Now my 3D renderings look more realistic:

Nice!

Shipping

Everyone will order USPS First Class for half the price of USPS Priority mail. Make it a priority to get this shipping flow figured out. For me it was a simple as:

1. Order proper mailers and self adhesive inkjet printing labels. For me these were size "000" mailers (maybe "00" next time so the labels fit better) and half page labels, both from Amazon.
2. Learn about the hidden USPS + Paypal First Class mail link online. Skip http://stamps.com (they are evil as their service is virtually impossible to cancel) and the post office. They are both a waste of time.

Since I added first class mail to my Tindie page, 100% of domestic customers have used it. I watch the packages in transit and they take roughly 2x as long. Priority mail was 2-3 days anywhere in the US as advertised, first class mail is about double with what seems to be less verbose tracking. Performance approximates price apparently.

International shipping is essential. Eventually I said "I don't want to deal with the hassle of shipping internationally" and that was a mistake also. The same secret USPS First Class link will let you ship internationally and embeds the customs forum on the label. Done. I half a flat rate price on my Tindie site for international shipping which is somewhat inflated, but covers my increased risk (damage in transit, price deltas between countries) and has not deterred a number of users from using it. I'm always amused to tell a friend that my toy hobby project has shipped to Australia, UK, Germany and more. Major frustration is that some shipping partners in destination countries don't update the USPS tracking info, so I just assume they get delivered unless I hear otherwise.

Returns and Damages

No failures. No returns. One shipment had a cracked inductor due to shipping and handling but was still operational. No returns, no catastrophic failures nothing. I was shocked and pleased.

There have been issues with people soldering to high thermal mass PCBs. Proper soldering iron and more importantly proper soldering technique resolves that.

As for crashes, there was one damaged inductor from a hard crash, the user just wanted to know where to get a replacement and I sent out the part number and a list of distributors. Repaired and back in the air I'm sure!

Next Batch?

Absolutely. The product has a reputation and following on the forum. People want it. I'm excited and I'm building more. Sign-up now on my Tindie product page for the wait list so I can gauge the interest. In less then a week the wait list now exceeds the number of units I've sold directly on Tindie. Whaaaaa?

That's it. All of the first batch is sold out. I'd like to continue to make more but need to balance the upfront manufacturing costs and risk to run it again.

Join the Tindie Waitlist if your'e interested.

Looks like the current batch is close to selling out. My distributor is sold out and my Tindie stock is down to 7. What next?

Just noticed on Twitter that the CleanHawk 250 is the product of the week.

That's pretty awesome!

I bit the bullet and added international shipping and first class mail shipping options to my Tindie product page. I ordered some self adhesive shipping labels to simplify my life and some low cost plastic bubble wrap bags.

Previously I had been doing just USPS Priority Flat rate. The free flat rate boxes and 1-3 day shipping times I was seeing was very nice, but wanted a cheaper option. The first class mail option is about half the price and might take twice as long. I'll leave the trade-off to the buyer, makes little difference to me. When I'm a buyer though, I usually break things on while flying on the weekends and want a gauaranteed replacement by next weekend and opt for Priority mail shipping in these situations. Other times I'll just try to queue up a bunch of incoming parts for a new build I'm working on. Now I have options for both.

The harsh reality that perhaps I waited to long to make this jump. There are only a handful of boards left for sale before I have to queue up orders for the next batch. Live and learn I guess.

Checkout my project on Tindie!

My Tindie product has been getting a little bit of traffic and so far one order. What's surprising however is that I've received two requests to ship internationally. One request to Germany and another to Netherlands.

My question is: how? How do I ship cost effectively? Who do I ship with? Do I have to worry about customs forms?

I'm hoping a Hackaday reader can chime in with some suggestions to enable international shipping without paying $30+ as some of the rate calculators suggest.

My primary distributor put together this awesome quad copter called "CenterMass" based on my power distribution board. Details @ RCGroups.

It's awesome to see the things people dream-up and build incorporating the things I build!

The CleanHawk 250 PDB is now for sale via Tindie! Tindie is a marketplace that makes it easy for sellers to sell products and easy for buyers to buy as opposed to something like eBay or a home rolled site.

Check it out and buy the board!

When I originally ordered my PCB panels from the board house I ordered 50, however, only 28 showed-up. When they first arrived, I was so excited I never counted. Always count. A few days later I noticed nearly half my order was missing.

I had barely enough boards to fulfill the pre-order, so I scrambled to build and ship them. Meanwhile, I started wrestling with the Chinese board house to get the rest of the boards I paid for. Half a week later I'm wrestling with the board house to ship my stuff. Sounds like they just never packed it. Sigh. Maybe next week?