Gearing up for pre-production

Hello backers,

There was a lot of back & forth with our contract manufacturer in the last month. We’ve been able to secure the deal we had already initiated for mass manufacturing a while ago and get the ball rolling for pre-production. Check out below for the details.

DEVELOPMENT STATUS

The last update was mainly about getting the connectivity replicated. This time, we’re gearing up for production.

Gearing up for pre-production is a crucial phase. It’s the time to anticipate all the problems that could arise during production and fix them. Let me point out some of them:

• For the earbuds
  • The molds need to be adjusted so they can handle the plastic battery ring we modified.

In red is the interference with the battery ring needing to be fixed.

• • We used spring-loaded pins in the earbuds so they charge with the case. We figured out there was a better way to make the earbuds more reliable in its charging. Instead of spring-loaded pins (commonly called “pogo pins”), we’re using gold plated target discs.

What we actually sent to the Chinese manufacturer (for confidentiality purposes, we removed a part of the top image)

• For the charger
  • The PCB’s charging case we showed you before is not optimal for mechanical assembly. While it was working great, it required a bunch of manual soldering, which translates into more production mistakes and a higher rejection rate.

A panel of PCBs for the charging case. This design will reduce the rejection rate and make sure you have a reliable user experience with the case.

Sylvain assembling the new charging case’s PCB to make sure it’s working as expected

Hakuna Matata!

Chris & the Phazon team