Manufacturing guy-at-large.

Production sequence questions

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Early this week, I handed over 250+ of The Public Radio's "Maker Kit" Kickstarter rewards to a friendly USPS employee. It was a big step forward, but the fact is that the real production hurdles are all ahead of us. Although we have most of our tools built and tested, a few steps still need to be ironed out, and we have a bunch of work to do this weekend to secure the mechanical assembly workflow.

So this evening I spent a while setting up an assembly line at the Undercurrent office. We have a handful of volunteers coming by tomorrow morning, and it was great taking a little time beforehand to get things arranged how I *think* they'll be most efficient. It was also just good to think about what the possible bottlenecks could be, which to be honest I haven't had much time to do.

I documented the hand-assembly process of The Public Radio here, but what I didn't show is how it might work in a small scale production line. I also glossed over a few tricky steps, and the weird anomalies that I'm sure will come up. For my own benefit as much as anyone's, here are the questions that are foremost on my mind right now:

  • Can we use an offset screwdriver (like this Klein one) for the antenna screw, or do we need to use traditional electronics type screwdrivers (like this Wiha one), which will probably be slower?
  • Is the hot glue on the speaker going to be a total pain in the ass to apply? Do we need a different glue formula, or application method?
  • Will the speaker wires get in the way of the speaker screws? This was a bit of an issue with late prototypes, and I'm anticipating a bit of manual manipulation (read: fucking around with the wires with your fingers before the speaker is glued down) in order for everything to work out. Is that going to be problematic?
  • Will the speaker wire length be appropriate? We made the wires a bit long to start, figuring that it's better for them to be long than to be too short. How will the extra slack affect assembly?
  • Both the speaker nuts and screws are tiny. Do we need a customized tool to help install the nuts into the speaker assembly fixture? Is there some way that we can orient or direct the nuts and screws so that they're easier to grab and put into the assembly?
  • Putting the lid onto the assembly can be a bit wobbly - especially because the lid spacer tends to swivel around while you're putting the lid on. Do we need a separate fixture or tool to hold the spacer in place while the lid is being screwed on?
  • How long will the little hex recesses in the speaker assembly fixture last? We need to put a bit of torque on the screws, and I'm concerned that the recesses will strip out after not too many units.
  • How do we store the potentiometer washers so that they're easy to pick up and install? The washers are pretty thin, and they're kind of hard to handle.

So, that's a pretty good list. But that's just what I *know* that I don't know; I'm sure there are many other questions that I *should* be asking.

While I'm trying to find those questions, Zach will be leading the effort to get our tuning & shipping procedure mission ready. There, we had a *great* advance yesterday: Jordan found a way to get our Raspberry Pi tuning fixtures to actually broadcast audio on the FM spectrum. We'll use that feature to test every single radio we ship: after the radio is tuned, the Pi will start broadcasting the default Cisco hold music on the same frequency the radio was just tuned to. If you don't hear Opus Number 1 when the tuning is complete, then something's wrong.

So. By this time tomorrow, we should have about 70 mechanically assembled (and possibly tuned) Public Radios. We won't ship them immediately - our jars haven't arrived yet - but everything we learn will be immediately turned around and improved for the next time we build radios - probably a week from now.

Fun.

The Container Guide

Added on by Spencer Wright.

This week, as Zach and I shipped out The Public Radio's first ~250 Kickstarter rewards, I received the Kickstarter reward that I was waiting most anxiously: The Container Guide.

Craig and Tim are personal friends, and I've been so happy to read about the struggles and achievements they've made on this project over the past year. It's also great to see The Infrastructure Observatory spawning physical output.

The Container Guide is now available for purchase - get yours now!

T-spline redesign

Added on by Spencer Wright.

As my seatmast topper has been moving towards destructive testing, I've been playing with a new seatpost design. This part would probably be EBM'd, and then bonded (with 3M DP420 or similar epoxy) to 27.2mm carbon fiber seatpost stock. I suspect that this design will be a bit more economical, and would work on a wider range of bicycles - including my own.

I've been pursuing the redesign in a few ways. First, I've been working with a few NYC folks to develop designs that incorporate either topology optimization, or lattice structures, or possibly both (more on this soon). Second, I got a trial license of SolidThinking Inspire, and have been using that to reduce mass within a design space that I set up in Inventor. And third, I took a crack at designing the part from scratch with T-splines in Inventor, which I *really* enjoy.

T-splines are a totally different way of approaching design, and they allow you to manually create organic looking structures. Once I've created the organic shape, I apply a bunch of features to it in Inventor's solid environment - allowing me to blend precise mechanical aspects within an otherwise fluid shape.

Ultimately, I'm optimistic that topology optimization & lattices will offer a less labor intensive workflow. T-splines are *awesome,* but editing them is a bit of an art, and I'd like to be able to redesign the part quickly to accommodate different saddle offsets, strength limits, seatpost diameters, etc.

Expect more progress soon :)

Big ship

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Yesterday Zach and I (with the *so* gracious help of Nick, Wing, Dara, Daniel, and Tracy) packed up about 300 of The Public Radio's Maker Kits and got them ready to ship to our Kickstarter backers.

As the day progressed, the magnitude of effort it's taken to get here became more and more evident to me. We're about 5 weeks late shipping these kits, mostly as a result of last minute hangups in the production of our custom lids and speakers. While the lateness itself doesn't bother me *too* much, this milestone has been a big focus for both of us, and last night it struck me that I'm not sure I ever expected to reach it. 

While I was packaging kits and wrangling our backer report into a format where our postage software could process it (at least for our purposes, Kickstarter's data management system leaves much to be desired), Daniel and Zach spent most of the day setting up our tuning script for the fully assembled radios. We'll start receiving those in about a week and a half, and the logistics around making sure they're tuned and shipped to the right backer is a pretty hefty task. We'll spend most of next weekend working on that, and in the meantime will continue to bug all the backers that never sent us their shipping info (if you're out there, HOLLER AT ME).

There is still a *ton* of work to do, but there will be a few more milestones like this in the next few weeks - and I'm *really* looking forward to them :)

Re: Makerbot's layoffs

Added on by Spencer Wright.

PREFACE to all of this: My heart goes out to the 20% of Makerbot's workforce - some 100 people - that were laid off this week. 

I think this - the layoff announcement, the Reddit thread about the layoff announcement, and the eulogies for what Makerbot used to be -  is mostly a sign of the industry (and Stratasys, though to be fair they probably knew this all along) realizing that desktop 3d printing is a relatively small market. Jordan - a colleague at Undercurrent - has this thing about "mean time to kitchen drawer," which is basically a measure of how sticky (or unsticky, if the customer ends up putting it in their kitchen drawer) your product is. I think most people don't use their Makerbots nearly as much as they anticipated, and anyone who uses a Makerbot a *lot* is likely to graduate to something a bit fancier (probably SLA). So the growth really isn't there, and what they're selling is commodity hardware and some really user friendly software, and that type of business can cut operating costs to something less than Makerbot's were while they were approaching the acquisition.

I think there are two ways forward with desktop 3d printing. The first is to drive the cost down as much as possible, which ultimately means reducing R&D and other fixed costs, and also probably paying less for labor by moving it somewhere other than Brooklyn. The second thing is to look *really* hard for the next technology. That CLIP stuff - Carbon3D - is one direction (though I don't think it's the next big thing). Or maybe it's closer to what HP is working on, though I suspect that machine will cost six figures. Regardless, I'm betting *against* FDM being the predominant desktop 3D printing technology in, say, 5 years.

Either way, you cut costs on anything that touches FDM, and invest a *lot* of money in R&D on the technology that will eventually kill it off. Which I suspect is exactly what Stratasys is doing.

Tested.

Added on by Spencer Wright.

After more than a year and a half of research, modeling, procurement, site visits, redesigns, and batches of failed parts, I've finally got a functional, 3D printed, titanium seatmast topper.

Yesterday morning Clay and I took it for a 20 mile ride, and aside from some cosmetic issues (he *really* needs a ti stem now...) it worked well. We'll road-test it a bunch more over the next few weeks.

I'll go into detail in a long post soon, but the short story is this. This part was built by Layerwise, a Belgian startup that was acquired by 3D Systems last year. While Layerwise has a bunch of IP (software + hardware) that allows them to tune the process parameters, the main difference between this part and my earlier prototypes is the build orientation - and some clever use of temporary structures and supports. This part was also shot peened, which (along with the orientation change) improves the surface finish noticeably.

I'm expecting another copy of this part in the next week or two; it will go to be destructively tested in Germany. It's only slightly different than this one: Layerwise is adding some additional supports in the the seatmast clamp window, which will help it from distorting slightly during the build process.

Once the part is destructively tested, I'll get a better idea of the areas where I can remove material in order to make the part lighter. I've been wanting to redesign the part for a while - partly to reduce the need for support structures, and partly for aesthetics. The most likely path for both of these is to introduce a number of lattices, which will likely be lighter, be easier to build, require less post processing, and be more visually compelling and distinctive. I've got a few thoughts on what this should look like, but will also be working with some software & design companies who have more experience with lattices.

Having a working (albeit imperfect) part in hand is a really validating step. I'm *really* looking forward to more of these - and to critically evaluating their performance.

In his prime

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Libo is pretty much in his prime right now.

I got Libo as a puppy in the spring of 2009. At the time, I was single and living (and working) alone in Eastern Long Island. I was self employed building custom bicycle frames, and was working *hard* - and making little progress to speak of. I was pretty self conscious of my reasons for getting a dog: I was exhausted, and needed a distraction, and wanted to have someone around who would look up to me. 

I vastly underestimated the amount of concentration that owning a dog takes, and the experience was often more frustrating than I expected. It's funny to say it now, but I just assumed that communicating with a dog was going to be straightforward, and that our interests would generally be well aligned. But the truth is that Libo (like any person) has desires of his own, and it was only after striking out a *lot* that I learned how to identify & exploit the overlap between what we each wanted.

As we've both gotten older - it's really only over the past year or so - the corners of our relationship have softened a lot. I think we accept each other for who we are, and realize that a little generosity goes a long way. Which is to say that we've both grown up, and are beginning to display a little bit of maturity in our relationships.

But he still surprises me all the time. Libo is the most enthusiastic person in my life, and is more consistent and predictable than anyone I know. And while his ability to moderate himself often leaves something to be desired, I truly admire how outwardly natural he is with his emotions, and I continue to really enjoy and look forward to being his friend.

All of which is a bit weird to say, but there you go.

A brief intro to The New York Infrastructure Observatory

Added on by Spencer Wright.

So. What's up with NYIO?

Almost a year ago, I wrote an email to Tim & Craig telling them I wanted to launch an East Coast version of their Bay Area Infrastructure Observatory. I knew them through friends and from the internet, and was interested in building a community of like-minded people in NYC.

Shortly after, I started a list of locations to visit and began slowly planning trips. Over the past six months, I've organized three tours under the NYIO banner. The first was to Amazon's Delaware Fulfillment center; the second was to Sims Metal Management, and the third (just last week) was to GCT Bayonne. They've been sporadic, but they've caught steam; the last trip filled up within a few hours.

These locations were chosen mostly according to how easy they were to schedule, and I plan on taking a similar approach towards upcoming trips. But I'd also like your input - whether to suggest a site I'm not aware of, or to take over scheduling & logistics for an upcoming trip. If you've got a location you think is worth visiting, please be in touch! 

Photos from the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Last Friday, I visited the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant with NYCELLI. The plant processes all of the waste water from Northern Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, and is a really impressive facility. 

Photos from Global Container Terminals Bayonne

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Last Thursday, I visited GCT Bayonne with the New York Infrastructure Observatory. I was leading the trip, and wasn't able to take many photos, but did manage to squeeze a few in:

Geoff Manaugh posted a full report on BLDGBLOG - head over there for more details on the trip. And get in touch if you want to help lead an NYIO tour - I'd love the help!

Getting ready

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Today Zach and I spent all day getting readier for the fully assembled Public Radios.

At the moment, the Maker Kits are 12 days late. We're waiting on two parts for those: our lids (which will arrive in NYC early this week), and our speakers (which we're getting final production samples of on Tuesday). 

While we're waiting for those, we're firming up our assembly, tuning, and shipping procedure. This has become pretty complicated, and involves multiple barcodes & a scanner, both python and BASH scripts, a bunch of C, many FDM fixtures, and a bunch of assembly steps.

Still a *lot* of work left. More to come.

My failure was probably

Added on by Spencer Wright.

As a kid, I read Calvin and Hobbes fanatically. Last week I got Bill Watterson's new book, which is actually an exhibition catalog from a retrospective of his work. It contains a long interview with Watterson, in which he talks about being let go from his first job drawing political comics:

Though my early career was much different than his, I relate to a lot of this. 

Maker Kit Cards

Added on by Spencer Wright.

The Public Radio's Kickstarter campaign included a $35 pledge level, for which backers receive an unassembled radio kit. We know our backers will need detailed instructions on how to put their radios together, and decided in the end to leave those in digital format, as it's more flexible, portable, and inexpensive than printing out full instruction sheets. We did still need to put *something* in the boxes to show people where to point their browsers, and so I designed some business cards to do just that.

The graphics are pretty much 100% recycled from earlier content, which is kind of nice too :) Modeling that jar has really paid off.

Oh - and yes, this cost $128 all told. I'm looking forward to writing a post describing the finances of our campaign in detail - stay tuned.

Process chain reality

Added on by Spencer Wright.

I love this:

This is from the demo video for the Matsuura LUMEX Avance-25, a hybrid CNC mill/directed energy deposition machine. This is the same machine that GE Measurement & Control is apparently using to make valve parts. 

Most of the video isn't all that interesting. Most of the hybrid machines out there today are marketed in a similar way, relying largely on renderings and demos that seem a little concocted. But this one slide hit me in its candor - specifically, the fact that this part's process chain is 86% subtractive by time. 

I would love to see a comparison between this process and one that's purely subtractive. The part is fairly complex, and would probably require multiple fixturings, but who knows. It would also be really interesting to see how the process chain would change if you used a non-hybrid powder bed fusion machine (like an EOS M280) and then CNC machined it afterwards. 

Principles

Added on by Spencer Wright.

Came across this today:

It reads:

I want to be a key part of developing & distributing products that people like myself value, enjoy & share.

I want to utilize my desire to be well-informed to help those around me make wise [robust, anti-fragile] decisions in the face of uncertainty.

I want to be an effective problem solver, and I want to solve interesting & challenging problems.

I want a healthy relationship with risk.

I would have written this almost two years ago - summer of 2013. It still rings very true to me today.

Photos from the Packaging Party

Added on by Spencer Wright.

On Saturday, I had the great pleasure of putting a bunch of my closest friends & family to work on preassembly for The Public Radio. 

*So* many thanks to everyone who came out! We'll be doing another one in about two weeks - let me know if you want to participate!