Knops - The volume button for your ears

Shipping? Shipping!
almost 8 years ago – Thu, May 24, 2018 at 07:00:41 PM

Dear backers,

The wait is over. Knops is coming your way!

May was a crucial month for us, but we're happy to finally inform you, we started shipping Knops since today!

With this batch of Knops sent, we will be shipping out as many Knops as we can produce on a weekly basis. We still have a lot to gain the coming weeks to improve production speed, but we're sending out as many Knops as possible.

The coming period we will keep you updated on our progress.

Much love from the Knops team!

The countdown has begun!
almost 8 years ago – Fri, May 18, 2018 at 11:47:39 PM

Dear backers,

May is the month we’ve all been working towards for the last months as we start shipping Knops next week from 24th of May at 17.00 CEST!

It has been a long road with ups and downs. We feel blessed to have your support from the beginning. You are the ones that helped make this product reality.

In the last two weeks, we have been making all the final preparations. Naturally, we have been producing and testing our final production samples. Furthermore, we had to prepare all the different aspects of production and documenting all the steps and processes. In this way, we are able to analyze and optimize the production process so we can easily scale up production. Also, this means that everyone included in the production cycle knows exactly what to do and when.

To scale up production we just ordered a new ultrasonic welding machine. This was decided because we concluded that in order to produce as many Knops in an optimal way, one welding machine was not going to do. Let’s explain why we need two welding machines. A pair of Knops consists of two Knops (duh), a right one and a left one. You need different settings to the welding machine when producing the right or left Knops. This means that every time we switch from producing a left Knops to a right Knops, we have to change the settings to the machine. Naturally, this takes quite sometimes and increases the margin of error. With a second welding machine, we don’t have to change the settings to the welding machines which saves a lot of time. We are able to produce twice as fast!

Now the best news of this update: we start shipping the first orders to our Kickstarter backers next week Thursday. Yes, May the 24th is go time! We have been looking forward to this moment for months now and are very happy to start the delivery process.

The earlier mentioned extra welding machine is expected to arrive within two weeks. Once this machine has arrived and is set up, we are able to provide you with a clear delivery schedule containing the dates that you can expect to receive your pair of Knops. However, we try to produce as many sets of Knops this week as we can, and will ship those first sets coming Thursday. A couple of you lucky, most early backers, will receive their pair of Knops in the last week of May. We will ship all orders on a first ordered, first shipped base. When we ship your order you will receive an email from us with a tracking number.

You have until Monday 21st to change your shipping details in the Backerkit survey. Note: enter the survey with the email address you used to pledge to the campaign. After Monday you can send us an email at [email protected] if you want to change your shipping details.

The countdown has begun! Check our new homepage :)

Much love,

Team Knops

Still on track for shipping in May!
almost 8 years ago – Fri, May 04, 2018 at 01:55:36 AM

Dear backers, 

In our previous update, we shared the good news that we were going to start production at the end of April and that we expected to start shipping in May. 

We are happy to announce that over the last weeks, everything went very well and that we are still on track! We started the production of Knops, the final prototypes are great and shipping will start this month. 

Mass production injection molding 

At the end of April, we started mass producing all the plastic parts necessary for the first production batch. Before starting with this task, we adjusted the acoustic filters on the inside of the Knops. This was a mold adjustment needed to finalize the fine-tuning process. In this way, we optimized the acoustics on each volume level of Knops.

Furthermore, we are setting up all the guidelines, processes and tools for the assembly. This includes us figuring out all the variables, do's, and don'ts so that we can ensure that every set of Knops will be produced and finished with exactly the same quality. Parallel to this process, we are already looking into how fast we can ramp up the production time. 
More information will follow on your shipment the coming period. We know you are ready for it.

Reminder 

A lot of you already filled in the survey with Backerkit. Awesome, we’ll use the data from the survey for fulfillment and shipping.

Please fill in the survey so we can use this information to send you your pair of Knops. If you for some reason didn't receive your survey in your email you can use this recovery link. Note: enter the survey with the email address you used to pledge to the campaign.

If you have any questions regarding the survey, feel free to contact us and together with the Backerkit support team we are happy to help you. 

Much love, 

Team Knops.

Knops is starting production!
almost 8 years ago – Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 11:51:23 PM

Dear backers, 

We have got a lot of interesting news to share with you all! Let’s start with what has been going on these past weeks. 

Where we are 

Before diving into the details we wanted to let you know where we are. We just received the latest mold adjustments. We are running tests and it is looking great so far. Therefore we have news to share that all of you will be very happy to hear: we will start production at the end of this month and start shipping the first orders in May! 

Molds molds molds 

During the last updates, we already talked quite a bit about the ultrasonic welding process. Because the final changes to the internals mold are currently done, we want to guide you through what this all means. 

A couple of terms we have come to dream about are T0, T1, T2 and steel-save. Let’s dig into what they mean and how they link to our progress: T0/T1/T2: These are names used for the different injections after the molds are originally made. T0 is the very first injection, often with issues that need to be addressed. It is very hard to exactly predict the flow and cooling behavior of an injection mold. T1 means the batch after correcting for unforeseen effects of this and should be according to first drawings. T2 is after making adjustments to the design. Steel-save: when a mold is made, small tolerance changes can lead to parts not quite fitting. In order to make this right, the molds are purposely designed with too much steel on the surface. A mold with more thickness of steel on the surface has less plastic in the injected part (remember the mold makes a cavity for the plastic). The parts then will never fit by definition, but one can measure the injected parts and adjust by removing steel in a milling procedure. This way you can move in several steps to make the parts have an exact fit. Removing steel is much easier than adding, hence steel-save.

In China, we got through T0/T1 and two iterations in the design. And then they got a first class airline ticket to Europe! As these things are a bit heavy, you can imagine it is quite the ‘excess baggage’ fee for these blocks of steel. 

Now in Holland, we continued the tests and adjustments to make everything perfect: starting with how it behaves with our own materials! There are many different blends of different kinds of plastic, the name plastic is a container term for so many materials. We had tested many materials and used one that was more expensive but more premium: better scratch resistance, better glow and surface finish. We also worked a lot on the soft parts, their look and feel and how it integrates with the mechanical design. Now for these new materials the molds needed to be tuned, it also included some changes for manufacturing. We started closing the steel-save surfaces to get the parts connected while optimizing the ultrasonic welding process. 

We also created lab hybrids that used both injection molded parts and rapid prototyped adjustments. This to test what changes we wanted to make and how ‘aggressive’ we could make these adjustments: change fully right away, or use some steps just to be sure to keep steel-save. We also made more advanced changes to the internals design while we were at it. In total in Holland, we have made about 4 iterations on the design.

And it’s working well! 

Last week, with mimicking the last adjustments of the injection molds and using the new ultrasonic welding mold, we got the first fully working sets of Knops. Hurray! Note that this is a hybrid using the production parts with some minor rapid prototyped adjustments (remember the mold just came back in). During all our tests we also tuned and optimized switching between the different volume levels. This now goes so smooth and easy that this is a true delight. You can really hear the difference in the volume levels. In the coming weeks, we will finish inspecting the outcome of the final mold changes and finalize bringing it all together.

Quality in quantity 

We have also looked in depth at how to make sure that each set of Knops will be according to the highest quality standards. We have worked a lot on quality control: 

• Ran batch tests on the injection molded parts and ultrasonic welding to get a grip on tolerance effects.
• Created an extra acoustics tester to be able to test each set of Knops in line. 
• Wrote extensive procedures on how to handle all the parts of Knops and made instructions for the assemblers. 
• Created an automated swapping + alignment device for the ultrasonics. 
• Started the setup of the workshop for the assembly line. This way we think every set of Knops will shine just as bright and function just as perfectly as their brothers and sisters will!

Movies in the making 

 We went with a movie director for our Knops: besides the instruction booklet, we have filmed cool instruction and situation videos last Monday. This to help everyone how to insert, use and clean your set Knops. We used this cool location in the Adam Tower, where our office is also situated, to film these videos. We are already editing and the results look awesome!

Getting ready for the launch! 

As mentioned in the previous post we are on track with all the parts sourcing, most of the needed materials, packaging and so on are in now.

We are working around the clock to set up the assembly part of the production process and we are optimizing processes to get ready for production. Thank you all for your patience and commitment, we are very happy to start shipping and will do our best to deliver your pair of Knops as swift as possible.

Much love,

Team Knops.

Mass production ramp-up
about 8 years ago – Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 12:32:17 AM

Dear backers,

Another update from the Knops-team. We are very busy gathering all the necessary parts for mass production. Getting all the components here in large quantities is quite a supply chain effort. So we wanted to show you all what we are stocking up on for the production and assembly of Knops. 

We are not talking about one or two protos anymore. At this moment we are working with tens of thousands of parts coming in! For example, at this moment the following is en route or received: 

• 15.000 Knops rings 
• 8.000 Outer packages 
• 10.000 Silicone plugs 
• 24.000 Foam plugs 
• 30.000 Carrying cases 
• 1.200.000 magnets (quite a magnetic field :) ). 

Let’s see some examples on how this exactly looks: 

Metal rings 
As you already know by now, Knops work like a volume button. Our ring maker did an amazing job with producing a high-quality ring which you can use to switch between the different filter settings. They already produced 4.000 of the 15000 rings ánd made high-end boxes to transport the rings to our production partner, nice and smooth!

Carrying cases 
With a premium product like Knops, it’s a calming thought that you’re able to keep your Knops safe in a case when you aren’t using them. Each order will come with a case and that is why we’ve ordered 30.000 cases. It is always hard to imagine large numbers: here is an example of one box filled with 1000 cases. Now imagine the entire stock! :)

Packaging 
For the packaging we went through multiple iterations (such as different sizes and shapes) which eventually lead to this stunning end result! As the boxes are en route, we wanted to show you the different versions of the packaging in the images below. We’ve ordered 8.000 pieces so far. 

Looking in more detail 
We are currently heading up towards your unboxing experience! As the boxes are en route, we wanted to show you the iterations in the packaging design. We went through multiple shapes and sizes:

That is the outside, now once you open this shell, we have also worked at multiple internal layouts. Here is the result. We hope you like it :)

 Much love, 

 Team Knops.