Tonepad PCB ordering

[Cliff Schecht]

How long does Tonepad usually take to ship out a board? I ordered an Ibanez flanger board 3 weeks ago and it still hasn't arrived.. I tried emailing them about a week ago as well and haven't heard anything back so I'm wondering if I threw out $20. What are others experiences with Tonepad like?

[jdub]

I ordered a Small Clone board from Tonepad a couple of years ago and it literally took a month to get it.  The board was high quality but, man, it took forever to get to me.  I haven't ordered anything else from Fernando (nothing personal, been doing my own stuff), but apparently the delivery procedure hasn't improved much.  I got the impression that his boards are outsourced and that this has a lot to do with service delays. I've read some stuff in other threads reinforcing this perception...

[Cliff Schecht]

Damn, I was hoping to get to this board over Spring Break..

I've been using his site for years but this is my first (and probably last) time ordering a board from him. I'd love to help support his website more but such lackluster customer service makes it hard for me to do so.

[Mark Hammer]

Francisco Pena is actually an architect by day, so understand that Tonepad is a hobby and not a workplace he goes to every day.  The other thing is that he may well be between runs of boards from his supplier.  It is hard to imagine that he orders up 1000 flanger boards at a time.

[jimbeaux]

I've placed a couple of orders with Francisco & never had any problems - one I received within a couple of weeks & the other took about 6 weeks. The 6 week order was due to a production run delay. The boards come from El Salvador.

[WhenBoredomPeaks]

My order took about a month to arrive due to unavailability but those white pcbs are very nice looking.

[jdub]

Francisco Pena is actually an architect by day, so understand that Tonepad is a hobby and not a workplace he goes to every day.

I wasn't aware of that- I thought it was a full-time thing.  Makes delays understandable, for sure. Bearing that in mind, the service he provides with excellent effects projects is that much more impressive & appreciated. 

[kungpow79]

The Tonepad board I'm working on now took 2 weeks to get to me.  Not bad, put I didn't like that the emails I sent regarding order status were not replied to at all.  In fact, I got an email reply after the thing landed on my doorstep.

[therecordingart]

It took about 3 weeks for me to get a GT-2 board from him. He is definitely a legit guy, but orders take some time. Does he have a warning on his site to let people know what lead times to expect? That'd probably be helpful, but my guess is that his sales volume isn't so high that his door is getting beaten down with "Where is my order?" emails to warrant a warning.

I wouldn't hesitate to order from him again if there was a project that I didn't want to etch myself. I'd treat Tonepad like I do Futurlec....place orders for things I need in the future and use Mouser/Digikey for the stuff I need yesterday.

[philbinator1]

Ok my 10 cents...I ordered the Fraverb pcb, which took hmmm over 4 weeks to get to NZ from memory.  They sent the
wrong board, the one they sent was called "The Venue".  I emailed about it and actually forgot about the whole thing!
didn't recieve any email back at all.  The about 2 weeks ago i suddenly received the Fraverb board in the mail!!  Which
i was surprised and pleased by, even if there was no email from Tonepads' end. 

Bear in mind where they are in the world, not to mention different country different culture etc...not all countries are in
the mad rush that the western world is in.  When i was in Bangalore, i needed 4 items, cd wallet etc...it took one whole
and complete day        

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

People,
I wasn't going to go public on this but I've had to take a step back and take care of health issues for an extended period of time (think a lot of bed time). For me it's a great pleasure to help out with the diy pedal movement, I've had some new help lately and it's made things easier, but obviously it's impossible given the situation to prevent things like Cliff's order and others to happen, I'm working on straightening everything out, but it's been difficult including keeping up with visiting every namm show for the past three years and traveling around.

Cliff and Phill, let me assure you that your orders will be taken care of promptly, and I'd like to offer everybody who's waited an apology, please please don't rush and order stuff off of tonepad just yet if you can't wait a bit, it'll take a few weeks to get everything running smoothly, but we're getting there.

Mark is right, our beloved Tonepad is a little monster that grew beyond my expectations many times and it's been tough to keep it running and doing everything else. I'll be bringing a couple of more people in to help out with shipping. "we" is a new word at Tonepad, but I realize that I can't be the only person responsible for fulfilling the orders, there's just too many of them and I hate looking bad.

I can't help but thinking of Small Bear's yearly state of the cave announcement, I think of everybody that orders from Tonepad as a potential friend, as I've actually had the chance to meet a bunch of you personally, or over the phone if distance is too great.

Thank you all for appreciating my published work so much that you order stuff from us, it means a lot to me even when it seems I take forever to reply to email (my inbox is 1000+, pretty scary). So if you are waiting for a Tonepad board, or have a mixed up order please contact us, we're probably already taking care of it but it's not a bad idea to remind me. Mind you, we have about 50 different pcbs at Tonepad, so maintaining stock gets a little tricky too.

I have more news coming in the next couple of months as well, it aint over yet.
More soon,
Fp
ps: i had never had an extended illness before that I can remember so I'm rather bad at handling it (so it shows posting it on a popular forum!), send me some get well wishes.

[DougH]

Francisco, I hope you feel better soon. Will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

[philbinator1]

Hey Francisco,

i hope i didn't come across all wingey I really didn't mean to, as far as i'm concerned it's case closed as i have the
Fraverb pcb!  I dunno if you want the other 'Venue' board back as i have already soldered on it. 

I suspected there weren't too many people in your operation and understood the delay, it didn't worry me.  I live in
the country and things are slow here (and i want to keep it that way .

I don't do a whole lot of praying, but my kind thoughts are with you, and as a fellow diy'er and i hope you get better real
soon mate.   


take care,
phil

[Jarno]

Hello Francisco, good luck and I hope you get well soon!

[jdub]

Best wishes for a fast recovery, Francisco.  Your good health is the important thing...

[kungpow79]

FP,

Feel better soon!   

Keep up the good work! 

MT

[Cliff Schecht]

I got an email from Francisco explaining the situation and that he plans on rectifying the problem as soon as possible. I was sorry to hear about his illness and feel bad for making him feel as if he needs to "out" his situation to the forum. He has my best wishes as well.

[PhillyWill]

As a current datapoint - I ordered three boards from Francisco on July 5 and got them in Philly today, July 12.

Looks to me like he's got the problems whipped and is, I hope, feeling well.

Cheers,

-bc

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Great Philly. Now I only I could get him to respond to his emails EVER!! I would be a happy camper.