Production
Hello everybody,
Hope you are enjoying summertime or working hard during the quiet hours of July and August. We chose the later :) This one is a big update for us. We have a lot to share with you as the production of your Qleeks is officially happening.
Wood Manufacturing
After discussing with dozens of different manufacturers in the USA, Asia and Europe. We have decided to work with a French woodworker located in Brittany: Baudouin Bois. They are taking care of making the 10.000 Qleeks that we need for this first batch. Their CNC router is running 14 hours a day delivering almost 1000 Qleeks per day.
This is a crucial part of this first run as wood is an organic material that is very sensible to humidity and temperature variations. The expertise and wood provided by Baudouin guarantees a quality and finish of high standards.
For those of you interested, their beechwood is PEFC certified, which means it comes from a sustainable forest management program. They also use non-toxic varnish to protect the wood from UV light, humidity and temperature variations.
The wooden tiles are shipping in a big palette as we speak. We should get them here in Boston by the end of next week.
Magnets
The production of the custom magnets needed to make your Qleeks so playful and practical is also on its way. We are working with BJA Magnetics, an American magnet specialist here in Massachusetts who is helping us make quality magnets on time for the assembly.
They have become our friends as we spent time in their Leominster factory. Their business is a 100% women owned and they have developed a line of permanent magnets exclusively for direct drive wind power turbine generators.
They should ship the 30.000 magnets next week. Right on time for the assembly.
Plastics & Electronics
We are also expecting the plastic parts to arrive in the upcoming 2 weeks. We are testing three types of plastics.
- Classic ABS which is the plastic you would find in most consumer products around you.
- PLA which is a biodegradable thermoplastic aliphatic polyester derived from renewable corn starch
- Bamboo fiber composite, which is made out of 60% bamboo powder, 20% cornstarch, 15% melamine, 5% water/food grade water based toner
Depending on the quality of the samples, we’ll decide which material is best for Qleek.
We are also working on the production of the final version of the Qleek computer board. We are still expecting quotes this week and will place the order for them to arrive the day of assembly.
Qleek Feedback Program
The final note will be a call for the bravest among you to participate in our website testing. We need people to beta test the website we’ve built from scratch for our backers and help us spot the remaining bugs and errors before we release it in the open.
If you are curious and have time to be our guinea pig for a few days please let us know by emailing us at: hey@qleek.me
We will do different rounds of testing each include 10 more beta-tester. So don’t worry if we do not pick you among the first round.
Voila. This is it. Our production update. Hope you are as excited as we are. The next one will be in a couple of weeks as we start the assembly.
Stay tuned and enjoy your vacation if you are away.
The Qleek Team
