Xenith Update

Apex Boards posted the following items to their Instagram story around 5pm EST.

As always, there are two sides to every story. From the story it is implied that we are 'scamming' Apex. This is not the case. Here's what happened. 

On October 13th of last year Lee placed an order for 50 Xenith ESC with custom purple heatsinks. They received all 50pcs on November 4th. Shortly after receiving the Xeniths it was apparent that something was wrong, a large majority of them were failing in different ways (mostly around the switches). This not only affected Apex, but all of the other vendors in this batch. These faults were not occurring during our incoming QC tests. It became apparent that the ESC's needed to be repaired and the factory had messed something up. We recalled the entire batch and had all of the stock at our suppliers in 4 different countries shipped back to China. 

This is when the headache begins. The factory was locked down for ~2 weeks right as they arrived (due to very strict COVID rules in China). Then we needed to find out what was causing the issue and how to repair it. That took some time, and it was determined that the DRV chips from this batch were bad. We then paid out of pocket to have all of the DRV chips replaced with brand new ones. During this time we sent the factory two new jigs. One to test the switch circuit at high voltage repeatedly and one to test the ESC with an FOC_OPENLOOP command. 

During this time, the factory was dealing with a backlog of orders, scarce components (took forever to source new DRV chips), rationing of power (they would not have electricity for days at a time), and other COVID outbreaks which required them to shut the factory down. All of this combined to create a multi month delay. During this time we were in communication and pushing the factory every day as the Xeniths were highly needed by not just our company. During this time had even shipped a few pieces of reserve Xeniths to Lee (from previous batches) as I knew they were needed for his boards. 

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On June 25th, I sent the following email to Lee:

Hey Lee,

The Xeniths are set to be delivered on Monday! As soon as they arrive we will get them tested (again) and then get them to you. They put brand new DRV chips on the PCB and went through detection testing, openloop testing, and high voltage switch testing. Looking very good on their end so far. 

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Hi Jared
That is great news, finally.

It’s not a joke?

I would have you try electronics manufacturing the last 6-12 months. It’s nearly impossible.

Anyway, seems like a refund would be best. I’ll just process a refund for the entire outstanding qty.  

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Actually, You owe us more than the refund Jared and you know it.  I'll send you an invoice for the total amount of money and you can pay that. 

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As a vendor once someone pays us we have a responsibility to provide a product. If we cannot do that, it is our responsibility to provide a refund. We had offered a full refund to Lee for the outstanding quantity.

The factory shipped 40pcs to us which were received today, reworking and then retesting them is a laborious time consuming process (thus the limited qty). I didnt want to wait longer for the entire batch to be repaired so I had some shipped right away (the rest are coming in ~ the next 10 days). We owe over 100 Xeniths to various companies, so we were going to divide the first 40 up based on total outstanding amount. That way everyone got at least a few to keep products going out. Our Social Media manager posted on Instagram that they arrived and this has angered Lee.

It is now apparent that there was some form of miscommunication between Lee and I. Although in the first email I stated that they were arriving to us (for more testing) he had assumed that they were being shipped directly back to him. I also did not explain that the rest are coming, so that is on me.

In the end, Lee will receive his money back, which we said we would do before he ever posted on Instagram. There is not much else we can do other than ship the Xeniths or provide a refund. If we shipped them all to him, that would not be fair to the other vendors who have been waiting just as long.