Arousal inducer mold has been modified

0.5mm thicker is the price we pay to simplify manufacturing and ensure the piece is robust and resistant to pulling and bending within some acceptable limit.

Also, after an incredible adventure with range, testing labs and more, we've finally got a PCB layout which gets us maximum juice and does not break any regulations. This was a heroic effort - everyone contradicted everyone else. Some said chip antenna has to be 2mm from the ground plane, some 4mm some 6.9mm some as much as 8mm. Some said the antenna is inverted F, some said it's helical. In the end we took it apart and, well, it's microscopic in size but it looks helical... and we tested with a bazillion configurations, attached pretty much everything metallic around the house to the antenna pad including

- properly sized wires

- randomly sized wires

- thin and thick wires

- super thick wires

- wires curled up in a helical shape

- wires curled up in other odd shapes

- wires standing up straight, bent in all directions

- LEDs (and they give good range too, incredible!)

- wi-fi router antenna (5x bigger than the receiver :))



We tested in the home, through 1, 2 and 3 walls - tested at the supermarket, on the street, through people, through foliage, from the floor above, in highly reflective environments, in totally non-reflective ones. Tested with wearer facing forward and facing away (count the wearer as 1.2-1.4 walls when they are facing away!)

Finally we have a workable solution! And took the unit from this performance:

- 20 meters range with wearer facing forward

- 4 meters range with wearer facing away

- going through zero, sometimes 1 brick wall depending on angle

- useless unless wearer is very near

to this performance:

- 100 meters range with wearer facing forward (could be more, didn't test beyond this point)

- 20-30 meters range with wearer facing away (in a public space, you lose sight of the wearer beyond this distance)

- going through 2, sometimes 3 thick brick and concrete walls depending on angle

- can be activated from different parts of the house, or at a distance through a crowd

And the biggest achievement is that we're within all regulations and there are LOTS and LOTS of regulations.

These range readings are between the handheld remote control and the receiver. The DL2K-LINK is power amplified and we haven't tested it with the new receiver which has increased sensitivity - it may work up to 1km line of sight, or 3 houses away. This is good because the EU restricts output power so the power setting must be reduced for us to sell in the EU. So this way we still get at least good coverage around a home or office, much like a wi-fi router.

This should satisfy 99% of training scenarios, unless your house is very big and the walls are very thick. We're in China now so all the houses have thick walls - but experience tells us that as soon as we move back to the Anglosaxon world (US, England, Australia) where most houses have thin walls this signal will travel easily to any part of a home.

The design/layout was submitted last night and so presently we're looking at these milestones coming up:

- production of new test PCBS

- confirm RF range is good as in our previous tests

- go to the rubber factory and see if Mr Tang can now handle the simplified motor overmolding

- produce new plastic prototype, with minor modifications (remote has the USB plug hole for recharging, receiver is slightly easier to mount and has some minor improvements)

When the above steps have been completed and we're satisfied with the final result, we will give Jason the GO AHEAD to start the plastic mold - the last and expensive major upcoming milestone! But before that, there will still be some juicy updates on painting, enclosure color and design.

Comments

By akw123 at 2010-05-27 11:27:13 Reply

Some good news on what I would say is an important issue, the RF circuity, both in its use and also certification.