowed to be pieced together?