Hey everyone, happy August! Here's everything that happened last month:
Lead Times
This past month has been pretty insane volume, so we're working just to keep up with our current lead time at the moment! We've restructured how we manage what we build in a week which has greatly increased our production capability, and we're aggressively looking for more Assembly Technician help!
As always, the official lead time on each product's product page is the most accurate metric for when you'll see your hardware ship. There's a good chance we ship early; LumenPnPs are shipping quite a bit ahead of schedule, but we keep it where it is to ensure we're able to stick to our estimate.
Viagrid
We've gotten our replacement laser module back from the manufacturer, and have been spending a ton of time testing settings and getting the design workflow optimized.
One of the best improvements we made (thanks for the advice Seve!) was switching away from an ENIG coating on our Viagrid blanks. They are difficult to ablate, and there's a better option to prevent oxidation: OSP. OSP (Organic Solderability Preservative) is a thin layer of water soluble finish applied to the board that prevents oxidation, but also is easily removed during soldering. This has been a huge improvement to the cutting speed of the boards, without leaving bare copper to oxidize.
We're working on getting a formalized workflow together for designing around Viagrid blanks and ablating them with a laser.
Paste Extruder
Our Summer Intern Jerome has been working on a new version of our paste extruder! He's learned a ton in his testing thus far, and is in the process of designing an EVT unit.
This new approach is focused more on an auger system for dispensing, as opposed to the screw-driven plunger in our current beta version. This gives us really great precision with dispensing small amounts, and wont drip and leak like other approaches.
We've also learned that air assist in the tube is really helpful for keeping the auger primed and full of fresh paste. Our vacuum pumps conveniently do this quite well!
We're still in the prototype phase, but once we have some EVT units put together, we'll be sure to share!
China Trip
After some discussions with some mentors, it became clear that it's time for us to make a trip to China for some vendor meetings! We've done most of our sourcing and communications through online channels, and it's worked quite well for us so far.
But some things greatly benefit from being in person at the factory where our vendors operate. Fixing production issues, coming up with new solutions, and also meeting new vendors are all much easier. We're working on some new projects that are going to require a number of different techniques than we've used before, so a trip to China will help with that too.
The trip itself is still tentative, but it's likely we're heading out in late October - early November. I'll be filming the whole time, and we'll take you along for the experience of visiting vendors in China!
Job Postings
We're growing quickly and looking for folks to join our team! If you're in the Pittsburgh area and want to help us build pick and place machines, please apply.
You can check out our careers page for all the details of the jobs we have available. If you or someone you know would be a good fit for any of these roles, please apply!
We're currently hiring for:
- Assembly Technician
- Helping us assemble LumenPnPs, feeders, and accessories in our Pittsburgh office.
- Customer Service Specialist
- Responding to customer inquiries, managing quotes, helping customers get up and running
- Responding to customer inquiries, managing quotes, helping customers get up and running
-
Social Media Manager / Video Editor- Filled!
- Integration Engineer
- Full stack engineer comfortable with mechanical CAD, PCB design, software, and firmware. High agency, fast execution. Working on new projects.
Reach Out
If you have any feedback, questions, or comments about this update, please don't hesitate to reach out to us here.
Thanks, and we'll see you next month!
-Stephen