Hello All,
Shipping Updates:
We’ve currently shipped 41 units and have made some strategic changes moving forward. I was hesitant to send out the overseas units since there’s a lot more to get right with paperwork for customs but glad to say that those have all gone out.
Hardware Updates:
We’re always making small improvements to the Argos based on our own experiences and initial customer feedback.
Some springs would get a very thin layer of corrosion due to free irons on the part after processing (this is normal). We’ve started passivating all springs in house using citric acid in a sous vide setup. This is a very simple process that runs in the background while improving the quality of the parts that we’re shipping.
Part of the reason this corrosion starts is from small droplets of water and steam that escape the air bleed valve in the piston assembly during fills. I’ve designed and ordered a very basic laser cut sheet metal splash guard that sits in the piston just above the outlet for the bleed valve to help contain any mess. Two sets of samples have just finished being produced in the US and just arrived for testing and immediate implementation.
I’ve added a small drill press to the shop to help modify the spring covers on our piston assembly. In a typical clevis style clamp up, one side contains a hat bushing while the other contains an extra long sleeve bushing such that when the hardware is assembled, everything clamps on only one of the two lugs in the clevis. This setup reduces slop due to the tolerance gap required for machining and assembly. While this concept was incorporated into the original design, it somehow did not make it into the latest revision of parts being manufactured last year. Thankfully this is a very quick modification that is performed before the piston assembly process which will improve the overall feel and user experience of the machine.
Bottleneck Issues:
I was coming across one too many non-recurring issues including leaking fittings, grounding issues, or fitment not up to spec. I was also updating all piston assemblies to include the latest configurations, passivated springs, bleed valve orientation, etc which was taking more time than required.
First change:
My 2 assembly techs now perform a very basic QC including turning on machines with water to verify all sensors are working and no leaks under pressure.
Second change:
Our new tech brought on to do sub assemblies has spent the past week disassembling all current piston assemblies and building them up to our current spec. We have a fancy new 3D printed jig to simplify the assembly process by compressing the spring to allow quick alignment of all the pins. This allows us to build them much faster than before.
Third change:
Our new QC technician, Anthony, started last Wednesday.. Anthony is another Mechanical Engineer with prior experience using lever machines. He’s picked up the QC process extremely quickly and understands exactly what customers are looking for in these machines. While I will still review all of his work before packaging, it really makes a difference having someone who can focus and specialize in this very important part of the process.
Over the next two weeks we should get a much better idea of what our improved ship rate is with our new staffing and tasking arrangement. We continue to organize the shop and find small ways to improve efficiency each week so the goal will always be to find the current bottleneck and figure out how we can prevent it with changes to an earlier stage in the process.
Steam valve needles have all been packaged but I’ve dropped the ball and not created shipping labels for them. William has just created all of these today so I’ll get them printed and sent out tomorrow with a video on how to install.
Air Bleed Valve Improvement:
We continue to iterate on the air bleed valve to improve user experience and reduce pri-infusion variations from shot to shot.
Piston Assembly Jig
Piston assembly rack.
Sincerely,
Ross & William