Due to the crisis in the supply of electronic components, I have had to look for substitute parts. It’s been an endless hunt for vendors/suppliers, and prices. Availability and prices change overnight. Even when I successfully order parts, the vendor cancels on me before shipping! Some parts have become far too expensive. Micro-controllers are a […]
As with any product nowadays, naming is a much more complex undertaking than it was in the past. Checks have to be carried out for the domain name (especially .com), existing products or variants, groups and individuals on social networks, apps, trade-marks, patents, jurisdictions etc etc etc. And, while you’re developing the product, other claimants […]
Just a quick update. I’ve spent a lot of time on trying to find a local metal-shop that could help with the manufacturing of the enclosure. The main body of the latter _I_ will do, but the end discs are more problematic. Unfortunately, and to the best of my knowledge, they are typically made through […]
As outlined in some of the history of the Minder1 theft-deterrent for bicycles, the original hope was to mount the system inside the bicycle frame. Chief among the consequent problems was the difficulty of achieving loudness. The latter is determinative in the current (autumn 2021) size and mounting-point of the system. But it is not […]
With prices for off-the-shelf enclosures having risen, and supplies dwindling, I’ve had to consider making my own. Yet again! I’d started off by naively thinking of local, custom production. And the obligatory 3D-printing. Then, I ended up researching metal fabrication–even welding! The current focus is on sheet metal. All the going-around-in-circles eventually bore fruit: Riveting […]
As already outlined, my only recourse for an affordable enclosure for the product has been an off-the-shelf metal can. Simply, custom manufacturing would result in a cost of hundreds of dollars per enclosure, unless if I order ten(s) thousand of it! The product’s enclosure has to meet some basic requirements. It has to: And whatever […]
When an electronics circuit is validated on a bread-board, the next stage may be to build it on a padboard. For commercialization (i.e. to turn it into a mass-produced product), this is turned into a PCB. This is what you’d typically see in a product that has electronics within it. (There is also IC/chips fabrication, […]
The supply crisis has created obstacle after obstacle for creation of the electronics’ PCB. Simply, there are very few ICs to be found. Whichever PCB fabricator I approach is missing some component or other. Suppliers are out of stock on some major parts of the Minder 1 circuit. What little stock might exist has shot […]
The great Karim Yaghmour reflects upon what I’ve ended up going through: there is an enormous difference between cooking up a project using a standard dev board like an Arduino and self-printing a case for it, and actually charting a path to creating a finished product that can be mass-produced, marketed and supported. Karim Yaghmour. […]
I’ve had to learn more about angle grinders than I’d ever wanted to know! I have to run various tests of the system, using an angle grinder. (Saws, bolt cutters etc will also be in the attacks/threats tested.) For now, a basic, brief test is to be carried out, showing a snippet of the system’s […]
