Hi all,
Time for us to give you an update on how these lights are progressing.
Delivery Date: It’s mid-January now. That means you can’t give these as holiday gifts – and that makes us really sad. Our advisors remind us, “that’s the nature of startups,” but such reassurances aren’t going to diminish our commitment to getting you the world’s best bike lights as soon as possible.
The Problem: The bike lights have 3 unresolved bugs:
1. Front housing is loose (recently solved! See below for details)
2. Lens on/off button is hard to push
3. Secret battery door is hard to open
The Good News: We know exactly how to solve each “bug.”
The Bad News: We are limited in the changes we can make because we’ve already started the tooling (molds) for the bike lights. We can tweak these molds, but the tweaks must be “steel-safe“. While we’d love to create new tooling, this would push us back 60-90 days - and you can’t wait that long. Subsequently, our engineers are basically designing solutions with one of their hands tied behind their backs.
The Solution: Jonathan, our brilliant new MechE, came up with several workarounds. In short, he came up with a clever way to machine the parts after they come out of the mold, which enables us to test our various solutions to each problem.
Here are a couple pictures we wanted to show you of items we’ve recently machined.
Orange arrows point to the groove that controls the locking of the battery door. These machined “jigs” are designed to dial in the battery collar locking/unlocking tightness. Too loose = water ingress. Too tight and it’s hard to open. We wish we did these 12 months ago but each sample costs ~$1000 and we didn’t have enough money then. Pennywise, pound foolish. Lesson learned.
The front housing of the light was loose. Jonathan, came up with a clever solution: he added “fins” (green arrows) that fit into “holes” (pink arrows) and keep the housing from moving. We’ll explain the jiu-jitsu genius of this over a beer another time, but it is genius.
Next Steps: We’ve been on the phone with the factory from 9-10:30pm four night/week for the last 3 months in order to get these solution implemented. In the coming weeks, our factory will mirror these prototypes in preparation for mass production. Once our solutions have been approved, our Director of Operations (Bruno) will be traveling to Shenzhen to oversee production.
Thanks for sticking it through with us - we can’t tell you how much we appreciate your support.
November 20, 2014 at 10:40 pm
If you guys use both hands, will it get done quicker?
November 21, 2014 at 2:35 pm
If only we could, Mehul! If there’s one thing we know, it’s that two hands are better than one for manufacturing.
December 2, 2014 at 11:10 am
What is stopping you?
December 2, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Hey Mehul,
Thanks for reaching out.
As we mentioned, our big hesitation is the additional time delay that comes with significant tooling changes. Thankfully, our engineers have come up with some great solutions that should save us from having to make any major changes to tooling.
November 20, 2014 at 10:42 pm
Thanks for the update, but is sure is getting to be a dark ride home. Of course, I could go out and buy another light, but…..nah, foggetaboutit.
November 21, 2014 at 2:38 pm
Thanks for the patience and support, Bill. We can’t wait to get you your light!
November 20, 2014 at 10:59 pm
Spend the money; take the time; do it right. Don’t compromise now with a seemingly expedient fix. The extra time you mentioned will be nothing compared to customer frustration of receiving the lights after investing in the product and waiting patiently for delivery only to learn, months later, that once the first run of product for distribution has run out, a “new-improved version” (i.e., the version that should have been produced first time around) is now available. Remember, the sales pitch is for a light that will be around for ages. How ironic if the product we’ve waited for disappears, not due to theft, but postponed evolution.
November 20, 2014 at 11:01 pm
Take the time; spend the money, just do it right.
November 21, 2014 at 2:37 pm
Thanks for the support and understanding, Lewis. It means a lot to us.
November 26, 2014 at 2:41 am
i agree, take the time, what’s 60 to 90 days after all this time anyway. and i’d be really annoyed to know there’s a new gen of improved lights coming after i got mine.
December 2, 2014 at 3:59 pm
Thanks for the feedback and support, guys. There’s nothing better than having supporters who share our priorities.
November 21, 2014 at 1:06 am
Hi Guys, I completely understand where you are coming from and everything that goes into creating a product. Particularly one that you care so much about the quality of. That being said, if in the future you do decide to do re-tooling of the molds in future production lines and it ends up being more structurally sound (over the originals that are being re engineered). Would you be willing to let those who were with you from the beginning (those that preordered), trade in their lights for the newer version?
Looking forward to getting my lights. Don’t sweat the delay. I would much rather have a bomb proof light in January, than a buggy one in December.
Ryan
November 21, 2014 at 10:36 pm
Hey Ryan,
Thanks for reaching out and for being one of our original supporters.
We can assure you that we would never deliver a product to you before ensuring that it meets our Fortified standard of toughness and durability - if it’s not up to our Forever Promise Guarantee, we won’t let it out of our HQ.
In other words, we would never deliver you a buggy light. Not now, not in January and not ever!
November 21, 2014 at 7:28 am
Looking good. What happened to the head-set mounted version of the front light? I really liked that design!
November 21, 2014 at 2:44 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Eric!
We’re always experimenting with new ideas and you can be sure the head-set mounted front light is stashed away in our archives for a rainy day.
November 21, 2014 at 11:16 am
Hang in there, guys!
- Boris
November 21, 2014 at 2:38 pm
Thanks, Boris. We really appreciate your support.
November 22, 2014 at 3:39 pm
Stay true to your cause = providing the consumer with “out of this world” quality bike lights. Take away that selfimposed weight of your shoulders of time being more important than quality. Keep up the good work.
/ Robert, Sweden
November 22, 2014 at 8:52 pm
Thanks very much for the support, Robert.
It’s great to know we have supporters like you who share our vision for creating the best products this market has ever seen.
November 24, 2014 at 6:53 am
Thanks for all the hard work, guys. Glad to see someone out there pays this much attention to the details.
November 24, 2014 at 10:01 pm
You’re entirely too good to us, Steve.
Thanks a bundle for the kind words and support!
January 6, 2015 at 11:21 pm
I’ve lost track. Do you have an anticipated future date to begin shipping lights? And by “lights,” I mean Afterburner?
January 11, 2015 at 8:02 pm
Hi JayP,
Thanks for touching base!
We’ll be providing an update in just a few days with a comprehensive progress report. We’ll also pass along some cool resources so you can get some better insight into what our manufacturing process looks like.
Stay tuned!