Project update 15 of 15
Getting Ready to Ship!
by Jacqueline LHello again!
We have been very busy this month, working hard to assemble the 650-odd units that make up our first production batch. This work is very nearly done, and we are moving on to shipping units out to Mouser for distribution.
As we are getting quite close to shipping, this is a great time for you to please double check the shipping details for your order. You can do so in your Crowd Supply account. We will remind you to do this once more when Mouser has received the first few boxes of Tangara, but please be proactive and double check. We’ve worked very hard to make these devices, and it would make me sad if they’re lost due to shipping issues.
Quality Assurance and Testing
During assembly, we’ve encountered a variety of different defects across this batch. This is nothing alarming; any large scale production will inevitably encounter some number of quality issues. We’ve been doing our best to identify issues early and pull units from the batch for fixing later.
For transparency, here’s a list of all of the issues we’ve encountered so far:
- A small number of displays have soldering faults where they attach to the faceplate PCBs. These are very easy for us to notice during testing, and fixing this issue just involves re-soldering the display.
- The buttons on some units have been soldered slightly askew, which causes the buttons to stick when the device is fully assembled. We've been pulling these units aside and will be re-soldering the affected buttons between production batches. We're also considering some small PCB changes to reduce the occurrence of this issue for the next batch.
- A few units do not charge over USB. We think this is either a faulty battery management IC, or a soldering fault. We've put the affected units aside and will be investigating the cause before ordering the second production batch.
- Some touchwheel covers sit too loosely in the case, causing them to shift slightly when pressure is applied. We think this is a tolerancing issue between the case and the touchwheel covers. In the short term, we're using a small piece of tape between the touchwheel cover and the PCB to help keep the cover in place. Longer term, we're investigating whether slightly over-sizing the touchwheel covers will help with this issue.
- Finally, and most concerningly, some fully assembled cases have developed stress fractures in the corners near the display. This is often just an aesthetic defect, but in a couple of units the case has completely cracked. We haven't nailed down exactly what the cause is yet, but our leading theory is that it's related to screen protectors sitting too tightly in their pocket in front of the screen. We've been trying to avoid this issue by under-tightening the faceplate screws and using only loose-fitting screen protectors, and so far this seems like it's been effective.
As mentioned, we’re not too concerned about the overall defect rate with this batch. We have enough of an overage of all our components that we’re able to fix or replace any faulty parts. Our main concern is defects that might develop after packaging or in transit, or that may have been missed before we knew to look out for them. Such instances should hopefully be rare, however if you do receive a faulty unit then please contact support@cooltech.zone so we can sort things out for you.
