Dear all,
A few days ago I send a friendly request for information about a possible production run of the M2 using the contact form on macchina.cc. Not a single reaction sofar.
Is Macchina to be considered shut down or ‘just’ hibernating?
Regards,
Peter
Hello Peter,
I asked them the same question roughly one year ago: without reply until today.
Actually I have ordered a Macchina M2 at Mouser.com ca. 6 months ago: https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Crowd-Supply/cs-superb-05?qs=hzBznG4dWXXjy4g3%2F%2BK6uA%3D%3D&countryCode=DE¤cyCode=EUR
It’s still on backorder: I think they are waiting for enough people ordering it before they start manufacturing.
BR,
Steffen
Hi Steffen,
Thank you for sharing your sad experience. I wish you strength and wisdom!
Regards,
Peter
I have gotten reponses from sent requests, but it takes a few days. when I enquired, I was told the M2 was not in the pipeline due to component shortages. the A0 was available through SparkFun and I got one, except they are sold out again.
Hi David,
Thank you very much for your input! Can you please tell me when this conversation with Macchina took place?
Best regards,
Peter
The reply about the M2 was in august when I inquired about next run of A0s.
"
Hi David,
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, due to global shortages, M2 and P1 do not currently have any plans to be restocked. Luckily for you, A0 should be in stock again soon. Please do sign up to be notified when it is back in stock on its product page, if you haven’t already.
"
the next correspondence was last week and they got back to me in a day or two.
apparently there was stock available through SparkFun, maybe other distributors without being in stock in the macchina site.
easier to make few shipments to distributors than many shipments to customers, or a stock policy issue in order to not be dropped by said distributors, i get it.
someone responded to my inquiry I sent yesterday about my DOA A0 last night to make it right.
my impression is not shut down, but probably busy with life/day jobs instead of focusing on this side hussle. My impression is the A0 is the sole production focus right now. what you would do with an M2 you couldn’t do with a A0?
BTW I used the contact us form at the bottom of the main page. filled out all the info and they emailed the response to the email I provided. steffen, could their response have been blocked or gone to spam on your end?
Hi David,
Thanks again! I also used the contact form since I couldn’t find a Macchina Email address. As I also did a few weeks before through the product page. Could you please provide me with the Email address Macchina replied with? I think there is no harm in trying once more to get in contact.
I really have a good use for a M2 because of it’s K-line protocol. I understand that your A0 was DOA?! That’s sad!
“Not shut down but probably busy” is what I hoped for. On the other hand it needs huge effort to stay in business! That’s quite a hussle yeah…
Good luck with your replacement A0!
Regards,
Peter
Yah fingers crossed a replacement A0 shows up in the mail in the next few days as promised.
May be a few more months before ICs are available for the M2, like IC production and distribution has become weaponized or something.
I’m not ok with publicly posting email addresses for bots to pick up.
“info” followed by @ then the company name and “.cc”
there may be an issue with your and their domains or IP address not liking each other. at work, we find some email recipients mail service automatically dumps our correspondence into spam. apparently there was a spammer that used the same domain IP address as ours way back in the 90’s and it still comes up on spam block lists.
Hi David,
I’ll give it a try with one of my other Email addresses.
Regards,
Peter
It must be hard for macchina with the IC shortages, small volume low priority PCB manufacturing has been basically shut down on the supply side. No product going out = no money coming in. I’m sure everyone involved in macchina is all in with the company concept, but PEEPs still have to keep their bills payed and their families fed and effort has to be spent on income generation elsewhere while keeping enough money in the coffers for the next production runs whenever that may be.
ELM went out of business during covid lock down. sure other small electronics companies went under/going under because of supply issues. I suspect US based PCB board houses are having a hard time staying afloat also since most specialize in small volume and prototype production compared to the Asian PCB board houses.
macchina products are a good product concept for modern automotive / Arduino/ home automation DIYers.
I just hope macchina doesn’t die on the vine with this, becoming a product that was cool but no one bothers to look for to buy because last anyone checked they had no stock of anything and must be out of business like all the other small electronics outfits.
so the DIY community just shifts to using some Chinese copycat board available on Alibaba and Amazon.
Hi David,
I really appreciate you plaeing for good initiatives like Macchina! It was never my intent to do any harm but rather to shake things up a bit! I hope I’ll get a reply on my newly sent Email. Even when it is bad news it’s better than no news at all…
Regards,
Peter
Hi David,
Your remark on ELM shocked me. Not only from a business point of view but also practically.
Do you have some knowledge about trustworthy ELM327 replacements? Might for example OBDLink SX USB be a fully compatible alternative seen from a Linux perspective?
Regards,
Peter
OBDlink is the go to now
uses the ST microelectronics STN1100 or STN1110 chipset, which is fully compatible and better, faster larger buffer than the ELM and has a larger command set with ST and AT commands .and can deal with HS CAN traffic without missing data
the chipset programming manual is available to download.
search:
STN1100 family reference programming manual
but yah anything that claims to use an ELM chip is using a knock off.
Hi David,
Your suggestion using an other Email address has worked. I got a prompt reply from Macchina:
“Hi Peter, Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, due to global shortages, we do not have any timeline to create more M2.Thanks, Customer Support”
Once more many thanks for your reply on ELM327 alternatives. It speakes for itself. I also found the STN1110 programming manual next to the ELM327 one. That helps a lot! unavoidably another question arises. Do you know of any adapter brand and type using STN2100/STN2110?
Regards,
Peter
As far as I know OBDLink brand and scan tool (IC manufacturer) are under the same ownership/direct partnership. the STN2100 is just the newer version of the chip.
I would suspect one of the OBDLink products uses it, that’s past what I looked into. may be best to contact them and ask if it isn’t in their documentation.
But don’t mind me, I’m a total novice and hack at this stuff, I have some defined things I want to do and still building the path to get them done.
all that research on OBDLink/Scan Tool is what lead me to the A0 since it does everything the OBDlink cable does but more and easier (since I don’t live and dream in c++ or other code/programing/networking environments) and the hardware can be repurposed to implement everything it was used to figure out since I do muddle around in Arduino.
it took just a few minutes to get Saavycan to record traffic with the A0, which took a bit more to do with the OBDlink cable displaying the CAN traffic in PuTTY, I couldn’t figure out how to get the obdlink cable to work with saavycan or any other CAN divide and conquer software (that was windows based) that didn’t cost more than the A0.
maybe your skillset is great enough in this are that all you need is the OBDLink hardware ST command set to bridge CAN to your preferred environment which would rock and I’m envious of, I have enough trouble just getting software and hardware to acknowledge each other’s existence, let alone play nice to each other.
Hi all,
Hibernating is a pretty good word for the situation. We are on track to emerge from that soon. A0 is back in production, but it will take a while to ramp back to the point where we can keep up with demand. M2 is a bit more challenging, we are hoping to pick a path for this product in early Q1.
We have been taking the time to work on lots of new projects. We are definitely not shutting down, just regrouping for the better. I know you have not heard much from us recently, but that will start changing soon.
If anyone has specific order issues, please contact us at info@macchina.cc
@David_Strain, thanks for you’re good wishes and for helping the community find possible alternatives.
I appreciate everyone’s patience, I’m excited to start sharing more soon.
Thanks,
Hi ecsharpe,
That’s all the good news I was hoping for! Q1 for M2 is OK with me!
Good luck to you all, happy New Year!!
Regards,
Peter
Hi David,
I think we are in the same league here. Yet I hope to master enough skills in the near future to be able to listen (and understand!) and talk to the various vehicles I cherish. So far Craig Smith’s book - The Car Hacker’s Handbook - A Guide for the Penetration Tester helped me quite a lot.
Now trying to get the suitable hardware is the next job. Yesterdag I ordered an OBDLink SX USB and a M2 is to be on its way in Q1’23 if I understand @ecsharpe well. So bit by bit things are taking shape.
Regards,
Peter
No, picking a path in Q1 means we will reevaluate the product and see if it is possible to bring it back somehow.