I wonder how many Anteater units have been sold and are in operation, compared to the number of units that are having connectivity issues ?
Because it seems to be the biggest issue... Although this could be a small sample.
You don't hear anything from guys that have no problems, but it might be time to think about better wiring and connectors at development/production level for the next batch of Anteaters.
I was kinda curious myself. Here are the Anteater boards sitting on the dead shelf:
SN# 23 - DOA. Wouldn't power on after assembly.
SN# 32 - DOA. Also wouldn't power on after assembly.
SN# 48 - DOA. No power LED. USB connects fine.
SN#196 - RMA. Gov MOSFET burnt and trace lifted. Customer states VB harness was crushed internally.
In addition, I have two early harnesses that failed our road test and were scrapped. Both had speed sensor issues. Recently we had the power wire partially seated in one harness. I'm assured by my supplier that they are doing the failure analysis for the terminal. I've also repaired a handful where the customer manages to unseat the wires from the terminals in the cable ends, but those are fixed and sent back out.
Remotes are a different story. They see the most abuse. To fix tearing connectors off, we swapped to THT parts for the USB and 6 pin cable which mechanically locks the connectors to the board. There have been less than 5 that have come back since that change was made in 2016.
So total failure rate before shipping is right at 1.0% for boards, 0.6% for harnesses, and 2% for remotes. RMAs average 1.5% of total kits sales. Those include the "I didn't want one after all" customers.
I believe the low RMA% is two-fold. One, each Anteater is road tested before leaving the shop. To be shipped, it must accept a tune upload and do a 0-60-0 road test with all gears + lockup represented. Two, each member of the after-sales team at Firepunk drives an Anteater powered vehicle. They know the product inside and out.