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Blog Index April 26, 2008By Jim "The Amp Surgeon"
Building the SuperFuzz!
We've got our new RoHS compliant circuit boards. We've also got all of the RoHS compliant
electronic components we need, except for some transistors and jacks, which we're expecting
to receive any day now. Our next batch of enclosures is due to arrive this coming Wednesday,
the 30th of April. We've already begun stuffing circuit boards, which we'll be putting into
enclosures as soon as they arrive.
We expect to begin filling backorders and shipping new orders by the end of the week!
The first pedal in the batch is being sent to a testing lab in Orange, California, where
it will be tested for compliance with the European regulations for electromagnetic
emission and immunity. If it passes (everyone keep your fingers crossed), then we'll be
able to put the CE marking on the pedals, and begin shipping them to Europe.
We don't know precisely how long this process is going to take. We're still waiting for
the lab to tell us when they'll schedule it in for testing. However, they DID tell
us that it will be about a week after testing before the reports will be ready, and we'll
be able to put the CE marking on the pedals.
We're guessing this will all take a couple of weeks, and we'll begin shipping pedals to
Europe the week of May 12th. Of course, backordered pedals will be shipped first.
In order to ensure that there are enough pedals for European sales, we're setting aside
10 pedals from this batch. These pedals will not be available for purchase until we
begin shipping to Europe, and backorders from Europe will be filled first. The other 40
pedals in the batch will be available for North American sales as soon as they are built.
April 18, 2008by Jim "The Amp Surgeon"
Sold Out!
Sorry about that! :-(
As promised, the next batch of pedals with be larger (50 pedals), and will be RoHS compliant,
which makes them "legal" in the EU.
Yes, we should begin building more Wattson Classic SuperFuzz pedals in about
a week (maybe a bit longer - depends on our suppliers), but that doesn't mean we'll be
selling pedals in a week!
Here's the problem...
RoHS compliance isn't the only requirement to sell pedals in Europe. The pedals also need to
have a "CE marking". This is a certification that the pedals conform to certain performance
regulations for Europe. In the case of the pedals, they have to conform to electromagnetic
interference rules. We can't just rubber stamp the pedals and say that they conform. There
are tests that MUST be performed, and we are neither equipped nor qualified to perform
these tests and certify our own pedals. We have to send a pedal to a qualified lab for
certification. What's more, we have to wait until we have an RoHS compliant pedal to test,
since that's what we're going to be shipping to Europe.
We're still working out the details with the qualified testing labs here in Northern
California. We should have all of that worked out by the time we have a pedal ready
for testing. We figure it will be a week, maybe two, before the tests are completed, and
we'll be able to put the CE marking on the pedals and ship them to Europe.
The bad news for those of you outside of Europe is that we're not going to ship ANY
pedals until the certification is completed. We don't want to build some pedals with the
CE marking and others without it. We want the entire next batch of pedals, and every batch
thereafter, to be legal for export to most of the world.
If anything happens to affect our schedule then we'll post it here.
When we receive an order that will be backordered we'll send an email message to the
buyer, letting them know that their pedal won't be shipped right away. We'll give them
the option of leaving their order in place until pedals become available, or they can
cancel their order. If they opt to cancel, then we'll promptly refund their payment.
When new pedals become available, then we'll fill the backorders before filling any
new pedal orders. There's always a remote chance that the entire next batch of pedals could
be pre-ordered, and there won't be any pedals available for new sales, but we're not
really expecting that to happen. Because of the limited supplies, we're not actively
advertising the pedals, and are depending on satisified customers to spread the word. So far,
they've been doing a great job!
April 11, 2008by Jim "The Amp Surgeon"
It's been nearly two weeks since the last blog entry, so we figured it was about time for another.
The week leading up to April 5th was seriously hectic. We had a lot of last minute
snafus to sort out. We got our contest winner pedals shipped out the week before, and
almost immediately had to issue a "recall" on them because of a mistake in the assembly
procedure. You can read all about it in the April 1st blog entry below. We're just really glad
we caught it before we shipped any pedals from the first production lot. It was a really minor
change, involving only one capacitor that costs a few pennies, but the cost of recalling a
pedal means paying for expedited shipping three times; once to send an RMA kit to the buyer,
once for the buyer to send the pedal back to us, and once to send the repaired pedal back to
the buyer. That's a lot for a really small company to absorb!
We also had supply problems, with parts that had been promised to us going backorder, and a
mad scramble to find suitable replacement parts at the last minute so that we could finish building
the first lot of pedals. What's really funny is that our backordered parts arrived only a
couple of days after we were finished! C'est la vie!
Anyway, we did finally get the pedals finished, and they went on sale April 5th. We decided
to be generous to the people who had taken the time and effort to sign up for our
mailing list, so we gave them a 12 hour advance
notice to purchase a pedal before we opened up sales to the general public. We knew that there
were some people waiting anxiously for one of these pedals, so we expected some pedals to
sell pretty quickly. Even so, we were pretty surprised to see a sale go through within five
minutes of sending the email notice out. Within fifteen minutes we'd sold a half dozen pedals.
By the time the 12 hour "presale" was over, we'd sold well over half of the pedals we had
available. At one point, we were seriously concerned that they might actually be all gone
before they "officially" went on sale!
Not bad, considering the only thing we've done to advertise the Wattson Classic SuperFuzz is to post a few
announcements on some internet forums. We're not actively advertising them, for several
reasons. First, we have a limited number available, so a lot of advertising isn't really
necessary. Second, conventional advertising costs a lot of money, and we don't have a lot
of money to spend on advertising yet. Third, all of the advertising in the world isn't
going to do much to help our sales unless our product has a solid reputation, and we can't
build that reputation until we have customers who own our pedals and love them.
And that's where you come in...
A couple of you have already received your pedals. The rest of you that have ordered will
be receiving your pedals over the next few days. We're absolutely confident you're going to
love your Wattson Classic SuperFuzz because we're absolutely confident that it's
everything we've claimed it was. We know that it absolutely nails the tone of the
original Super-Fuzz pedals. We know that it's built like an M1 tank. We also
know that it has all of the features which the original Super-Fuzz didn't
have, like an external power jack, an "effect on" LED, and a super convenient battery
drawer.
We know ALL of these things, and once you receive your pedal then we know that
YOU will know them too! What we need now is for you to tell all of your guitar
playing friends about it. Talk about it on internet forums and chat rooms. Write a
review for a pedal blog, or record a video review and post it on YouTube. In
doing so, you'll help us grow and produce more great reproductions of vintage classics
like the SuperFuzz. We've got a lot of great ideas, and you can help make them
reality!
What's that? You didn't order a SuperFuzz? Well, there are still a few
left. You'd better hurry!
Keep on playing! April 1, 2008by Jim "The Amp Surgeon"
Happy April Fool's Day!
Because of the April Fool's tradition, it's difficult to trust anything you read on this
day, so I just wanted to let you know that everything in this blog post is for real.
Seriously, no fooling!
SuperFuzz Release News
First, our pedal enclosures were delayed by a few days. This didn't initially look like
it would be a problem, since we could continue building and testing circuit boards in
the meantime. When they were finally finished I went to the sheet metal shop, gave them
a quick count and visual inspection, and carted them back to our shop. The next day I
pulled one of the enclosures from the box and was admiring the new sand texture finish
when I noticed something odd - the hole where the "Input" jack was supposed to go was
noticeably bigger than the hole where the "Output" jack was supposed to go. On the other
hand, the hole where the DC power adapter jack was supposed to go was the same size as
the "Output" jack hole. It quickly dawned on me that the "Input" jack hole and the DC
power jack hole were switched. The plates for the enclosure lids had been cut correctly,
but they had been bent backwards!
A quick call to the sheet metal shop resolved the matter, and they agreed to rush through
replacement enclosure lids for us, but it would take another two days. This meant we would
be a full week late starting to build the pedals. Looks like a long weekend looming...
The next setback happened when we got notice from one of our suppliers that the potentiometers
we'd been expecting any day were now going to be backordered for at least another couple
of weeks. We couldn't build pedals without pots, and we only had enough pots in stock to
build a few pedals, so we were on a mad scramble to find a local supplier. When that didn't
pan out, we started checking all of the local electronics hobby shops for the pots. After
buying up all of the parts we could find, we were still far short of what we needed. We finally
found a supplier that had a sufficient quantity of the exact same pot we used, except that
the shaft was a full inch too long. Ok, not a big deal - we can cut them to length and they'll
be perfect. We ordered the pots with overnight shipping. A couple more days lost in the
frenzied search for pots.
The last, and probably most embarassing error, occurred yesterday. We were testing a batch
of the circuit boards when we noticed that virtually all of them were running very close
to the upper limits of our test specifications. This was surprising, since they should have
been identical to our reference circuit board. After close examination (and a few hours of
head scratching) we realized that one of the capacitors was the wrong value. It was, in fact,
the value we had used on our original prototype breadboard, and NOT the value we had
changed to when we built the first PC boards. It turns out that our current schematics were
correct, but our parts list hadn't been updated. Our assembly procedure was based on the parts
list, so the wrong part was installed in all of the boards. Ok, no big deal - we can just
swap the capacitors. Well, it wasn't going to be as easy as that! Our stock of parts was
based on the same outdated parts list, which meant we had a nice stock of the wrong value
capacitors, and virtually none of the right ones! We weren't going to play the
frantic game of looking for local suppliers again, so we placed an order for the correct
capacitors and (once again) had them shipped overnight. We should be receiving them by
the end of the day tomorrow.
Even though it's only one part, it won't be as simple as installing it and shipping the
pedals. We can't install a circuit board in a pedal chassis until it's passed our test
procedure, and we can't test it until it's got the correct parts in it. That means we'll
still have a couple of days of building and testing work to do before all of the pedals
will be ready.
Sit tight! Just a few more days and then you'll be able to buy the pedals, and we'll be
able to get some sleep!
Keep on playing! |
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Copyright (c)2008 Wattson Classic Electronics All Rights Reserved |
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