Mon, Feb 28 2011
Direct from China: a production report on Sling Back from Nikki and Jordan!
Sling Back Highlights:
- Three weeks ago, we received T1 samples (the first shots off the manufacturing tool) for the small and medium versions of Sling Back.
- We found that the tolerances on those versions weren’t lined up. We now have our engineers in China working to make sure that the springs and plastic parts work in sync so that Sling Back functions correctly.
- In the next few weeks, we hope to receive a T2 sample once the tolerances are corrected.
Previous production reports: Production Report #1, Production Report #2, Production Report #3
What we’ve been up to…
The focus for the past several weeks has been finalizing two versions of the Sling Back, so that it can retract multiple types of computer cords. Sling Back Small will be able to swoop up 0.125″ diameter cords (the size of standard iPod cables), while 0.1735″ diameter cords (like camera or printer USB cables) will be better off in Sling Back Medium.
Earlier this month, the engineers we’re working with built prototypes using parts we printed from our 3D printer, so that they could figure out the exact spring to use in the retracting mechanism. All the plastic part tooling has commenced, and the spring (the last piece of the puzzle) was finalized on November 7.
We also made sure that our new logo will be featured on the top of the product. Goodbye, awkward encircled-q from the last post!
Coming up next…
T1′s are expected to arrive on November 21st. Since Nikki will be flying back to China this week, we’ll be able to relay our feedback much quicker, and therefore expedite the process. We’re hoping there won’t be too much to revise.
What we’ve been up to the last 3 weeks…
Since we last checked in 3 weeks ago, we’ve been working diligently to make sure that all parts of the Sling Back work well together, our main variable being the spring. Our co-workers at Q-Asia were able to get a spring from our factory that we slipped into one of our prototypes. We received it and tested it tw0 weeks ago, but we could tell right away that our initial spec’s were just too weak. While we could get Sling Back to wind up, it wasn’t pulling the cords in with the ease that we wanted out of the final product.
Since then we’ve been experimenting in the shop, ripping apart cord retractors on the market and cannibalizing their parts and spring so we could place a larger spring into our Bertha printouts. While using these prototypes we realized that when the user is winding Sling Back up, he/she has no way of knowing when to stop. This led to a lot of broken Bertha printouts, and it also led to us working on a feedback mechanism. In the new iteration of the spring mechanism, once the spring is wound to its end, it pops around a quarter of the way, so you can clearly feel that you’ve wound to the end.
Other noteworthy happenings include ditching the Large version of Sling Back (pictured in the last blog post), and experimenting with an X-tra Small size for headphone wires. While we’re only moving forward with the Small and Medium versions for now, we see the Large and X-tra Small versions as potential line extensions for the future. We also began working on new renderings to present to interested retail partners.
What we expect to happen in the next 3 weeks…
While we were unable to use the initial spring Q-Asia sent us, they have been busy working with the factory and our engineers to resolve that issue. On Tuesday, sourcing extraordinaire Nikki Laffel will be traveling over to China with our Bertha print outs of the new mechanism and housing. She’ll be working very closely with our team and the factory to make sure we get the right mechanics for the spring. Our hope is that the spring issue is resolved by the end of the week, and we can kick off tooling right away.
Keep a look out on the site as we also plan to launch updated renderings for the Sling Back later this week. Here’s a sneak peek:
What we’ve been doing:
In-house we are finalizing the engineering of our design. Through our many test prototypes on Bertha, we’ve evolved the design to be both beautiful and extremely usable. We’re making sure we have working prototypes with actual springs in a small, medium, and large version, before we go into tooling.
On the opposite side of the globe, our partners in Asia have found a factory that can handle Sling Back’s injection molded parts, its springs, and its assembly.
What will be happening:
Over the course of the next week or so, we’ll finalize the design and spec’s for the spring. Once our prototypes are 100% working, the factory will start tooling.
About the product:
The Sling Back is a universal wire retractor that can suck up more than three feet of cable in one fell swoop. It’s cake to use: just open the magnetically-sealed top, press your wire in, pull once, and voila!
- Retracts cords up to 1/8″ in diameter, including USB cords, cell phone chargers, Firewire cables, and more.
– Unlimited stacking possibilities.
– Cool color combos.
Available for $15 in the Quirky store.
During last week’s Town Meeting, we announced some changes to the way production updates would be communicated. In short:
- We will provide a date estimate only when full production has begun.
- We will send confirmation e-mails and have SKU (color/version) selection only when the product is on hand.
- We will provide a full production report on each post-threshold product every three weeks.
Stay tuned for the following post-production reports coming your way…
Wrapster: later today!
Space Bar: 9/10
MugStir: 9/14
Sling Back: 9/23
Switch: 9/30
Click n Cook: 10/4
Pivot Power: 10/5
After 325 days, we’ve moved SlingBack into production.
As many of you know, this has sparked both an internal/external conversation about product aging and how it should affect the threshold process. We have a bunch of thoughts, and we’ll continue to monitor the respective threads on this topic on the blog/forum.
At the end of the day, we agreed with many of your sentiments about keeping our word, etc. That, and we think Slingback is a great product.
We hope to address the aging/threshold stuff in the next few weeks. But for now, congratulations to everyone on pushing product #14 to threshold.
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