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2010-07-26 22:16:10 (7974 views) Due to lack of time we will quit updating the R&D page and instead use blog entries tagged 'release timeline'.
The present status as of today:
- we're waiting for the mold to be Electric Discharge Machined and polished. In 4 days we should be able to go to the plastic factory and get the very first DL2000 molded plastic parts. Exciting!!!
- if the parts are ok, there will be an additional polishing stage which is to be carried out at another location. Mold needs to be transported on a truck. Should take 1 week
- presently the bank's giving us problems with documents and the incorporation company lady is not being very polite with us. They've increased our price and handled us with a "take it or leave it" attitude when the process is already half way through and we can't even switch to a different vendor! We had to agree to the price increase, and they are now working on it and not really answering emails. We hope that in 2 weeks they can get this account open! Our first time, beyond our control, fingers crossed.
- today we're assembling 3 sets of the boards (remotes done already, receivers 2 to go); these can be used for EMC testing as soon as we get the molded parts and have time to go to Mr Tang's rubber factory and produce one arousal inducer with the capacitor inside (the capacitor's used to reduce emissions without resorting to the ferrite bead which would add thickness - will it work???). We plan to do the lab tests within 3 weeks, and hopefully we'll pass the first time because this is in our estimation the biggest waste of money in bringing a product to the market!
- we're working to get body bands (with some means of fastening them) and boxes. We're already receiving samples (trying to make the most out of living in China). Finalizing requirements and getting something nice created and getting a reasonable quote may take 3-4 weeks but these have low priority as the product is usable without them and they can be added later
- some paperwork is still missing for legally selling the DL2K-LINK! We're talking with our contacts to get this resolved and hope that within a month all will be in order.
- the boards have been tested to death. Yes there could be some improvements as far as moving components around for easier mounting etc. but at this point we're committing to our design. When we pass the lab EMC tests we'll be ready to produce a few hundred boards and start experimenting with automated assembly. We say experimenting because some parts will likely have to be hand mounted anyway, due to the fact their packaging is not suitable for pick and place machinery. Though the assembly house guarantees they can do it, we trust the manufacturer on this - they deal with lots of assembly houses in the west. PCB production won't take more than 10 days, usually 1 week. Assembly - we don't know, they said 1 week, anyway if it looks like this will delay us we'll just hand assemble boards for our first customers.
- we still have to reimplement a bunch of functions which were tested on older models and are not in the newest firmware. Accelerometer on/off switching, dog mode, timer mode, wireless reprogramming of the REMOTE (receiver already done), moving the reprogramming to the boot sector so the device can't get messed up when some packets are corrupted, learning remote IDs and so on. The PC control panel needs to be updated. The web interface needs to tie into our main database with the user data. This is just programming work. It will be finished by the time everything else is finished.
- the very last step is to figure out who is going to assemble the parts of this product and where (pcb inside the plastic, cables, grommets, etc), and go through the process of putting product on the shelves of the fulfillment houses which involves crossing national borders (customs) and trying to do this with as little tax overhead as possible. For Europe we even need to pay some company to hold our documents within the EU! Bah. Our first time - this shouldn't take long provided we can make a video that explains exactly how to mount the parts... hoping we're not underestimating this phase.
There haven't been new "to do" items for over a month so it's unlikely something will pop up that will delay us further. At this point it's just a matter of going through these necessary steps one by one. If we're lucky we may be trying to figure out customs clearance and how to receive funds within 30 days.
We'll keep posting our progress. Things are moving fast now.
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as I do hope that I'm able to get one for my birthday in September! it would be a perfect gift to my self and my key holder.
keeping my fingers crossed.