The rough draft of our safety instructions can be reviewed at this time, technical writers and others who've volunteered to help in the past are welcome to review, point out errors and inconsistencies, suggest anything that should be added. All documentation will be posted online for review before the manual goes to print, which must happen relatively quickly, so we're now going to work on the rest of the docs.
Part of the reason it's taken a year in China to finally get to the point where we've got everything prototyped and pretty much ready to go for production is that we've had to teach each manufacturer how to do the job step by step in order to remove the errors they introduce.
Here's a webcam shot taken while going over the overlay properties on skype... we do this often; by now we're often bypassing sales entirely and interacting with the engineers. We tell them what to do and when, they just execute...
Insanely time consuming but very instructive way of getting a product made! When you don't have an infinite amount of resources you do whatever in order to get to the finish line...
Regrets? Sure. It took two years to get to this point where we've got everything standing by just waiting for components to start selling product. It shouldn't have. It could have taken 3-4 months with unlimited budget. But... we gained an enormous amount of knowledge on how each part is made. Assuming our first product is successful and we become a bona fide positive cash flow femdom company, future product design will be aided immensely by having gone through this process.
A component with unique characteristics had run out and another one had suddenly become obsolete. The intended replacements didn't work well enough upon testing. Back to searching, and with connections in Korea we were finally able to source all the correct parts, though they only sold these in reels of 3000.
The last package with the radio circuitry was received but the manufacturer forgot to add some of the parts so he had to send another parcel and we're, again, waiting for this new last package.
All this highlights the importance of keeping tons of stock when creating an electronic product. When the economy goes down plants are shut down and components can quite suddenly become scarce. Some components become obsolete due to better parts and designs coming out requiring lots of thought and at least some testing to be re-integrated. Finally shipments are sometimes unreliable, whether due to forgetfulness, customs delays or other reasons.
Keeping stock is especially problematic when you're a new business and still do not know what the market size is like.
This is one of the big deals in creating electronics that we had no clue about when we started out.
Misc issues with packaging and some overmolding parts are being solved as we move on, but we should be auto-assembling boards within a week or so.
- our test results are sufficient to comply with all Australian regulations (DL2K-LINK may be a possible exception, still pending verification)
- but we can't apply for the c-tick mark without a local representative (tricky business since they become legally liable)
- however, for personal use and not resale, one Australian individual can import a product IF it complies with all standards even without a c-tick mark. This is new information to be confirmed, please see this reply from ACMA.
If a person imports one of these devices into Australia for “personal use” and does not, or will not in the future, supply said device to another person provided the device complies with the applicable radio communications standard and does not cause interference, the device does not require a C-Tick compliance label and may be used in Australia by the person who imported the device.
