The last month’s progress has been steady despite the expected pause of manufacturing work with the contractor in China due to their New Year’s holidays. Here is a short summary of the latest developments.

Pre-Production Unit

We managed to finish the five prototypes before the Chinese New Year, and I received one sample in the first days of February for a comprehensive inspection and validation. In general terms, I’m satisfied with the quality of the assembly and the fact that there are no real manufacturability problems. The performance of this sample is the same or better (in analog functionality) than the prototype, which brings peace of mind that the design is production-worthy. Although from these tests we don’t see the need to make any modifications to the PCB design, it is the results of the EMC tests that will ultimately decide if some changes are necessary (fingers crossed no issues happen there). With a good degree of certainty, we can start the procurement process of the most hard-to-source BOM components.

Production Testing

The five samples were tested using a highly manual test procedure and, though valid for a small batch, this is not practical for a larger production run where we need to ensure test consistency and reduce total test time. There is the need to automate the parts of the tests that check the speed of USB communication in the USB-2 and USB-3 lines, as well as all the circuitry related to it. As you can imagine, this translates into additional coding effort of the production test software which just started and is given priority in order not to delay production.

Unfortunately, there is still a test that has not been implemented successfully with the supplier: current measurement verification. For some strange reason (not yet identified), the USB Insight Hub provides incorrect readings on some channels when connected to an electronic load. One of these pre-production boards was the one I checked in my lab and the current readings are within parameters (less than 1% error). This seems a small issue, but it is delaying the completion of the test procedures… and debugging a hardware issue from afar is a challenge.

CE Compliance Tests

Four samples are in the lab to undergo testing for CE compliance. The lab just resumed work and we started to exchange information and clear any doubts about the hardware, firmware and procedures. We are a few weeks away to start the real lab tests and the findings here are critical for the project schedule. Good design PCB layout practices have been considered in the hardware design to limit EMI emissions, but nothing replaces the real tests to know if any hardware modifications are necessary.

Acrylic Parts

I received the sample with the first acrylic pieces. The frontal faceplate quality is good, with clean cutouts and a sharp, even print. The background color is a little darker than expected but does not affect the overall appearance of the product. The acrylic comes with a protective laminate that will be left in place to avoid scratches and damage to the surface and to provide the final user with the pleasure of removing it!

You can see the quality of the acrylic print between the campaign prototype and the pre-production prototype:

Firmware… and More Firmware

The last month has been frenetic in terms of firmware development: the configuration menu in the USB Insight Hub is operational as well as the web server with the front end. There are a lot of refinements pending on all fronts, but in general the components play along well. One pressing issue is to develop the firmware infrastructure to help the automated production procedures discussed above.

Embedded web server and front end (using ESP32-Sveltekit).

Configuration menu on USB Insight Hub screens

One task that is falling behind is the Enumeration extraction agent software that runs at the side of the host and in charge of sending the metadata of the USB device connected to each of the USB Insight Hub ports. In its basic form it works, but a lot must still be done on handling exceptions and the user interface. The reason to let this piece of the system lag behind is explained next.

The Elephant In the Room

Trade wars, tariff increases, and all the issues present on the global stage add a lot of uncertainty to this and surly other hardware projects. It feels like we are trying to perform a delicate surgery on a ship navigating in choppy waters. Apart from the 10% increase to the already existing 25% on goods from China, which will definitely impact our cost structure, there is still no other major impact, yet. The current situation puts huge pressure on completing the hardware as soon as possible to decrease to some degree the uncertainty on parts availability and delivery costs, but this has the negative effect of delaying the development of some non-critical firmware/software components. Ultimately, the rationale is simple: once you have the hardware, we can deliver the firmware and software digitally to perform any update, something obviously that can’t be done the other way around with the hardware.

We are committed to delivering this product to all our supporters and, in the reach of our possibilities, do so at the proper time. As always, if you have any questions, please contact me through the Ask A Question link on the campaign page.

Cheers,
David