Reinventing The Wheel

We took the Aviator and Afterburner bike lights toward 99% complete - our contract manufacturer (CM) does the final 1%. The last few weeks have been a CAD file ping pong game. Example: the CM sends us a CAD file changing the wall thickness of a part by 2mm, we push back and send a CAD file with a .5mm change. The CM compromises at 1mm.
Through this process we’ve made .1mm to 1mm changes to 8 components: balancing ease of manufacturing with design.

We finished this ping pong game last week and now we’re moving toward the Golden Sample. That’s the final, “Gold Standard” prototype bike light built by the CM that Fortified signs off on saying it meets our quality standards.

Our CM finished the rubber part samples first and shipped them right away. We tested the rubber parts with our metal prototype - almost all of them worked - and here’s some of the feedback we gave to the CM:

#2 & #7 : Collar Gasket and Battery Shroud Gasket: Theses gaskets protect our bike lights from water. The CM almost got it right, but each is about 1mm too long in diameter.

#4: Clamp Shim: The CM got the size and shape perfect but it’s too squishy so we specified a higher durometer to keep your handlebars and seat post from being scratched

#10: Button Spring Gasket: When you press the lens to turn the light on/off, this gives you a resistive force. The problem with this sample is that it gives too much resistive force, so we’re thinning the part to give a more pleasant haptic feedback.

Soon we’ll be seeing the plastic parts and metal parts. We will finalize the Golden Sample in the factory and press GO! on mass production.

Estimated ship date: Early August!

Slava + Team Fortified