Long overdue for another update! These weeks just fly by so darn fast. A lot to cover here including assembly, CE Cert, SCA Expo, Patent, and more.

Before I get into that, I’d like to thank everyone for their continued support with the Argos. Some of you may remember that we had made 70 additional units available for pre-order on February 10. These 70 units came from us finalizing the quantity of parts needed to assemble the Argos and some cancellations as well. We were very pleased to see that pre-orders for all 70 machines sold out in 25 minutes. I would like to sincerely apologize to anyone who was not able get a pre-order of these final units of batch 1. Due to the limited quantities in each configuration we didn’t have a great way to add that inventory to our online site which resulted in some people getting to checkout only to find that their configuration had just sold out. Good news is that once we start shipping we plan to open batch 2 orders with no currently planned limit. We’d like to get this going once batch one is out in the world to lessen the delay between shipping batches 1 and 2.

As you all know, the top and bottom plates were delayed a bit more than anticipated. The first set of 45 plates ship out tonight and are expected to arrive next week. We’ve already got over 50 sub assemblies of both 120V and 240V boilers, steam valves + wand, steam manifolds, etc. Once these plates arrive, we’ll go straight into cleaning and full assembly which will have it’s own learning curve and ramp up for our techs. 70 more sets of plates are expected to ship next week with all of the remaining parts estimated to be completed before the end of March. This differs from our previous quote of 50 plates per week

A quick deep dive into the plate delays. After the first 2 were received before CNY to kick off production testing, I found a few small features that I wanted to change. They integrated the changes quickly but needed to go through the process of verifying that the new parts were up to spec after manufacture. I also didn’t love the powder coating samples that were sent before CNY. The original pre-production powder coated parts were done by Leading Edge Manufacturing down in Louisiana. They were awesome and gave us the exact look and finish that we were going for. For production it made more sense to have out manufacturers do the powder coating in house to keep cost and lead time down. This meant a little more back and forth on getting the correct finish.

My supplier also made tools used to cover off portions of the parts that we don’t want coated. These are primarily the sealing surfaces and those that would directly contact potable water. You can see some images of the tools below!

CE Cert. This has been a huge process of working with the labs to narrow down the actual certifications required for each country we are shipping to. Some countries have overlap and can get by with a conformance report to show that prior testing directly relates to local regulations. Because we were told different things from different labs it took significant work and research to sift through this info and figure out exactly what we need. The other reason for delays has been waiting for lab space to open up. Due to the number of products needing testing at all these certified labs, we’ve had to wait for space in a lab that met our budget. We’re currently slated for a testing date of 3/30 which is likely to move forward as it seems common for many companies to cancel their testing if they’re not fully ready in time.

The general timeline we’ve been given is 1 week to get FCC and ISED for US and Canada. CE and rest of world will then take 2-3 weeks after. After talking to the lab all parties seem confident that the Argos will pass due to it’s simple nature and use of pre-certified components. Majority of what is tested in EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility Testing) of the board, radio and antenna testing of the Bluetooth emittance, general safety including RoHS compliant materials, and user manual documentation.

We have just reserved our booth 1057 for the SCA Expo in Portland April 21-23! While we don’t plan on pulling shots during the event due to the high commercial demand that our machine is not designed to operate for but we will have final production machines on display and may consider pulling shots at the end of each day for those who are interested.

Our Non-Provisional design patent was just filed today which is an exciting milestone for protecting our intellectual property with the many unique features on this machine!

A few more random notes! We do have steam wand block off plates available for those that do not a steam wand. Still figuring out the best way to offer these but will have that option and instructions on how to get that soon along with product photos of no steam wand! I’ve also slacked on the auto refill. It is still in the plan to offer this option before we start shipping so stay tuned!

Sample of the powder coating tools showing the protection from black powder coating on a white part.

Production bottom plate sitting on a stack of top plates ready to be shipped!

Powder coating samples!

Serial no. 0001 pulling shots on the workbench for some visitors to the shop! I’m very pleased with the workflow and results. This is sporting the production mounting configuration for the analog piston pressure gauge and Bluetooth pressure transducer. The old switches from the back of the machine are replaced with a rocker switch on the bottom and integrated push button switch with the temperature knob on the side.