Overlays arrived - mixed feelings

But... but... there are no pictures. Why? Read on...

First of all: we should tell you that having applied these overlays to the remotes, we finally "more or less" know what the final look of this device will be like, and it's amazing. Surprisingly, the clear remotes (no dyes, no paint) ended up looking the best. The LEDs makes the whole enclosure shine when it's dark - a much better than expected result.

Looking at these parts from a distance, we can really see our dream becoming a reality! We have both the remote control overlay and the DL2K-LINK overlay.

HOWEVER. There were several problems with these overlays - problems that are only evident if you look at them closely. If we posted pictures here you would probably not see anything wrong, unless we posted close-ups which look a lot worse than the situation really is. So we'll wait to post until we've rectified the situation.

But to give it to you straight:

- the colors are off
- the button holes aren't precisely aligned with the printing
- glue comes out from the sides and from the hole contours
- the holes are a bit too big
- they changed the design and made the fonts too bold
- the overlays are thinner than agreed and don't look 100% flat; they are too "sticker" like
- DL2K-LINK: size not exactly right (though they had plastic parts to test); button hole not in the right position
- and more...

Unfortunately we have already paid a portion of the cost for these parts, which is normal since makers have up-front tooling costs. The cutting mold is the problem here; they used this excuse to jack up the price, but it seems they eventually decided we did not deserve one after all, which is why the contours and holes aren't cut precisely and there's glue coming out of them. We paid for the mold, it's on our quotation, but now they admit the holes were cut by hand.

Even more aggravating: the manufacturer was confronted with irrefutable proof of all these problems and answered by increasing the tooling costs 20 fold and the part price by 200%, presumably implying we should just get lost if we're so picky and with our low quantities.

Well... this is what you are up against when you work with China. Low reliability, low attention to detail, and a short-sighted approach to business transactions. The real core issue here is that our quantities are so small that vendors have little or no respect for us. It's hard to be pushy when you're needy.

A phone call followed, and we explained that these overlays aren't good enough to sell and so on and so forth - in a non confrontational, friendly tone.

We were told that the thickness cannot be what we had asked for, because then they'd need a steel mold (didn't we pay for that? no, it was a laser mold - how can a laser be a mold? huh? it would help if he could speak in clean Mandarin...) and the number of colors must be reduced; the manufacturer's now thinking about whether he can make the holes look better, supposing we can reduce the number of colors.

As this is happening we've already mentally kissed our up front payment good-bye. This is sometimes going to happen and is a necessary evil when dealing with China. Hopefully we're making back for the losses with those parts that do work and don't cost us a fortune.

Folks, this vendor is just no good. He has already tried to raise the price in sneaky ways. Only a couple of days ago we received an interesting e-mail saying that the price would increase (this is after we accepted their quote and paid tooling costs).

On the phone, he then explained they had "sent that incorrectly". However it seems that they are indeed unhappy with their own quotation for this project, because they've decided to decrease the thickness on us, and not use a mold to cut the overlays.

Bottom line WE have made a mistake here. We came to China to be able to inspect factories and make sure parts are created with the utmost precision... and to set up a reliable manufacturing chain with trusted, honest vendors. But this vendor we've located is in Nanjing, very far from us. He's a contact we established a long time ago, before coming to China, and his level of commitment seems to have decreased a lot since then.

So we can't go there and pressure him - and he will likely tell us to "take it or leave it" (like the bank account people) and when we leave it he won't refund what we paid (like the LED guy).

The next step in order to give this product the overlay quality it deserves is to visit local vendors (we already have 3 contacts), show them the samples we currently have, and get new quotes.

To be honest the per-unit price we're paying is already sky high. Our task is to convince another factory to accept our quantities.

Now, this is the reason why we are not publishing a price for this product yet, and won't until we've got units in a box ready to ship. Everything's a daily battle and even written documents aren't a guarantee the price won't increase suddenly!

Just a couple days ago the custom screws guy told us he needed to make a mold because you can't have a screw head of 6.5mm on the very thin screw we're now using with the brass inserts. That was an unexpected expense. Any excuse is good to claim there are tooling costs and justify a price increase. And Tuesday... EMC testing... we fully expect them to pull some tricks and we're playing on their turf, and the bus number is 666! Should we bring a crucifix?

Back to the overlays: this may all seem like bad news however, if we look far enough into the future, it's VERY good that any issues with manufacturers come up now rather than later, when we're not in China and need to keep parts in stock. Having the chance to rectify this problem right away by just visiting 3 factories in one day is super. This is why we're here putting up with all the discomforts (everything under construction, constant drilling from upper floors starts at 7am, today no running water).

So, early next week we'll go visit some nearby factories, and if we can persuade them to do the job we'll have good parts within 10 days, after which you'll see the product in all its glory!!

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