Hi Reader,

Last week I went to South Dakota to meet the new contract manufacturer, Electronic Systems Inc (ESI).  Since this is their first manufacturing run of the Mooshimeter, I wanted to be on hand to make sure there weren’t any unspoken assumptions they were missing.  It would be a sad event to end up with hundreds of miscalibrated Mooshimeters.

The Mooshimeter’s design is very forgiving for assemblers.  That’s very deliberate, since I knew I’d have to assemble the first few thousand myself*.  This started as a crowdfunding project with a very small budget.  I arrived to discover ESI had put together an assembly line that was already doing everything right, and I used the time to troubleshoot issues as they arose.

Their operation is really impressive… the Mooshimeter assembly operation only takes up a small corner of their shop.  Here are some pictures of the assembly line (it’s a slideshow, click to advance).

I wish there was more to write about the visit, but it all went so smoothly it kind of left me at a loss for words!  With Mooshimeters back in stock, we’ve already replenished Sparkfun and Elektor, two of our favorite distributors.

That’s all for now.  This week has been focused on hammering down some last minute bugs from the release of new versions of the Android+iOS app, as well as moving to a larger office space.

Thanks for reading!

~James

*By assemble, I mean program the boards, calibrate them, put them in their enclosures and pack for shipping.  I did not hand solder the boards myself.  I’m not that crazy.  And my friends helped too when they could, I wasn’t always alone.