We’re pleased to report a great deal of progress following successful meetings with our prototype manufacturers in China last week.
Martin & Jim have returned to London with a small number of samples from first off plastic mouldings. We’re naturally relieved that these units worked, albeit with some manual fine-tuning needed. GravityLight comprises 40+ parts, sourced from various suppliers so the odds of a first time functional build and test were slight. So a terrific start to a week of production engineering trouble-shooting.
Further CAD changes have since been made to address the few areas of concern and this data is presently being used to make modifications to the tooling. The factory working quickly on this and we expect new plastics for further evaluation in the first week of September. All being well, the next samples will work first time - we will keep you posted on this progress!
For those who are interested in the machinations of supply… we’ve had springs made and delivered to the wrong spec, straps a month late (and made by hand rather than by machine!), and regrettably our trusted bag supplier fell at the last hurdle due to more pressing manufacturing issues within their business. It is a relief to say that an alternative supplier is stepping in to support the prototype run.
So you can see that we’re close to trial but cannot be more precise on timing though production across September and shipping out at the end of September is our expected horizon based on our present status.