- Mold changes underway, should be done early next week
- Overlays being created, should be done by Aug 12th
- Band manufacturer spotted, will get quotes this week or next. The band will have eyelets and the plastic locks normally used with chastity devices can be used to secure it.
- Will receive box samples. One is just white. The other company will actually print a layout, so we'll work on it as soon as we receive the outline of the unfolded 2D box
- A mega cool idea has emerged for the plastic coloring. We should have some pictures by next week.
- Still heard nothing from the bank. We're hoping they'll open this account without giving any more trouble
- The Lab has time for us next week. EMC testing! It will be a battle to try to keep the price down because we added USB battery recharging and they will use it as an excuse to claim the test is now super-complicated.
Sorry about the delay (we said 24 hours...) but the day at the factory was exhaustingly exciting and we've just managed to put together the video and process some of the pictures.
Here is the video that shows our injection mold and some of the results.
And here's the whole story!
First of all, the mold had to be warmed up - some truly artistic creations came out of this process. The engineers were eager to throw away jewels such as this one below but we stopped them and we think this is a museum piece... some archaeological artifact which will show the beginning of male management technology in the Male Management Museum of the future...
Shortly after, good parts started to come out of the mold in all their glory. The mold is still not completely polished; this means our parts will soon be even smoother and better.
You can see right away that there are circles on the inside surfaces. These are common in all plastic parts (you probably saw them inside your TV remote's battery compartment and wondered what they were...) - they are ejection pins marks. The plastic needs to come out of the mold in a repeatable way and strain must be avoided because the mold's still hot and the plastic may get deformed or break. So the mold has several holes from which metal cylinders come out to eject the part after each injection.
Inquiring out of curiosity, we were told these *could* have been avoided had we specifically asked for it but the mold would have been a heck of a lot more complex. But we don't mind these little circles; after all we're accustomed to seeing professionally produced pieces and they all have them. Check the inside of any plastic product. So... it's just one more mark that we're doing it like the big boys :)
Friends, stage 1 polishing has been completed, which makes the plastic mold 85% complete.
Polycarbonate dyes will also arrive tomorrow, so tomorrow is Factory Day! The temperature here is 36-37C and the factory has no air conditioning (it's being renovated). We will see our mold in action for the first time... and if we survive the heat, expect videos and plenty of pictures within 24 hours, documenting:
- the first DL2000 molded enclosure samples EVER
- different colors and intensities to compare
- BRASS INSERTS which will be overmolded to allow you to open and close the receiver an unlimited number of times (they prevent damage to the walls of the screw holes)
Because the mold will have to undergo another round of polishing, the plastic samples we'll get tomorrow might NOT be as clear as glass - no idea what to expect honestly.
We will own the first official DreamLover 2000 molded plastic enclosures on Friday!
Jason's off to Beijing for his Confucianism lesson (we still think he's got a girlfriend). His assistant will help translate foreigner Mandarin to native Cantonese and his workers will load the mold into the injection machine and shoot out some parts. What an emotion. It seems like yesterday that we were looking for non waterproof square boxes on the net and making holes with a hand drill.
And on Friday a million dollar injection molding machine with our ton and a half custom carved and polished mold loaded inside will be pumping out Male Management paraphernalia for the first time ever on planet earth.
That's not all. We'll be able to test 3 different dyes which will be mixed with the polycarbonate plastic. These will give the plastic a slight tint. The limit of 3 comes from the fact that the mold needs to be washed after each tint is loaded and because it's heavier than an automobile it's something that takes time to accomplish.
These dyes are only useful if we do not spray paint the receiver.
We've chosen three colors:
- black: because it should give the product the nice outline of the spray painted parts while retaining transparency
- white: because it should diffuse the LED light enough to blend the colors well and hopefully spread the color throughout the enclosure
- purple: because it's just an awesome color and it's part of our "corporate" color scheme
How tints will affect the LED remains to be seen. The tint has to be strong enough to hopefully make the product look more finished and attractive, but light enough to allow the LED to shine through without blocking out some colors. It should also be light enough for you to be able to see if any water went inside.
These tints should work very well with the 3D shape of the receiver; depth is different in different areas, and this produces a nice effect near edges (flat areas are a lot lighter, thicker areas have more intense color).
We wish we could try out all pantone colors but it would cost us a million bucks :) So for now let us rejoice about this monumental step forward and enjoy whatever colors we're allowed to test.
A few more curiosities. We've asked Jason about putting TWO color dyes in the mold (or chunks of one color), to create some unique non-repeatable color streaks and patterns. He said this would be hard to control. We will take a chance on Friday to try to add a dye without washing the mold and see what happens. Honestly we've got no clue whatsoever how these machines are operated. It may not be as easy as throwing powder in like in a washing machine :)
Also, the molded parts on Friday will still not be 100% final; the mold will undergo yet another polishing phase at another location to make it mirror-like and perfectly smooth. It should still already be much smoother than our machined parts though.
We still have the option of adding texture after that, but it's a one way thing (the mold is carved with some chemicals). To undo the texture the mold needs to be re-polished and that will add 0.1 mm thickness or so.
As for the remote and DL2K-LINK enclosure, you probably already know that those will be sprayed black. Unless the purple remote with the black overlays looks mighty cool which it should.
A very hard day of soldering and the boards (3 sets of receiver and transmitter) are ready for lab testing.
Total headache when one of the RF modules was found to be defective after it was soldered!
This castellated 12 contact module is very tricky to desolder. Two soldering irons (and two hands) were used for lack of a better tool. Even with a heat gun it is probably very tricky to get it off because there are many 1x0.5mm SMD components on it and these will come off a lot quicker than the pads on the sides...
Fortunately the chip was desoldered and replaced successfully with the two irons technique and now both the two new receiver prototypes work giving us a total of 3 working DL2000 units.
Well... we can't afford NOT to machine assemble these. Putting them together requires prolonged, extreme concentration - it is exhausting work! On the positive side the accelerometer can now be placed without any problem because we've gotten enough practice with the 20 pin 3x3mm leadless package (battery charger IC) that now this 8 pin one seems "easy".
This product is so impossibly miniaturized that even a 1mm error in the length of a through hole component (LED, pulse capacitor) leads makes it impossible to close the enclosure! This time we screwed up the length of one LED and had to cut a piece off :) In the future the position of the LED must be watched more carefully.
Oh, we need to get full color LEDs now. Turns out the supplier never shipped our paid order. Too many things to worry about. Lastly, because we ran out of the right part and used a replacement, one of the LEDs used has inverted green and blue pins (hence the color difference!)
Hard day... soldering this product by hand is really exhausting.
