Kickstarter

Hi Backers,

Remember us? We know it’s been a while, but between SCAA Portland (great to meet all the backers who were there!) and lots of behind-the-scenes work, we just couldn’t find the time to write! But don’t fret, this missive here is packed chock full of info.

Want an Encore?

(This is mainly news for visitors to this page, rather than current backers. It’s also the last we expect to be posting about pre-orders here. All future info on pre-orders can be found on our website.)

A lot of you have sent emails or started threads on the forum asking for a less expensive grinder that performs at fine espresso grinds. The Encore is a brand-new addition to the Baratza line, and it’s basically the first decently priced grinder that performs admirably at espresso settings. We’re happy to be able to offer a Nocturn + Baratza Encore combo (and the grinder all by itself, for those of you who just love us that much).

Our current plan is to offer pre-orders until production is up and running, but once machines start rolling off the line we’ll tick over to full retail mode, so get ‘em while they last!

Calling in the Big Guns

Gleb and Igor have returned from their sojourn into the noble...well, it was still the South, but a whole different state. In Kentucky, they spent three days at the manufacturing facility/assembly house we’ll be using, working through much of the design. They discussed scheduling, tooling, optimizing for manufacture, and a few key design components. They worked out a few bugs, like figuring out how to set the wastewater tube so the drip tray can be lifted out vertically instead of at an angle, and got some professional input on revising our production timeline given the issues we’ve encountered and where we are now.

These guys have a lot of experience in manufacturing, and we’re really excited to be working with them and getting the benefit of their vast experience.

Wibbly Wobbly Timeliney Wimey

What’s been up with you guys in the past month or so? Anything cool? We’ll start: we’ve been tweaking. Tweaking the water path; tweaking the front panel; tweaking the UI...basically tweaking everything. As you might imagine, there are a thousand tiny details - from determining the exact path of wastewater into the drip tray, to sorting out the best way to insulate the screen and circuit board from moisture and heat - and, unsurprisingly, they’re taking a bit longer than we’d hoped. Another important factor has been building everything with UL/CE/NSF certifications in mind.

This means more up-front work, but hopefully better machines out of the gate.
Now let’s talk schedule. We’re spending a few more weeks in the design phase. In part, this is because of a huge number of problems we’ve had with the parts we’ve been getting for prototyping. As any of you who have gone through major online electronics retailers - or better yet, the ‘Shack - know, these parts tend to be very faulty, and we’ve even run into several with completely wrong specs! Needless to say, these aren’t the industrial suppliers we’ll be using for our ultimate machines, but they’re the parts we have available, and they’ve been dragging us down. Now that we’re collaborating with an assembly house, we have access to much more reliable parts, so this portion of the design should be moving right along.

We’re also expecting a delay in tooling for various parts. We’re now being quoted at 8-12 weeks rather than the original 2-4 week estimate - which is kind of a bummer.

These delays are unfortunate, but not completely unforeseen, based on what we know of other projects like this one. They also represent a lot more time being spent on absolutely perfecting the design and failure/safety testing of the machines, which, you know, is kind of important to us, and hopefully to you, too!

Don’t be too sad: initial production may be delayed, but the good news is that we expect to put machines out much faster than previously estimated. The assembly house should have a production capacity of around 300 machines/month, so though we’ll be starting later, we’ll be getting machines out a lot faster than we originally estimated.

What follows is a tentative schedule of the coming months. This is pretty much “for informational purposes only,” as we want to give you guys an idea of what the overall trajectory of the project is between now and go time. Ballpark, not gospel. If there was one major takeaway from talking to the manufacturers we met at SCAA, it was that every single project in the history of manufacturing gets delayed.

With that in mind, here’s a tentative timeline:

Next 2 weeks:

• Milling what we hope will be the final revision of the thermoblock.
• Writing up our final bill of materials and getting final quotes, and sending off all of our orders for parts and tooling. Tooling will take between 4-12 weeks, depending on the part.
• Working on the circuit board and putting the finalized prototype together, ready to take some video of a few quality shots and get some data out on temperature and pressure stability.
• Designing the packaging.
• Designing the user interface.

May/June:

Lots of love,

Igor, Gleb, Janet and Rachel