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  • Production has Started!

     

    Hello all,

    We’ve had an incredibly busy few weeks, with production runs on your Quadshots finally under way! We received all the plastic parts from our US based plastics supplier, and here are the boxes with enough plastic parts for 400 Quadshots:

    The new and (post the prototype run we mentioned in the last update) slightly improved electronics box:

    Brand new off the molds!

    And 1600 ABS-PC pylon skeletons:

    The Lisa/Ms for the Espresso level awards also ran through their production run for the Kickstarter deliveries. Here we see them being assembled at Dallas Electronics, our Santa Cruz based PCB assembly providers.

    Adding solder paste using an aluminium stencil:

    Pick and place robot moving the components from reels onto the board: 

    Coming out of the reflow oven:

    Lined up after the bake (a bunch of tasty fresh crispy Lisa/Ms yumm):

    One hundred of assembled Lisa/M 2.0s in anti-static bags at our office, ready for QA testing and subsequent Quadshot installation:

    Our little jig for testing hundreds of Lisa boards :)

    The Lisa/Ls, which power the Kopi Luwaks, are also ready and have undergone QA testing. We also received prototype Lia PCBs for the Mochas: 

    These will be tested for bugs and sent off for their production runs shortly. The full run of the next generation Aspirin IMU v2.1 PCBs is also due to come in next week! Here are the Aspirin v2.1 prototypes we assembled and tested:

    Another thing we needed to do was to design a shipping box so that your Quadshots reach you in good condition. Here is the box for the Mochas and Kopi Luwaks (the big Styrofoam box in the center contains the RC transmitter:

    …... and here is Jeff drop-testing a box to make sure it can survive the rigors of shipping services!

    Jeff went to Shenzhen, China on the 18th, and will go to the EPP foam molding company on Monday to see the ‘first shots’ of wings and pylons to verify their shape, weight, and surface finish. The mold tools were supposed to be ready for first shots on the 20th, but the molding company needed to modify the pylon cavities to correctly hold the plastic skeletons. Jeff also took delivery of 800 servos for the elevons: 

    and is due to receive the 300 radio transmitters and receivers today. Here’s our prototype with the production labels:

    He is also buying off-the-shelf parts (screws, connectors, LEDs, PCB testing gear, etc) and ordering some small custom components (motor clips, servo linkages, etc) at the Shenzhen SEG electronic market.

    2400 LEDs and camera screws:

    SEG is one of the biggest of its kind in the world - half a dozen huge, 5-10 story buildings crammed full of thousands of factory representatives, vendors, and resellers hawking products made all over China. It’s nuts!

    And that’s not all, we have also been making the Quadshot easier to fly and the control software was tweaked to allow the Quadshot to handle mis-aligned motors (such as might occur due to a hasty repair in the field after a hard crash). A rainy day meant flight testing indoors:

    It works! See how we cool the cookies Jeff is trying to steal. ;)

    Chris has been flying with a GoPro camera a good deal, and we will soon post more videos showing off the improvements in stability and reliability of the system, as well as some exciting on-board video footage!

    Thanks again for all your support and patience; we are almost there!

    Best,

    -tQt.

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