Sticky stuff: new Japanese adhesive

We recently received a batch of counterfeit 3M double-sided adhesive tape, of inferior quality. Turns out we bought it from an authorized 3M reseller. We've decided to move to Japanese-made Nitto Adhesive, as the stuff is incredibly high quality, we can buy it directly from the manufacturer, and they delivered us samples cut to our specs within 24 hours. Impressive.

https://www.nitto.com/us/en/rd/base/adh ... pecificat/

Some recent customers received DE1XL machines with the inferior adhesive, and we'll be sending them "this good stuff" shortly, when we get our large order with them in stock.

-john

Daily little challenges

Every week seems to bring one or two "stop the factory" moments.

Two weeks ago, there were four of them in one day. I had a stiff cocktail that night.

Two of those were resolved that week, one today, and I hope to have the last one solved next week.

Some of these issues are caused by COVID, but mostly it's simply the difficulty of the task we're trying to accomplish: small production of a high quality, high tech, hand-made device.

I'd like to share one such with you.

We use a thin piece of fiberglass to thermally isolate the hot group head parts from the cool group head parts (arrow pointing to it on top left photo).

Dividing the group head into two thermal zones is one of our "secrets" (whoops!) for how we're able to go from "cold" to "perfect temperature" in 4.5 minutes.

This thin piece of fiberglass also serves to define the point at which a portafilter stops and feels locked, when you put it into the group head. Small thickness changes have a big effect.

Ten days ago, we received 1000 pieces of this fiberglass spacer, and they were all about 0.2mm too thick. The result: the portafilters lock too far in (bottom left photo).

The portafilter is supposed to lock at a point that is symmetric to the group head handle opposite it (bottom right photo). I won't ship a machine out unless those two handles are symmetric.

Our PCB manufacturer visited us the next day, but they couldn't fix this super fast, as it's a problem with their raw PCB stock.

So, we ordered URGENT 24 hour delivery from PCBWay, at about $1.50 each, 50 pieces, for that weeks' run of machines. They were perfect (within 0.02mm), and so we ordered "less urgent" (7 days) replacements.

On Friday, I told my staff that they could have Saturday off, because we couldn't build any more machines. We didn't have the spacers yet, and we'd built as far as we could without putting the group head in.

Saturday morning, Bugs and I are working in the empty factory. Delivery: 1000 (hopefully perfect) spacers.

Thanks to this delivery, on monday, we're can finish the 50 espresso machines that are now 60% completed.

And we're unblocked until the next emergency.

Which (foreshadowing a bit) is that our stock is down to seven Android tablets, due to LCD screen shortages causing our Android tablet manufacturer to delay by 120 days. All this week we've been evaluating off-the-shelf Android tablets that can hold us through this shortage. These are way more expensive for us, but they're nicer tablets for customers IPS screens, instead of LCD, for instance) but we have no choice. I'll be hopefully making a social media post about that change in a few days.

-john

Announcing The Decent v1.4 Showroom

As we make espresso machines, we add them to our online showroom. We then invite customers (in the order they bought) into the showroom to pick their machine.

As these are all handmade, there will always been some compromise as each machine falls short of "perfection". You can choose which machine best suits you. If none pleases, you are now in the showroom and will get to see newly made machines before anyone else who came after you, so you can grab the machine that pleases you.

Each machine also has a 5 minute video showing all functionality being tested

We include its actual test record, as well as a 360º walk around so you can see the machine from all sides.

For example, there were 11 DE1XL White v1.4 220V machines available, and so today I invited 11 from the front of the queue https://decentespresso.com/queue who had bought that model.

We just finished building 50 v1.4 machines at 220V (20 DE1XL black and 30 DE1PRO), and those customers will be emailed in their queue order, to pick their machine. On wednesday we'll finish our first batch of DE1PRO 110V machines and start testing them.

This is a new system I've developed, launched today, to match machines up with buyers. Previously we offered one machine a time, via personal email, and this was taking too much time. Machines were backing up here in the warehouse.

The Showroom is for full priced, already-purchased machines, and only v1.4. Any machine that is discounted, will be listed on the Bazaar, where about 700 people will be notified and someone can choose to buy it.

As we're increasing our speed of production, my hope is to get to a point where there is no waiting for a machine from us. If that day comes, I'd still like to use the Showroom, and let potential buyers see what we have available, and ask questions.

-john

Any updates on the new scale?

Hi John, did you sell all,the Xl's? If not send me a pm, I may be interested again. I gave up my DE1+ due to family stuff.

PIXIllate wrote:Any updates on the new scale?

I'm awaiting final bug fixes to the firmware. Hopefully in a few weeks I can approve the scale to be built.

Plinyyounger wrote:Hi John, did you sell all,the Xl's? If not send me a pm, I may be interested again. I gave up my DE1+ due to family stuff.

We have more DE1XL about to be available, but I don't yet know if there'll be more DE1XL than there are customers prepaid for them.

Note that we get about 5 orders each day, so if you haven't paid, you're not on the queue, and people who have paid have precedence over you.

And I can't predict what machines will be bought each day, other than to say on average a third of our orders are for DE1XL.

I hope to get to a point where we have stock of all our models. I've now managed to increase production speed by 60%, hopefully making 150 machines/month.

However, in the past, as soon as our "waiting list" gets shorter, the order volume increases to bring it back up again. It seems that a lot of people are turned off waiting (makes sense), and so reducing the wait time immediately increases our daily sales. So... that's a complicated way of saying "I don't know when -- if ever -- we'll make enough machines to keep up with demand, and have stock of all our models."

-john

SMORG first look: feedback wanted

Back in March March I mentioned new Decent hire Omri Almagor. Omri had previously worked for Kees van der Westen, where he created the Idromatic group head option. I've occasionally mentioned that he was working on a sculptural Decent.

I expect that the design above will be hated by most. That's OK, because like Tesla Cybertruck, it's meant to be bold, an likely offensive to many. Most will hate it, some will love it. We hope!

I call this iteration "SCI SMORG" as the inspiration is Omri's love for science fiction ships, specifically the Star Trek Romulan warbird, to which SCI SMORG is his homage.




Here are more views of SCI SMORG:




This outer casing replaces the DE1 case, but otherwise the inside remains a DE1. It's made of polished metal, using 3D printing in Germany, and then polished.

The tablet will be placed on the side, with a "Baby SMORG" case that then sits on the tabletop, next to the espresso machine.

Yes, I realize this is a flat out crazy design.

Omri and I have also explored a different direction, which we call "Golden Era Smorg". Here is what that looks like.




Omri and I would both love your thoughts on the this.

Note that our plan is to make SMORG as a special limited edition. We're "testing the waters" for whether there is an interest in a boldly designed Decent.

And of course we'll continue to make "modernist" style DE1 as our main product line.

-john

Well, B&W still sells about 6 pair per year of their "concept" Nautilus speakers at $70,000 CAD so I would imagine there is a market for just about anything.

I can't imagine many customers with wives having that in their homes, but to each their own.

https://www.bowerswilkins.com/en-ca/home-audio/nautilus

I see the appeal to SciFi and Fantasy fans, it reminds me of dragon's wings.