Hello everyone,

In our last update, we expressed hope that we would be in production by this week and shipping your pens as of next week. We made the long trek over to China and have been on the ground for over 3 weeks, working aggressively with our suppliers to get ready for production. We were on track until we reached our silicone supplier for the capacitive tip — yes, that same pesky (but soon to be awesome) tip.

THE SILICONE TIP

The tip tools are made with very deep, narrow cavities via EDM process. We found during the tooling process that each cavity was damaged when the supplier was not paying close enough attention and allowed debris from the EDM burning of the tool to accumulate and settle at the bottom of the cavity, causing scarring at the end of the tip. Bottom line — the tool needed to be completely scrapped.

 Bad tip and scrapped tool

We immediately made a single cavity prototype tool to make sure the data and process could yield the parts we wanted. 

New plans, new tip!

We have new parts coming off the tool tomorrow, Friday, May 25th and we'll be on site in China to approve these parts. We expect that they will be up to our high design standards. If they are, then we will immediately start production of the tips. From there it’s simply a matter of days for assembly, production, and start of pack-out. For obvious reasons, we'd prefer to give you an update on the adjusted shipdate once we've officially approved the tool. 

THE CLIP

We've also been continuing to work on the Alloy Touch Pen metal clip. Our original intent for the clip was a straightforward metal injection molded (MIM) part with a PVD coating. Aftersome early prototypes showed structural weakness- where the clip bends to flow into the click button- we tried molding the clip area flat and bending it 90 degrees to create its final shape. This worked better, but introduced some visual quality problems- rooted in how sharply we were asking the part to bend. We tried several different dies and bending approaches, but, in the end, found the best solution was simply to modify the bend radius. Doing this allowed the part to be bent to shape without causing ugly distortions and imperfections. To most, this change will be unnoticeable, but it improves the part and keeps it looking as good as we've intended all along.

Sintering ovens for MIM clips

INK REFILLS

We also learned on this trip that the pen ink for a retractable click mechanism pen needs to be gel ink rather than rollerball ink. Roller inks are designed for pens that are capped, whereas gel inks are designed for pens with tips that are open to the environment. Using roller ink cartridges in a non-capped pen could potentially cause leaking or dry out--things we don’t want our customers to experience. So, thanks to our supplier's help, we've switched to gel ink. We are using the same conical tips (.7 mm) and the writing experience is amazing. The cartridges are from our Japanese supplier, a company touted as one of the best in the world and a supplier to some of the best-known pen brands. Most importantly, we've acquired the gel ink cartridges with no delay.

We promised a journey when we launched this project on Kickstarter. We’ve learned an incredible amount during this period of development. We knew how to make watches, but this project gave us a chance to challenge ourselves with a new category. Along the way, we've sought out experts in the pen industry and asked lots of questions to get things right.  

We know you’re anxious for your pens and apologize for these last minute adjustments, but it won't be long now!  We are an inclusive brand, always have been. Transparency has been our philosophy all along.  Give our team and suppliers a few more days to get you theproduct we promised—you won’t be disappointed.

Cheers,

Scott Wilson and the MNML Team

A first look at the Kickstarter Limited Edition Touch Pen

Hello All!

We wanted to send through an update on our latest Touch Pen development schedule.

Our last round of prototypes were delivered to the studio this past week. They look and feel great and, most importantly, write amazingly on both paper and pixels!  We are really proud of the hundreds of hours of obsessive work that have gone into the design, production, and refinement of these products.

As you know, we are committed to designing the highest quality products and using the most premium materials available.  To that point, we have decided to make one more change to the Touch Pen's conductive rubber tip/grip.

The original tip design had a knurled pattern in the grip area that we felt added a nice technical look to the pen. What we could not have foreseen until we received parts back, however, was that the knurl pattern would create other cosmetic issues. These included smaller issues like pocket lint getting stuck into the knurl recesses and bigger issues related to the molding complexity of the part.  These flaws were simply unacceptable and did not meet our quality standards and despite countless revisions, we just couldn’t live with them.

Some development information on the conductive tip that you might not know:

The tip is made via compression molding (not injection molding) due to the silicone requiring impregnation with a conductive material. Compression molding is, as it sounds, material that is first heated and placed into molds where it is compressed into the desired form, in our case the tip of the pen.

Adding the knurl pattern created three part lines in the tip: One around the base of the tip cone and two running up the sides of the grip area, where the molds are compressed together to make the part.

As the mold for the tip is not a sealed cavity, excess material may leak through the small separation space between molds. This excess material is referred to as flash. We were expecting marginal parting lines, but controlling the flash and accurately trimming it away became a bigger issue. Not only does it add more labor and require additional processing to cut the flash down, but yield also goes down, meaning more tips get thrown out...thus adding more cost.

We finally concluded that accurately achieving the “tech” look of the knurl from our original design was just not feasible for mass production. We decided it was best to build a completely new tool that removes the knurl, leaving a smooth surface. By doing this, we eliminated the extra three parting lines and the result is a much cleaner design. These tools are expensive, but we felt this is the best direction for the Touch Pen…especially when it has LunaTik’s name on it.

new smooth rubber tip design

 

UPDATED SHIPPING TIMELINE:

It is always difficult to delay shipping. Still, our standard for delivering premium products of the highest quality outweighs meeting our original target date. We are very excited to get these out the door and I am personally heading to China next week with our team to sign off on the new tool and kick off final production.

So, based of the final change to the smooth rubber tip, here is our adjusted shipping timeline:

·       4/16 Tooling for the new tip kicks off (takes 20 days).

·       5/8 First parts off tool are scheduled. Parts to be reviewed/revised and approved  by 5/10.

·       5/11 Pilot production kicks off on first 250 pens.

·       5/14 Kick-off approval for full production ramps up.

·       5/18 Finished goods start moving to fulfillment house.

·       5/21 Fulfillment house starts pack out.

·       5/25 (Week of) target date to start shipping to Kickstarter backers

LunaTik is a brand uncompromising in design detail and quality. While we understand that delays are frustrating, it is always in the best interest of our backers. Without you guys, this couldn’t happen and we thank you for your understanding.

PS. We also got the final anodized color samples for the Alloy Touch Pens and they look amazing. On the Polymer Touch Pens, we made some final changes to the pigment so that that the polymer is more opaque, making the colors more vivid and rich.  These too have passed our quality test and we can’t wait to post more detailed photos soon.

More updates from China in the coming days!

Best,

Scott Wilson and the MNML Team

Hello everyone! It has been a busy month since our project closed and was successfully funded. We have been extremely motivated and working hard to meet our projected goals to get Touch Pens completed and into your supportive little hands. The Touch Pen development and manufacturing is progressing as expected but has proven to be a much more challenging project than the TikTok and LunaTik watch kits. We wanted to take this opportunity to cover some of our insights and challenges in this update, seeing as so many of you look forward to these details.

THE DEVELOPMENT TRIPS

So far our team has taken two trips to Asia for development and sourcing. The first one was at the beginning of the project to identify potential suppliers since we would be using a new group of suppliers than on TikTok and LunaTik. The second trip just occurred over the first two weeks of March. The purpose was to kick off tooling and pre-production activities. I was looking forward to going but actually got sick 12 hours before my flight and was in bed for 4 days missing work for the first time since 1995! With a 101 degree fever, I definitely would have been quarantined upon landing in Hong Kong, no thank you! Luckily 3 others from the LUNATIK team proceeded as planned to keep the project on track. They covered a long list of issues and visited at times up to four factories a day on a grueling non-stop development, tooling trial, review and repeat cycle.

Some things that are easy for one vendor are difficult for another. This goes from industry to industry as well. A lot comes down to educating and showing suppliers how and what you want and expect. And no matter how good virtual communication and team collaboration gets, nothing replaces being on the ground and face to face. A good rule of thumb is that you can get more done in a week at the factory than you can in 2-3 months long distance.

THE MECHANISM

Above all, the small click mechanism has been the most challenging element of the pens to design, engineer and develop to a point of refinement we are happy with. It is no surprise that some of the best pen brands and manufacturers have refined these subtle mechanisms over decades of trial and error. The mechanism proved to be something that we could not accurately prototype and refine even with today's cutting edge rapid prototyping. Instead we had to cut soft tools in order to fine-tune the precision geometry. This was an investment we felt was necessary in order to deliver a better performing product. It helped us learn where we actually needed to adjust things versus wondering if the issues we were seeing were due to the fidelity or tolerance of the rapid prototyping.

THE ALLOY TOUCH PENS

First look Alloy Touch Pen prototypes in the studio

We have made a lot of progress on the aluminum part. We are currently fine-tuning the anodized colors and bead blasted finish. We played with the idea of a plated brass front barrel under the grip area to make the pen nice and heavy, but decided it disturbed the balance of the pen and that the matching aluminum anodized threads looked much better together anyway. Believe it or not, one of the most challenging parts on the Alloy Touch Pen has been the clip. The iconic design was originally designed to be aluminum but we needed to switch to steel as aluminum would likely bend and not spring back to its original shape. So, we have converted this part to a metal injection molded (MIM) part. This is a very expensive process that is typically used in high end products. It is an almost magical process in which the part is molded out of a composite material much bigger than the final shape and then the part is sintered at high heat and is shrunk to its final size in an extremely precise tolerance. The part is then PVD plated like a luxury watch and finally laser etched with the LUNATIK brand name into the clip.

Another area of development has been refining the patented dual mode tip and grip. This has largely been around balancing the right coating to provide the best glide across glass and feel in the hand as well as building testing fixtures to perform abrasion and durability tests.

Here are several rubber Touch Pen tips undergoing abrasion testing. This machine slides the tips across a sheet of glass day and night to simulate weeks and months of usage in a short amount of time. If we find that the tips fail too quickly, we will modify the rubber material to make them tougher.

THE POLYMER TOUCH PENS

Surprisingly, the materials and molding of the polymer pen have been more challenging for our suppliers than the alloy pen. We are currently processing out some of the cosmetic and functional imperfections on the polymer parts and trying different approaches to achieve the best results. Most of these are things like sink, blemishes, gating vestiges, and other common occurrences in plastic injection molding and with first tooling shots. 

Checking new and existing parts against our specified Pantone colors to tweak plastic pigmentation accuracy.

This is a good example of the types of things we're now working on with our molder. In each of these clips you can see a small imperfection called "blush" right above the triangular holes. This is a common blemish on the first injection molded parts off a new tool. It is corrected by changing the plastic injection process so the material flows and cools properly in the mold.

REFILLS

While we are creating our pen designs and internal mechanisms from scratch, the industry standard approach for most pen brands is to source the ink refills from an existing supplier. This has become the longest lead item for the pens even though it was one of the first orders we placed. We decided to go with a Japanese refill because of obvious quality benefits. The trade-off is that this quality comes with a slightly slower delivery due to the QC involved on the production and management of these components. That said, we are expecting to have refills available by ship time.

PACKAGING

The packaging for the Alloy is a super simple structure that we designed to communicate the duality of the product at retail. We wanted to be able to show off the pen while reducing the amount of material and making it super simple to assemble at the factory. It also displays some compatible app partners on the side of the box hoping to educate consumers and promote the use of these apps.

Packaging is a hidden challenge in many product development projects. The biggest challenge on the Touch Pen has been how to communicate the Touch Pen's paper and pixels functionality to future users who may not be familiar with our Kickstarter project. We've simplified this message as much as possible, showing paper and touch screen side by side on the front of the package, with the Touch Pen appropriately situated right in between.

The Polymer Touch Pen comes in a slightly simplified version of the packaging.

SHIPPING

We are still expecting to have parts, refills and packaging complete by mid April at which time our manufacturing and fulfillment partners will respectively begin the final assembly and pack-out. We are still targeting global shipping and fulfillment to start at the end of April.

We hope this information shared gives you some good updates of where our time has been spent over the past month. Execution is a tireless process that always reveals new things along the way and constantly keeps us on our toes…it’s why as designers we keep coming back for more!  Again, we are truly grateful for all your support and are looking forward to hearing your feedback and reactions to the Touch Pen.

Best, Scott Wilson + the MNML Team

 

Wow, once again the Kickstarter community has amazed us in many ways over the last two days. Obviously our project successfully closing will help us fund, develop and manufacture our Touch Pen for all of you and eventually the rest of the world. We are excited to get these to you as fast as we can. It is an amazing second chapter to the MINIMAL/LunaTik story. We are very grateful and love our wonderful community of backers.

We just received our "soft tooled" parts yesterday and as you can see they are looking pretty good. We had to invest in soft tooling in order to confirm and refine the precise mechanism on the inside. Rapid prototyping could not produce the precision we needed. Once we fine tune these parts and the assembly we will be releasing for production tooling. One of the next milestones will be going to Asia in mid March to review first-off tool samples. We will of course keep you posted on this exciting part of the journey as usual.

Most exciting however, is the incredible day that we witnessed yesterday for crowd funding. First, Elevation Dock eclipsed our previous Kickstarter record by raising over $1million dollars. Then out of nowhere Double Fine Adventure raised $1.3 million in its first 24 hours becoming what will most likely be a long-standing record.

Both employed new techniques to achieve new levels in crowd funding and fostering more excitement around the platform. After seeing us nearly raise $1m in 30-days with TikTok+LunaTik a year ago, Elevation Dock extended their project to 60-days as well as pushed the boundaries of pledge levels by adding high dollar distributor/retailer levels. This added significant momentum and shows that being creative on the pledge levels, project pitch and questioning everything is an important part of the crowd funding formula. And then there is Double Fine, a video game project that burst onto the scene yesterday and has raised $1.3M in less than 24 hours—an unbelievable testament to the magic of crowd funding. With such an awesome video and great story for adventure fans and gamers, as project creator Tim Shafer says in his video "Either the game will be great or it will be a spectacular failure." Whatever happens, we will be watching and rooting them on.

It was a big week for Kickstarter and we give huge props to the founders--Yancey, Perry and Charles for creating such an incredible platform for dreamers and doers around the world.

Also, please be on the lookout for our project closing survey that will be coming next week. We will be asking you for shipping info and other info so check your emails!

Take care and a big thank you once again,

Scott Wilson and the MINIMAL Team