The Beta build is happening right now!
over 4 years ago – Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 03:50:42 PM

Nǐ hǎo! Greetings from China!

For the last couple of days, we have been at our factory in China making progress on the Beta build.

We have been working with our factory’s engineers and technicians on the Doppler remotely for quite a while now and working alongside them in person has been a nice change --  we have been able to debug issues and approve changes instantly rather than having to deal with the time difference. Since it is very difficult to efficiently bring up a new product without having “boots on the ground” in the factory, we always prefer making a trip over the ocean and working with our awesome team in China face to face.

We have been very busy the last couple days with the Beta build and will be working right up until the Golden Week holiday that starts on October 1st and will send out a full update when we get back to the states. For now, we want to leave you with some teaser photos of the Beta build.

Things are going well and we can’t wait to finally send out these Beta units to our backers.

Needless to say, we are pretty excited to get everything working! This is our mood right about now:

Looking forward to shipping out these units everyone! 

-A very excited PAI Team

We are almost there! Preparing for the Beta build.
over 4 years ago – Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 12:39:48 AM

Doppler backers,

It’s been a while and we apologize for the delay, but we are back with another update! If you are ever anxious, or just want to check in with us, feel free to leave a comment here, or send us an email at [email protected], and we will do our best to respond in a timely manner. Of late, we have been working hard on the Doppler and as such, this update got put on the back burner for a while.

Let’s start with the important news first: last you heard from us, we were targeting a December ship date and we are happy to say that nothing has changed in that regard. We are still hoping to get you your Doppler by the end of the year!

So, what have we been working on? In this update we will discuss the beta schedule, the development of the App, over the air updates, our flashing rig, USB-C, and an updated packaging sample. Strap in, it’s a good one!

Betas

Since we are still on schedule for December delivery of the production units, we wanted to update everyone on the status of the Doppler Beta run. The biggest remaining potential hurdle for the Beta units is making sure everything is finished before the Chinese Golden Week holiday -- which begins on October 1. The reason this is important is because, like Chinese New Year, everything shuts down during this holiday, and we don’t want our schedule to be negatively affected by this shutdown. In pursuit of this, we have ordered all the necessary parts for the 200-unit Beta run, and are pushing our suppliers to ensure that everything is ready and in place for Beta production in September. Once we have all the necessary parts in-house (in our Chinese factory), we will begin the process of building up the actual Dopplers. This starts with assembly of all of the proper components on each of the FIVE (!!) circuit boards that run the Doppler. Once all the components are assembled onto the circuit boards, we will test the functionality of each of the boards before flashing each Doppler’s PicoSOM with our software (more on this later), and then assembling it into its Beta form. After assembly is complete, the quality assurance (QA) team will go through every detail of each and every unit to ensure complete functionality and make a note of any improvements we can for the production run. Once the QA team has released the beta units, we will ship them to PAI headquarters and from there, on to our Beta backers. We will be in contact with all Beta backers this week to verify that we have their correct address on file, and that they are still willing to be one of our testers. At that point, we will be relying on our Beta backers to give us any and all feedback they can regarding the Doppler (including things like unboxing experience, build quality, and app).

Assuming things go according to plan, the Beta units will be in our Beta testers’ hands towards the end of October.

App

While our manufacturing team has been hard at work procuring all the various components and preparing for the Beta run, our App team over at Zemingo (we discussed this relationship here) has been working on the Doppler App. For the Beta of the app we are concentrating on the most important aspects of the Doppler -- in the parlance of software development, this is called the minimum viable product (MVP). So what are the MVP features of the Doppler App? The onboarding, which allows the Doppler to connect to Wifi and Amazon Alexa is obviously necessary to allow it to connect to the internet. The alarm clock-specific features are also important for an alarm clock (duh), so the ability to edit and remove alarms made it into the MVP along with some various different alarm sounds that we would like feedback on (see below). We want to take this opportunity to make it clear -- the MVP version of the Doppler App is just the bare bones and not representative of what the final App will be -- once the Beta is over and everything is working well, we will start adding the rest of the awesome features we want for the Doppler app to have. We also plan on continuously adding new features to the App after launch as well. This being said, we still want feedback from our Beta testers on the features included in the MVP version of the App to find and fix any bugs or other issues with the App’s foundation before we move onto more complex features.

Alarm sounds

One of the things we are working on with the App is the alarm sounds that will play when the Doppler’s alarm is going off. People tend to be very particular about the type of alarm sound they want to wake up to. Some people want to wake up slowly and softly while others want to be jolted awake with loud noises to make sure they wake up. But the question remains, what kind of alarm sound do you want to wake up to? Please sound off in the comments about your favorite alarm sounds and what you think the best sound to wake up to is. We know that there are lots of different opinions here, so we want to collect as many as possible before making any decisions.

OTA Software update

At first glance, the Doppler might seem like a relatively simple product, but its simple form belies the complexity of its components. Inside each Doppler, there are actually three different main chips that control various parts of the Doppler. The reason for this is to maximize the Doppler’s operational efficiency. Each of the chips used specializes in a different task or type of task. The main Linux computer, the PicoSOM, is the brain of the Doppler and controls everything about the product. The microcontroller controls input/output (I/O) -- buttons, switches, light sensor, and battery backup functions. The third chip is the digital signal processor (DSP) which handles the speakers and microphone. We mentioned in a previous update that we had built over-the-air (OTA) updates into the Doppler’s software, allowing us to push software updates to the PicoSOM wirelessly. Now, we also have the ability to push OTA updates to the microcontroller and DSP, in addition to the PicoSOM! This required us to port a piece of software for both the microcontroller and DSP to the PicoSOM, then build utilities into the PicoSOM’s OTA updater which re-flash those components when an update occurs. This wasn’t easy to implement, but it is an important, foundational feature of the Doppler. With this change, the Doppler is now able to update all aspects of its software on all of its chips, both wirelessly and automatically.

Flashing Rig

As an aside, if you’ve been wondering what we are talking about when we keep mentioning “flashing”, worry no longer! Getting each PicoSOM ready for its Doppler is a process that involves flashing, or transferring an image file to the flash storage built onto the PicoSOM. Previously, we would flash each PicoSOM one at a time, and the process took about 4 minutes per unit. This was fine when we were dealing with lower quantities, but as we start ramping up production, it’s clear how much time this could end up taking. In order to do this more efficiently, we have created a “flashing rig” using our in house laser cutter that mounts 10 PicoSOM flashing boards (called PicoPi’s) to a piece of plastic. We will then connect all 10 PicoPi’s with USB-C cables to a USB hub and then into a computer with a flashing program on it. We are currently 3D printing some “walls” that will go under the white sheet of plastic and sandwich all of the cables and the USB hub with a second sheet of plastic so that there will just be two wires (power and USB) needed to flash all 10 of the PicoSOM’s at once. We are also going to finish it up with the rubber feet to protect the flashing rig from slipping and shaking. This rig will allow us to batch flash the PicoSOM in batches of 10, plus we think it looks pretty cool, so we thought we’d share it.

USB-C

Let’s talk quickly about USB-C. The Doppler was always meant to be upgradeable to USB-C. The original plan was that we would ship a replacement USB-C circuit board and new back plate to those that had ordered the upgrade, and they would be able to remove the old USB-A board and install the new board and back plate themselves. We have decided that we will now be handling the upgrade on our end to ensure the highest quality installation. Anyone who has already ordered the USB-C upgrade will have their Doppler ship with the upgrade pre-installed. We are working on the details of the process for those who decide they want the upgrade later, but rest assured, we will take care of our early supporters. Along with the news that the USB-C upgrade will be pre-installed, we would like to announce an addition to our Sandman-branded cable lineup!

We have tapped our cable manufacturer and had some Sandman branded USB-C cables made. These cables are very high quality, and we are quite happy with how they turned out. The cables are also flat, which will make it easier to utilize the cable management feature of the Doppler. As of right now, we will have the following new cable configurations in 4-ft. lengths and black color:

• USB-A to USB-C
• USB-C to USB-C

These products will be available in our Backerkit shortly, so you’ll be able to add these new cables to your Backerkit pledge, and they will ship when your Doppler ships. We will also be adding them to our website, so they will be available for anyone to purchase in the future. By the way, we updated sandmanclocks.com, check it out when you get a chance! 

Packaging

We’d also like to share an updated packaging sample we have received from our packaging supplier. It’s looking good and we are hoping to gather good feedback from our Beta testing!

We hope you guys enjoyed the update, sorry it was late. We plan to have the next one for you during the Beta build.

Thanks again!

-PAI Team

We are go for Beta! Plus, new boards, packaging, and a schedule update
almost 5 years ago – Sat, Jul 06, 2019 at 02:29:57 AM

Patient Doppler supporters, 

We have another informative update ready for you as we prep for the Beta run of Doppler to roll off the line.

Schedule:

Let’s start off with the good news: we are GO on the Beta run! The last board revisions are confirmed, the final tooling modifications are currently being made, 200 sets of Doppler parts will come from those tools, and then we will be ready to begin assembling the Beta units.

Okay, so that’s the good news. The bad news: the latest schedule we got from our overseas team has production Dopplers (non beta) shipping from our factory around December. Yes, you read that correctly, December 2019.

So, what is taking so darn long? The short answer, which is an industry-wide one, is long lead times for some electronic parts. Some of the Doppler’s parts have a lead time of up to 14 weeks, meaning that it would take 14 weeks to receive the parts once the order has been placed. Normally, the order for the production parts would not be placed until the successful completion of the Beta run. One thing we are doing to minimize the delay is ordering the long-lead-time parts now so we can start that 14 week counter as early as possible. Additionally, we are working with our various distributors and suppliers to try to get us these parts faster than the advertised lead times. If we are unable to do so, we won’t be able to start mass production of the Doppler until the middle of October. So, hopefully we can beat the estimated lead times and get you all your Doppler sooner than December. 

We have been working on this darn alarm clock for a while now; we know we are late and we aren’t happy about it either. We want to get these things into your hands as fast as we can -- it truly is a great product and we know you will love it! 

Now, back to the good news, the Beta run is much closer since we will be buying these components from local in-stock sources in much lower quantities or even ordering them locally (in the USA) and shipping them into China for the Beta run. We can’t use these sources for mass production since they are sometimes upwards of 10 times more expensive. For a Beta run this is a cost we can stomach, but for production it’s not an option. We are finishing up the final tooling changes for the Beta runs around the end of this month and we anticipate starting to assemble the Beta run of Dopplers around the middle of August. The Beta units will then ship via air to our office and then on to our Beta backers.    

Thanks again for all of your patience, we are closer than ever! Now please read on for more info on the latest Doppler boards, the packaging, and the testing application we’re working on, it’s great stuff! 

New Boards

 As we mentioned at the end of the last update we were designing the final revision of the boards before Beta production started. The changes in this board revision were mostly around allowing us to dim the display down further than we could with the previous revision of boards. Since preparing circuit boards is a pretty neat process we figured we would go over it again quickly with these boards! 

Once we finished designing the boards we sent them out to a company that makes printed circuit boards, or PCBs. This is a very interesting process which involves lots of chemicals and it’s actually similar to developing film (remember that?). Here is a good video for those interested.

This is our button board, display board, and carrier board. The USB boards were unchanged with the most recent design change so we didn’t have them remade. 

We then took them to our board assembly house where they had solder paste applied to them. This is done by squeezing solder paste through a thin sheet of metal, called a stencil, that has laser cut holes over the parts of the PCB that need solder on them, these are called pads. 

Once the paste is applied, the boards go into a pick and place machine (as discussed in a previous update) where the electrical components are put on top of the solder paste. Once everything is placed, the boards go through a reflow oven to melt the solder paste and attach the parts electrically. 

Once we got the boards back from the board assembly house, we went through and verified that all features of the circuit worked on this new revision of boards. 

It took some tweaks to the firmware to get things going, but once those were finished, all was approved and now we have a fully working set of boards! 

We then grab a Pico SoM and program it with the latest version of our software. We pair the PicoSom with the carrier board, attach an antenna and wire everything up. Apply power and... 

Voila! A Doppler! Well, working Doppler boards. 

Then we assemble the boards along with the plastics and you have a fully working Doppler! 

We are using these units to continue working on software features, squash bugs, and we have also sent a couple to Zemingo, so they can continue working on the app. More on that in the next update. 

Testing Application

While our hardware team has been hard at work bringing up and testing this new board revision, our software team has been working on our QA testing application. 

It’s very important for every Doppler to work properly. So how do you test this quickly and efficiently? We have been working on a testing application to make sure every function of every Doppler works properly once it’s been built. This custom application works by utilizing the Linux computer inside the Doppler and running the newly built Doppler through a slew of tests. We have to test and make sure all 408 lights, 12 buttons, 6 USB ports, 2 microphones, 2 speakers, light sensor, Bluetooth, WiFi, and internal battery are all working properly. We are trying to automate these tests as much as possible to reduce human error. The goal of these tests is to make sure every Doppler works perfectly before they leave the factory.

Here is a snippet of the current testing application in action:

We will run the testing application on all Beta Dopplers as soon as they are built and we will work with the QA team in our factory to make sure this testing application is working as well as it can. 

Packaging

We have also been hard at work designing the packaging for the Doppler and we would like to share some of that process and what we have come up with. Packaging has two purposes: to inform the user about the product inside and to protect the product before it’s opened up by the customer. 

We were very happy with the packaging design for the original Sandman so we took this general idea and adapted it for the Doppler. We created the general shape of the packaging using all natural cardboard for recyclability and protection. We did a lot of testing at small scale with card stock before scaling up to full size. 

Once the approximate shape and size of the assembled packaging was designed, you “unfold” the shape you’ve created and you’re left with the flat design that will be cut out of the cardboard to create the packaging -- these are called die lines. We iterated a lot on this and we are really happy with what we came up with. We hope you will be too!  

Once these die lines were close to final we started working on the actual graphics of the packaging. We did a lot of research on this, and went through a lot of different designs (and a lot of mini Doppler boxes). We think what we have come up with is informative to the user, visually pleasing, attention grabbing and most importantly will help the user have a great unboxing experience. 

We will be leaning on our Doppler Beta testers for their feedback on the packaging and how we can improve the experience. Thanks in advance Doppler Beta testers!  

Manual

With a product like the Doppler, that has the ability to update itself over the internet with new features, we felt like a physical printed user manual would be impossible to keep up to date. Because of this we have a quick start guide for the Doppler printed directly on the packaging and a super easy-to-navigate online manual which we will keep up to date for all features of the Doppler. This will be live for the Doppler Beta testers to test along with their Dopplers. 

Thanks again for reading and we look forward to your questions and comments below! 

-PAI Team

Schedule, display, light sensor and color updates
almost 5 years ago – Sat, May 18, 2019 at 12:47:49 AM

 Loyal Doppler backer,

Strap in for another informative Kickstarter update! 

In this update we will discuss schedule, display updates, our new light sensor, and colors!

Schedule

First off, let’s talk about timeline and missed deadlines. Yes, we are aware we have missed deadlines, quite a few of them. We are sure you aren’t happy about it and we aren’t either. We want to continue being transparent and explain how and why these missed deadlines happen. Whenever we publish a schedule we try and get buy in and agreement from all parties involved, and yes there are a lot of different people involved in the Doppler at this point. Sometimes some of these parties (including us) slip with their delivery dates, sometimes other things happen which are nobody’s fault. So what has happened in the last couple of months to delay the Doppler further? It’s been a combination of a bunch of things, but the main issue we have been running into is supplier issues around our electronic parts. This is not an uncommon problem and is made worse due to the size of our orders and the fact that we aren’t a household name (yet!). Purchasing large volumes of electronic components isn’t as easy as it should be and it’s a complex and convoluted mess of manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and way too many salespeople. A lot of the slowdown at the moment is due to the escalating trade war between the US and China causing a lot of confusion and uncertainty on the best way to do things. Because we aren’t ordering as many parts as larger companies we tend to get assigned the junior salespeople that are just learning the business or ignored in general for a week or two until they decide to do their jobs and try and take our money and give us the parts we need. Hopefully, you can tell, we are getting a little frustrated about this, but it’s part of the process and we will continue to fight through things and get everything in order so you can receive your Doppler.

So, what still needs to be done and when will that happen? We are working on our final board revision and our final tool changes (more on those below) before our beta run. We expect these boards to be made and tested in around 3 weeks and the tool mods should take around the same time. At that point we will hit the GO button on the 200 unit beta test. We are estimating that it will take 3-4 weeks to get all the betas built up. We will also be flying to our factory in China to oversee this beta build and make sure everything is functioning properly. So, assuming nothing else slips we are looking at around 7 weeks until the beta units are built. At that point, we will ship all the beta units to our office in the states and then off to our beta testers. We hope this schedule stays on track, but we will let you know if things change. 

 While the Beta testers are doing their thing and giving us their feedback on the product we will be preparing for the initial production run of 5,000 Dopplers which we estimate will start about 4 weeks after the Beta run ends. We anticipate the initial production run to take 3-4 weeks to make all your Dopplers, and then we will ship the Doppler via a boat which takes around 3 weeks. Once it arrives in our office we will forward them on to you!  

These timelines are all best case scenario and all we can do is hope everything goes according to plan and then work hard if something goes wrong. Since we can’t predict the delays that will happen we are hoping to adhere as close to this schedule as possible and will let you know if things slip. As always, we are sorry on these delays, but the Doppler is so darn close to getting in your hands! Thanks for continuing to be patient and sticking with us, you’ll end up with an awesome product you’ll love!  

Display updates

As we mentioned in a previous update we weren’t happy with how the display of the Doppler looked. There were a couple issues that we wanted to improve before we even think about shipping the product. Well, we are happy to show some improvements we have made on the display front.  

These changes are most noticeable at night and in particular around the temperature area of the dashboard. These improvements were made by a couple of techniques. Here is a closeup view

• We added some epoxy material to pot or cover the lights and decrease “hotspotting”. We still think we can reduce the hotspotting further and the next build will improve this further by changing the color and opacity of the epoxy.  
• Another improvement we have made is by decreasing the amount of space between the front window and the front of the display frame. Making this tool change allows less light to reflect off the front window and back onto the display frame resulting in an improved display. 
• The last change to improve the display is adjusting the tint of the Doppler front window. This hides the unlit segments and it’s truly a Goldilocks situation to find a tint which isn’t so dark that it hides the lights but also isn’t too light so you can still see the unlit segments. Another important thing to note with the window tint is the color of the tint. Since the Doppler has red, green, and blue lights you want to make sure the tint you have is a neutral color so it doesn’t affect the color of the segments at all.  

Colors

Currently we have only ever made Black Dopplers, but that will change as many of you have wanted Dopplers in different colors. Choosing the color of a product isn’t as easy as just saying “Make a Red Doppler”. How do you know that what you picture as red is the same as everyone else? The best way to solve this is by using what’s called a Pantone color. Pantone is a company that specializes in colors and they aim to solve this issue. Here is a quick video inside their factory. In preparation for the production run of Dopplers, we finalized the 7 colors (black, gray, blue, red, orange, pink) that we want the Doppler to come in by selecting Pantone colors for each color.  

Once these colors were selected we sent these colors over to our Chinese team who made color samples or chips of each color with the proper soft touch coating. This is not an easy process as it requires mixing the paint and checking it against the Pantone color. The soft touch coating is almost perfectly clear, but it does alter the color slightly which makes this process harder than usual. We are very happy with 5 of the 6 colors. The red color chip isn’t quite what we were hoping for, so we will make a new sample before a red Doppler is made to make sure it’s perfect. 

Light Sensor

As you probably know, we have had a couple major parts of the Doppler disappear on us for various reasons, so this time we did everything we could to plan ahead. About 6 months ago, we noticed that the particular light sensor we had chosen was beginning to disappear from major online distributors like Digikey. We liked this particular light sensor for its size, features and price. Even though the manufacturer assured up this part would be widely available we have seen situations like this before and we decided to form a contingency plan and find a replacement light sensor just in case the current one was no longer available. Our electrical engineering team decided to design our boards with 2 different light sensor pads on a single board and then we would put whichever light sensor we could get onto the boards. When we tried to order our first 5,000 light sensors a month ago we were told that that light sensor we liked had been discontinued or become “end of life” as it’s known in the industry. Thankfully we had this contingency plan in place already and had the different sensor designed on our board, so we swapped out the sensors, and rewrote some firmware for our microprocessor to use the new sensor. This could have been a pretty major issue, crisis averted. 

New board revision

As mentioned earlier in the update we also have made a new revision of the board design. This is not a major revision and the majority of changes that were made were very minor housekeeping type of changes to increase manufacturability, yield and to decrease cost. Since we have a board design that works we have been able to take home and test the Doppler in its native habitat, the bedroom, when we did that we noticed one major issue. The Doppler doesn’t get as dim as we want it at night. One of our favorite features of the Sandman is how dim the display got at night, sometimes so dark you could only tell it was on after your eyes had dark adapted. Since we have had a Doppler in a trade show or office setting and we were still tweaking the mechanical we hadn’t noticed this issue until now. The majority of this board change is allowing us to dim the LEDs down further than we could before. All the parts are ordered for this final board revision before we go to beta. We will share an update with you all when these boards are working and tested! We aim to have the update in 3 weeks or so.   

Thanks again for sticking through this process with us, everyone is going to end up with a fantastic product that you will love! As always if you ever have comments or questions please shoot us an email at [email protected] or comment here. We do our best to always respond within 1 business day. 

-The PAI Team

Battery backup, pick and place, alphas and betas!
about 5 years ago – Sat, Apr 06, 2019 at 02:33:03 AM

 Hi everyone, 

First off, we apologize for the delay in this update. We have been doing our best to keep you up to date on our progress, but things slipped a little bit since we have been so busy lately. 

So, what have we been working on? Well, in our last update we discussed our Alpha build and how the units performed at the biggest trade show of the year. In this update, we will first discuss our over-the-air (OTA) update and battery backup solutions. Then we will get into some details on our alpha and beta runs!

Over the air updates

As mentioned in the previous update, our plan is to continually add features to your Doppler, even after it ships. In order to do this, we will need a robust OTA update solution that allows us to remotely update the software on the Doppler easily, safely, and securely. This is not an easy task, but we are happy to announce that it is working! We are able to remotely update a Doppler with the click of a button, when this happens the Doppler downloads the update from our servers and then restarts with any new features or fixes we have implemented. This is all done securely, so fear not, nobody is going to be hacking your Doppler. Another potential issue with over-the-air updates is what to do when a planned update doesn’t work correctly. The big concern with this issue is: if there is something wrong with the update, what happens to the Doppler now that it has bad software on it? Fortunately, this is something we have thought about as well. If something goes wrong during the update our solution will automatically revert to the previously working software of the Doppler, this is called failover. This will prevent the majority, if not all of the issues that can be caused by the updates. Getting this updater working also allows us to streamline our development process and guarantee that all Dopplers in the world will be on the same software version, at the same time. 

 Battery backup

One of the software features we have been working on is the internal battery backup. Having a smart alarm clock is great, but what happens when the power goes out? The Doppler has an internal rechargeable battery backup that will keep the time and still wake you up at the proper time if the power goes out in the middle of the night. How does it do this? When the Doppler senses that power has been lost it shuts almost everything down and goes into a low power “sleep mode”. This sleep mode turns off all USB charging, all the lights/displays, and the Linux computer. The Microprocessor remembers the current time as well as the next alarm that is supposed to go off. If the power is not restored by the time the alarm is supposed to go off a buzzer will sound waking up the user. This is powered by a small coin cell battery that is on the button board which is constantly recharged and never needs to be replaced. All of these battery backup features are automatic so you should never have to worry about setting your alarm, the Doppler has you covered!

Another issue we have noticed is the long boot time of the Linux computer. Currently, it takes about a minute for the Linux computer to start up and get Doppler’s functions running properly. For normal embedded Linux products, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but with an alarm clock it is. We decided against using an external power light on the device because we wanted the room to stay as dark as possible. What this means is that when you initially power on the Doppler, it would appear as though nothing is happening for the first minute or so. As you might imagine, this makes for a very poor user experience and we are working on firmware to fix this. When the firmware fix is implemented, and you plug in the Doppler for the first time, you’ll get lights right away (although the time won’t be correct until you either manually set the time, or you connect to the internet). We are still working on these features and with our over-the-air software updates, we will be able to add new ones as we create them! 

Overseas Alphas

 In our last update, we talked about the Alpha units we made and debuted at CES. Over the last couple of years, our engineers here at PAI Headquarters have learned a lot about the best way to assemble Dopplers quickly and efficiently. Recently, we have been transferring the knowledge we have gained to our manufacturing team in Shenzhen, China. This will help them to build Dopplers even more efficiently than we can stateside. Because the Doppler will be mass-produced overseas, they will be using pick and place machines to load up the Doppler boards with electronic components much faster and more accurately than doing it by hand. Pick and place is a cornerstone in the electronics manufacturing world as it takes the incredibly tedious job of placing components onto a board and automates it to a staggeringly fast speed. We have gone over the manual process before in a previous update but for a quick refresher, you start by placing a substance called solder paste onto the gold parts of the circuit board, these are called pads. The majority of the parts on the Doppler’s circuit boards are about the size of a grain of rice, or smaller, and these parts have to be placed with extreme precision in the proper orientation onto the pads of the circuit boards. Once all the components are placed, you put the boards into a special oven called a reflow oven which heats to a specific temperature in order to melt the solder paste and “glue” the tiny components to the circuit boards using a conductive metal called solder. Previously, we have worked with a local assembly house and all of the components were placed by hand! It took over 30 minutes per board and was incredibly difficult work, but it’s how prototype boards made. When mass-producing boards like we will be doing with the Doppler, you receive most of the small components in giant reels, kind of like an ammo belt allowing the machine to access the parts easily.

These components are then fed into a feeder which gets placed inside the pick and place machine. Next, a machine reaches down and uses a tiny vacuum to pick up a single component and place it onto the boards in the correct spot. Since the parts are so small, there will frequently be an optical inspection step in between picking up the part and placing it on the circuit board to make sure that the machine has indeed picked up a part. Once the parts are put onto the circuit boards, it goes through a separate automated optical inspection (called an AOI) and then into the reflow oven to permanently attach the parts to the board. These pick and place machines will be able to do a Doppler board in less than a minute; some of them can place 100,000 parts an hour! 

We are currently programming the pick and place machines for the overseas Alpha run, this will allow us to begin to fine tune all of these steps to make sure the Doppler boards are made efficiently and with a high yield once production starts. By next week, the boards for this overseas Alpha run will be ready to pair with the modified plastics discussed in previous updates. Once we have verified that everything looks good with these units, we will be ready to hit “GO” on the Beta.

Beta

Let’s discuss the Beta test. Whenever you build a new product you want to do a pilot run to make sure everything is working properly. We are going to be sending these pilot units to our beta backers. The beta backers will be working closely with us and finding any and all bugs or imperfections they can with the Doppler before it gets into consumer’s hands. 

Building 200 units of something isn’t easy, let alone 5,000 which will be the size of our initial production run. It requires a lot of planning and forethought. Over the past month, we have been working very closely with Future Electronics and our manufacturing team to purchase all the electronics components for the Doppler. While this sounds simple on the surface, it’s actually a monumental task. The Doppler has 497 individual parts from 40 different manufacturers on its various circuit boards! Each of those parts requires us to negotiate with a salesperson from that manufacturer or distributor to make sure they can get us the parts when we need them and at a reasonable price. Having Future Electronics on-board has been a huge help since they do a lot of the work for us, but it’s still taken quite a bit of time. The electronics industry is an ever-changing landscape and lead times can be a huge issue. These lead times can be 6-12 months (yes you read this correctly), so we are working on finding a replacement for these parts and buying them up and storing them to avoid these long lead times. Once we have sourced all necessary replacements we will work on getting as many parts as possible for the production build in-house before the beta build is completed. We are hoping to get the Beta build started by the end of the month! Beta backers, stay tuned for more updates coming in the next couple of weeks! 

Thanks again for your patience and as always, if you ever have any questions, please let us know in the comments below! 

-PAI Team