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.
A micro pulse, barely perceptible, with no auditory or visual feedback. Used for courses to verify the student is wearing the device.
UPDATE: the "pager" function also delivers this pulse 5 times, useful for most environments since the beeper is hard to hear now that the device is waterproof and rubber sealed everywhere.
Canada: just need to change the title on our EMC report, needs to say "RSS-210" which is the Canadian equivalent of FCC 15.247. We unfortunately need to use those "i-pod mode" and "led as laser" guys again, and needless to say they'll probably try to charge us, now getting a quote...
Australia: we may be able to use existing test reports through some loopholes (and by a hair since the rules were just changed in our favor) but there are a couple things we're trying to sort out and confirm. Worst case selling in this country will require new tests to be carried out, possibly we'll need to get a government permission and pay them a fee, best case neither.
Japan: this is a very juicy target for us though we can't see the visits yet because the site is only in English. We found that it won't be as expensive as we thought to do testing for Japan. EMC emission testing according to some odd standard is possible but voluntary (scratch that right off!). Only intentional radiation (actual transmission) is regulated; the test standard is completely different from what we've done and we can't even rely on that portion of the tests carried out ahead of time by the manufacturer of the RF circuitry. However, we were told that we can do the tests in China and then forward the results to a Japan accredited lab for certification. Fortunately as far as safety is concerned we don't fall in either the prescribed or non-prescribed lists of Denan law and our battery is less than 400Wh/L in power density so there's no special safety testing required.
On top of safety and EMC, there's the issue of SAR (measuring how much power the body actually absorbs from radiation). Only the DL2K-LINK is powerful enough to require this and it was almost exempted but it won't be since it can be plugged into a laptop which can be held less than 20cm from parts of the body other than the hands (still fighting and researching it to make sure the lab isn't pushing it needlessly). SAR testing is needed for the US and EU and probably these results will suffice for Canada as well. The manufacturer of the radio circuitry within it has agreed to do it themselves so that's very good news. If we do any further testing for Australia or Japan, though, we may have to do SAR testing according to Australian or Japanese SAR standards (assuming we can't find a loophole here too which might be doable for Australia but is very unlikely for Japan). It's not a given since many places (such as EU, Australia) limit power output to 10mW anyway and we will comply via software so at that power output SAR testing would not be needed.
Aside from testing and certifications there's a duty to have a local "authorized representative" to hold the technical construction file and other paperwork. This is actually way more expensive than it should be given they just hold some papers. Of course it's this way because it's big foreign companies selling in multiple markets that need to purchase such a service. This will be needed for the EU and Australia for sure, probably also Canada and Japan. Speaking of which now we have all the EU tests it's time to find a company to be the authorized rep in the EU...
Any work towards expanding our sales to other countries will obviously depend on demand and other impending concerns and expenses. We've got to stock up on components so they don't get depleted, pay back the mold guys, give the assembly guys decent quantities so that they don't drop us, and so forth.
Currently, traffic from Canada is 1/10th that of the US. Australian 1/21st.
Regarding the question "can the buyer assume responsibility?" for shipment of products from us the answer is 99% no, and also there are fines up to hundreds of thousands of dollars and 1 year imprisonment for trying this so it would not be worth attempting even if you can find the 1% loophole.
That's our current state of understanding. It's not easy to start an electronics company, especially if you want to do it legally, especially if you want to sell everywhere!
