Prometheus Writes: A Premium 3-piece Executive Pen
Created by Prometheus Lights
Experience writing nirvana: a masterfully machined body designed exclusively for the world's finest Montblanc cartridges.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Prometheus Alpha Pens are 100% shipped!
over 12 years ago
– Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 08:12:54 PM
Hey folks,
Well I was hoping for a little bit more fanfare for the "100% shipped" post...which is part of the reason it's been delayed. Apparently I'm a little burned out and couldn't come up with anything exciting...so TA DA, 100% SHIPPED!
If you have not received a shipping notice (or pen), but think you should have, please email me (details below)
You may not have received a shipment for the following reasons:
(1) You paid your Kickstarter pledge via Amazon but never filled out your KS survey, so I don't have your address. If I get your address, I'll send you a pen.
(2) You didn't pay for your Kickstarter pledge via Amazon because your credit card could not be charged at the close of the campaign, and are not eligible to receive a reward.
(3) I made some sort of general administrative screw up (sorry!)
(4) Etc.
PLEASE NOTE: At this point, "missing" pens may not ship until December...any they may (or may not) reach you by Christmas. As always, I'll do my best.
Use this subject line so I can filter messages as they arrive: "missing KS Alpha pen"
Please do not message me through Kickstarter if you are looking for your pen. It will most likely require us to exchange several messages and it's much easier for me to track our communication if you email :) Thanks!
This was a BIG project for any one-person shop. I've made hundreds of parts before, but not thousands. I had a Haas Tech come and update my software about 6 weeks ago. He said, "86,000 tool changes in six months and you are the only one running this machine?" And then he let out a long whistle. No joke.
I'd say on average, things went better than expected on the machining front. I knew the caps would be a problem, and they continue to be. I really thought drilling the very deep hole in the body would be a problem, and it was not. I managed to machine the grips in a single setup. I didn't have to load every part by hand to machine the second side, and that was a big victory. I had an "Application Engineer" spend the day with me before I started running parts, and he was "doubtful" about whether I could do the grips in one setup or not. AE's are career machinists that now consult for machine tool companies and help customers set up jobs.
Drilling a thin-walled hole in titanium turns out to be very dicey. One reason most people make their pens from tube stock and not solid bar stock (like I use) is that you save a lot of time and money by not drilling big holes in the material. If I wanted to do it the easy way, I'd go the tube route, but I want to deliver the best pen that I can possibly make. In my opinion (in this case) it involves a solid bar.
I don't take shortcuts with my products, because when I'm a customer, I sure don't want to be paying hard earned dollars for shortcuts. There is a lot of machining, but as you can see in the stats below, there is a lot of hand work. The only finishing step done en masse is tumbling. I can only run 100-200 parts at a time depending on the size of the parts. Each Ti pen requires 4.5 hours of tumbling and each EN pen requires 9 hours of tumbling. That comes to about 67 hours of tumbling to process 1500 pens.
FINISHING & ASSEMBLY OPERATIONS: 27/36 (EN/Ti) (for each pen)
OVERNIGHT PACKAGES ORDERED: 24
ACTUAL TEARS SHED - 0 (it was close though)
HAIR LOST - 15% (don't appear on video if you don't want to know)
NEW THINGS LEARNED - 271 (give or take)
Fulfillment: How long did it "really" take?
Well, it was a heck of a lot of work. I'd choose a couple different words if this wasn't a family show :) About 3 months elapsed from the time I shipped the first pen, to the time I shipped the last pen. This pretty much in line with my original estimates, and I am satisfied with this outcome. However, the overall project was about 75 days behind schedule. I was hoping for better, but realistically, that's not a bad number.
One funny thing about Kickstarter, is that once you set the "estimated delivery date" you cannot change it. As you can see, the project as 735% funded. If my delivery estimates were based on the funding goal, then one way to look at it is...the project "could" have really been 551 days late if the delay scaled with the increase in funding.
I know this is not "good" data analysis, but I'm raising the point that project creators should be aware of the impact of backer growth on shipping estimates. At some point I realized that was was going to be totally screwed, and I closed down reward tiers and opened up the "second batch" rewards. It was too late. I was going to have to deliver something like 800 pens, a little over half of the rewards, in the second month of delivery. Anyway, I tried to communicate early and often and things got done, but this is one of the big lessons learned.
FUNDING GOAL ~ $16,500
FUNDING RAISED ~ $121, 286
FUNDING PERCENT ~ 735%
TOTAL BACKERS ~ 1063
AVERAGE DELIVERY DELAY ~ 75 days
DELIVERY DELAY X FUNDING % ~ 551 days
CAMPAIGN END ~ April 13, 2013
SHIPPING BEGIN ~ August 3, 2013
SHIPPING END ~ November 12, 2013
SHIPPING DURATION ~ 99 days
Time to wrap this one up:
First, a final thanks for everyone's amazing support! The overwhelming majority of you have been positive, supportive, and enjoying the ride. That support is exactly what keeps a project moving. I'd like to give a special thanks to those people who have, of their own volition, stepped in at different times during the campaign and helped out by offering reason, knowledge, information, advice, and moral support. Kickstarter is a community and lending a hand to project creators and fellow backers truly exemplifies the spirit and power of this process. You know who you are, and this campaign was more successful because of your generous contributions.
I've been working 12-14 hour days since the campaign ended on April 12, 2013. We have a 1.5 year old, and if we get him to bed by 8, I spend most nights working on the computer till midnight. 90% of my working hours have been dedicated to pens, at the expense of my normal business. I've worked many weekends. I've missed friends weddings. I've missed my eye doctor appointment to get more contact lenses...which I'm out of. I've missed my 6 month dental checkup. I've missed my 6 month cholesterol screening (and it's high). My car registration has expired. I've stopped going to the chiropractor for my chronic neck and back pain. My car's AC was broken all summer. I have over 300 flashlight customers waiting for me to finish the pens so I can get back to making flashlights.
Before you think I'm complaining, I'm not :) Remember the "zero tears" statistic above? The choices I make are about my commitment to the project and the final product, because that's what it takes to get things done...the right way.
With gratitude,
Jason
Alpha Pens are 97% Shipped!
over 12 years ago
– Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 04:18:04 AM
Hey Backers!
Hope everyone is doing well. I just got back from Hong Kong, and it might seem like I've been hiding out...because it's true! I've been hiding out getting (most) of the remaining pens assembled and shipped! As of tomorrow, I'll be 97% shipped and I'm pretty excited about that; I hope you are too :) I also wanted to thank everyone for their patience and sticking with me through the trials of creating and manufacturing a new product. It's obviously taken much longer than expected, but I'm looking forward to the next 100% shipped update.
This chart actually represents tomorrow. I'll be putting together and shipping another 30 pens, which will leave 30 rewards that remain outstanding. Those will ship (hopefully) late next week.
Continuing clip problems and possible solutions
It's funny, this was the only part of the project that I wasn't worried about at all. I've made thousands of clips over the last couple of years and was not expecting any sort of surprise here. Well, as Murphy's Law would have it: SURPRISE! I think there is a cautionary manufacturing lesson to be learned here...
As reported last time: I ended up with a batch of 500 clips that were breaking 100% of the time when they were bent by the spring company. Not a very good "yield rate" as we call it in the industry. After trying a couple of work-arounds, we did some empirical testing and discovered the Rockwell hardness was over 45. The spec for 6Al4V titanium is 33-35 Rockwell. It was basically a really bad batch of material. The company that waterjets the clips also provides the material. They dug around in their scrap pile and found a sheet of the "old" material that I've been using for the last year and a half. They had enough for 265 clips...but that's not enough to finish all the pens...and there is no more of that material.
So, my solution was to order in some "certified" 6/4 Titanium. This is produced to exacting aerospace standards, and normally used for air and spacecraft. I mean that literally, and not in the "marketing-hype" sort of way that most people talk about "aerospace" material. As such, it's 50% more expensive than non-certified 6/4 titanium, but the purpose was to have material "guaranteed" to be 33-35 Rockwell.
I had 350 clips cut and set to my local spring company for bending. That was just before I left for Hong Kong. I planned to pick up about 600 finished clips the day after I got back from Hong Kong. Er, nope. I picked up the 265 clips cut from the old material because these were fine, and this is what I have shipped out over the last three days.
However, the new "certified" material has also been exhibiting a hairline fracture after bending, even though it is within specification for hardness. It was not discovered until about 150 clips had been bent. So, I spent about an hour at the spring company today working with the production manager and their tooling engineer to figure out what the heck the problem was. At this time the general consensus is that the material is a slightly different thickness than the previous material, making the precision forming tool the wrong size, and leading to excessive force at one part of the bend, instead of even force over the entire radius.
It will be amazingly good if this is actually the problem, because it's easily solved by making new tooling. I'm hopeful at this point, but it's entire possible that this new fix will also fail...just setting expectations. The breakage issue is a particularly bad problem because it not only affects the final fulfillment of the KS project, but my entire business. I use Ti clips on all my lights, and I make a significant number of "aftermarket" clips for other flashlights. So, if this fix does not work, I have no idea what the next step is.
Before crossing that very problematic bridge, the plan is for them to re-tool and try to bend the remainder of the clips on Tuesday. Assuming the corrective action actually fixes the problem, I will pick up on Wednesday and ship out the remaining pens on Thursday and Friday. My fingers are certainly crossed, are yours?
Cheers and thanks again for your infinite patience and unfailing support. You guys rock!
Jason
Pocket clips are now delaying delivery (slightly)
over 12 years ago
– Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 09:53:46 PM
Bad news first...
Hi Folks,
Well, as is traditional, let's start with the bad news. As you heard in my last update, there was a problem with the new batch of pocket clips. The material is much harder than normal, and causing the pocket clips to break, instead of bend. As of this moment, there is no way to repair or re-work the last batch of 500 clips. The vendor has a small sheet of (hopefully) good material; enough for about 100 clips. They are running those in the next couple of days. They are trying to get more material on order, but I don't yet have any information on how long that will take.
If anyone was wondering, I'm hoping this incident is this project's "major malfunction." Other than being a little slow (working on a clone for my next KS project) things have gone fairly smoothly.
(Above) In total I've shipped rewards to about 750 out of 1063 backers. A total of 70% if anyone is counting :) The Ti and Twice charts have creeped up a bit since the last update. I shipped about 100 Ti pens this week and about 25 Twice is nice orders. I only have about 25 pocket clips left and those will find their way onto pens, and the pens into envelopes this week.
On to the good news!
Machining is proceeding well at this point! I'm actually hoping to finish all of the machining this week. Then I'll just be waiting for pocket clips, and pens will ship very quickly after that. I'll also be in Hong Kong (Oct 18 - Nov 2) visiting family and meeting with the factory who is manufacturing my Beta-QR flashlight...my new campaign that is wrapping up in a few days. So it's actually "good" timing for a delay because I'll be gone anyway...right?...hey...are you with me?...guys?...hello?
Drilling the cap remains the most challenging operation out of all the machining. I've learned it's difficult not because of the material, but because of the machining conditions. If you drill a hole with .4063" diameter in a part that is .4900" in diameter, it means the walls are "very" thin. A fine thickness for a pen cap, plenty strong and all, but if you are a drill...you really really don't like that situation. The cutting pressure generated by the drill forces the walls of the cap to bulge microscopically, and then contract, over and over. This is basically vibration and vibration eats the very sharp corners of the drill super fast.
Abnormal point wear on a drill is most often an indication of too much RPM. My first attempt to alter the machining condition was to slow down the RPM of the drilling, below the manufacturer's recommendation for this specific drill, in titanium. After that change my drill ran about 100 parts, instead of 50. Sweet right? The next drill ran 12 parts before failing. The next about 8. Must be two bad drills right? I mean the first one worked great. The third drill made about 10 parts. Well, an hour and $750 later I decided it was time to try something else.
(Above) Just in case you ever wondered what $1,600 dollars in used drills looks like. These can be resharpened once or twice. The three gold drills have already been resharpened. Most drills can be resharpened more times, but the coolant-through drills cannot; because grinding the drill changes the relative location of the coolant hole. If you look at the drill on the far right, you can see the hole is entirely on the flat. Each time you re-grind the hole moves slightly closer to the cutting edge. The far right drill is now scrap material.
To make a long story short, my next strategy was to "pilot drill" the hole in the cap. This means you run a smaller diameter drill first, and then enlarge the hole to the final size with the big drill. This is a standard machining practice with normal drills on manual machines, but specifically not recommended for coolant-through drills. Drilling into a pilot hole causes the large drill to wear more quickly in "normal" machining conditions. However, it also reduces the thrust force required for the drill to cut. The thrust is what's causing the material to bulge...and wear the drill out in ~10 parts. So far pilot drilling seems to be working! The drill is still wearing much faster than "it should," but much slower than before. I think that's about the best I can hope for at this point.
Well, I'm tired of typing, and if you made it this far, you are tired of reading :) Thanks for your patience. Sorry for the delay, and I'll let you know as soon as I have more info on the clip delivery! So close to 100% shipped!
Cheers,
Jason
Shipping Update and "Potential" Delay (fingers crossed!)
over 12 years ago
– Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 11:18:12 AM
Hi all,
No big news to report but I wanted to give you my current shipping update. I also wanted to let people know about a possible delay. My last batch of 500 clips was supposed to be finished last week. Unfortunately we discovered the material it was cut from was much harder than it should be, and is unable to be bent. I'm currently working with the vendor to see if we can save the batch and get them finished ASAP. It's possible that they are not salvageable and we may have to start over. This would lead to a delay on the last couple hundred pens, and push back my goal to be 100% delivered by October 18.
The final remaining challenge is getting the Ti caps finished without running out of drills. Right now I have 7 drills (@ $300 each), and if you remember, I was getting about 50 parts out of each drill. The math says I'll only get about 350 parts, and that's not good enough. So, I'm going to spend a couple of days trying two new machining strategies that (I'm really really hoping) will increase the drill life.
Over the course of the next two weeks, I'll be alternating making Ti caps and finishing the Ti "Body 2" machining. The "Body 2" operation finishes the tail end of the bodies that have already been machined on the front side. The good news is, the cycle time of the tail is much shorter because I don't have to drill the body or cut the internal threads for the grip. The "alternating" strategy will allow me to ship the final Ti pens in batches, rather than waiting till I have 100% of the remaining parts and shipping all at once.
(Above) Slowly but surely getting there! Tomorrow I'm starting the final aluminum caps. Right now I "believe" I'm 100% shipped on Aluminum pens that are not combined with a Ti pen. These "combo" tiers include the "twice is nice" reward and people that may have pledged for an Aluminum pen and added a Ti pen after the campaign. There may be 5-10 Aluminum pens (single) that have not shipped, and they will be sent out with the next batch in a week or two.
Thanks again for your patience and support!
Jason
Shipping Continues, and Time Travel!
over 12 years ago
– Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 10:16:55 AM
Hi all,
Just a quick progress update. Unfortunately I've been out of commission for three days with a 102 fever. I've basically lost about a week of production time, but we are still getting there! My hope was to have all the titanium "body 1" parts done this week...but that is looking like the end of next week. According to my spreadsheet, I have 10 full days of machining remaining. Probably smart to call that three weeks, but the end is in sight!
(Above) I also have a "correction" to publish. I realized I made an error in my spreadsheet for the % machining completed. The current and "correct" percentage is listed above. The bad news is, we moved backwards in time. The good news is, there is still the same amount of work left to do :)
(Above) So I have 200 aluminum pens on my desk waiting to be stuffed into envelopes. To continue the time travel theme...Looking into the future to Monday, September 23rd, I should be 100% fulfilled on aluminum pens once I get this batch shipped! That, of course, assumes I haven't made any gross errors in my calculations. My temperature is still about 99.6 so I don't make any guarantees :)
Oh, and I also started an instagram account if anyone is interested :)
