Hello and Happy New Year everyone!
I figured now was a good time to give an update on the KL-90 Group Buy, and potentially starting a bi-weekly update blog post.
First off, thank you to every single person who participated in the group buy! I truly appreciate the love and support that I've seen for the KL-90. You are all awesome, and I'm so excited for the future of Kiko's Lab.
Lets start off with some group buy numbers!
Aluminum KL-90 Kit: 268/275 Units Sold
3D Printed KL-90 Kit: 58/150 Units Sold
FR4 KL-90 Kit: 19/200 Units Sold.
The 3D Printed and FR4 kits really didn't sell well at all, which was kind of surprising to me. However, I did announce the Polycarbonate version before those went live, so I'm holding out hope thats the reasoning for the low sales. The Aluminum sold extremely well, even if not sold out. I'm very happy with the outcome here.
Fulfillment is still very much on track to be in Q2 2021, with a target of May-June. Here's a checklist of mine with progress updates as recent as I know:
Aluminum Cases: Order placed with the manufacturer. Tooling is currently being set up for their new CNC machine, upon which First Articles and Foundry Editions will start immediately for verification, with full on production beginning immediately afterwards.
PCBs: Orders placed for both Solder and Hotswap PCBs. First Articles to verify the production process will arrive mid-February, with the production run beginning immediately once I verify the quality.
FR4 Plates and Bottoms: Order has been placed. Not sure when they're coming in, but the protos for these took like two weeks from order to delivery time. Hopefully soon.
Lasercut Plates: Order has not been placed yet, but turnaround on these should be pretty quick.
Plate Foams: Stupidfish Designs is hard at work getting ready to start cutting! I'm not rushing him, but he'll probably finish around mid-Feb.
Encoders and OLEDs: Ordered and on their way to me!
3D Print Cases: Filament is on its way to me, and the printer has yet to be set up. I'm currently remodeling my garage still, and thats where the printing will be taking place.
Gaskets: Delivered to me already!
All in all, everything is looking awesome. I'm hoping to beat delivery estimates, but I'm not promising anything on that yet. I'll be shipping out as soon as I have things for each order.
Finally, Polycarbonate KL-90! I have ordered two more prototypes of the Polycarbonate KL-90, one blue and one purple. I intend to only offer three polycarbonate colors for the GB, so I'm really hoping that these are it in addition to black. For those who are curious about what it sounds like, theres a post on my instagram and my discord with a sound test, go check it out! I'm not exactly sure when the GB will go live as I want to have more completed for the Alu/3D Printed GBs before shifting focus. Look forward to an IC and possible build stream in the next few months!
I'll try to put updates out every two weeks if I have the time to/remember, but in the meantime please be sure to join the discord, as all updates go their immediately!
Discord: https://discord.gg/wgCrF6p
Instagram: @kikos.lab