@mr_cfromcali I emailed you instead of completing the form on your website. Will I still be contacted once my position on the waitlist is reached? It was in april so that would be shot if I have to jump on now
No worries. I did not have
a waiting list form on my web site until just a few months ago, and before I added the form I was manually migrating names from email to waiting list.
I display the waiting list date I am currently serving in my signature on this site. If you are viewing this site on your phone, you may have to switch to landscape mode to see it. My signature currently says,
"I'm currently building Flux Deluxes for people who got on the waiting list on or anytime before: March 20, 2019 . When this group is done, I'll reach out to another cohort and update this signature."
Now, at the moment I'm on hold for a few days while I wait for more parts to get here. Well, more of
one part...
There's been a lot of these sorts of hurry-up-and-wait delays in this project, so waiting for more parts - LEDs, in this case - is par for the course.
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Shifting gears: As long as I have the mic, let me share a few Fluxer updates with you, one year in:
My challenge a year ago was to "simply" figure out how to make these things.
You all know by know that I am one wordy MF'er, so I'll spare you a recap of the whole past year - please see the previous pages of this thread if you're interested
- but the present PCB design has been stable since early June, which is saying something given the tumult that came before then. Huzzah!
To be completely honest, I felt like I spent most of last spring pounding my head against a wall, just like this emoji:
The growing pains with this device were just that,
painful. I want each of these heaters to function as if it were my own, and I have little patience for hand-held devices that don't perform very well. Last spring was like drinking one bitter cup of tea after another, and after each I thought I was through. Thankfully, we are past those issues now!
(...he said, foolishly challenging the IH gods...) The design has been stable for several months, and the demand continues to grow. I just need to figure out how to make more of 'em.
I fully am focused on that last point, improving my production, and I'm also putting some money into the effort. I have been working with my vendor to order a quantity of 200+ pre-machined enclosures from the factory, since it's a multi-step process when I machine the cases by hand, and it takes more time, attention, and skill to complete than I can justify. This will be a big, BIG step forward once it happens, but I've been working on this for at least a month now, and I'm still trying to get the draftsperson at the factory to capture all of the changes I need made to the spec. I've machined 170+ of these cases by hand so far, and I'd be
just fine w/a CNC mill taking over for me, lol. I believe my output will increase
dramatically once I am able to use these new cases for production. I've been told that it will take about 30 days to receive the first pieces from the order, so the sooner I can sign off on the design and green-light its production, the better. Stay tuned, I'll be sure to share more news of this in the next few weeks as it plays out.
Since the rest of the design is now 100% stable, I feel
much more comfortable building out a number of core PCBs ahead of production.
I've been using my time between orders to build out core a number of circuit boards in advance of finalizing them. This sounds obvious, but it was a ri$ky move in the past, when the design was still fluid - ask me how I know.
Anyway, I currently have 50+ PCBs pre-populated with their core SMD and through-hole components, in two flavors (with under glass LEDs and w/out). I'll complete these with the coils, switches, and/or battery meters that people choose:
Speaking of coils,
another challenge I've been confronting for the last several months has been been finding a way to make the glass or carbon fiber inserts I need
cleanly and with consistency. If you've never had to work with glass tubing, this is harder than it sounds. I think I have finally found a few methods that work for me and produce good, repeatable results, as you can see below.
These are some of my current stock of glass and carbon fiber inserts. I use a 19mm height, which requires custom made inserts for all but the 17mm size. It's prohibitively expensive to have these custom made in small batches, so if I want to offer 15mm inserts, I must cut and finish each one by hand. It's part of a theme, lol. I've gotten a lot better at this procedure over time, and I think my current methods produce very good results, as shown below. The inserts in the photo below are stacked two rows high, and you can see their consistency, which is +/- 0.5mm:
And finally, here a shot of the remains of my most recent batch of battery packs, which are also built with a focus on consistency and reliability:
I'm showing all of this because I want to convey that although I have a large backlog, I am working my way through it as best as I can, and am continuing to improve my methods as I go.
So...that's the current state of things. I hope to have some more news regarding the pre-machined enclosures soon - that's going tol save me a lot of time per heater, which will allow me to build more heaters, getting more of them into your hands sooner, etc.
I am very aware that some of you have been waiting more than 7 months for one of these, and you would like get one of these within your lifetime. I'm working on making that happen.
That's all of my updates for now. More news as it happens.
Cheers,
Edited for readability and prolixity...
We are approaching the one year anniversary of the Flux Deluxe's debut!
