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Merry New Year!

Development update is a short one, but there was a lot of work behind the scenes:

  • Almost finished repairing the CNC router. Going to test it tomorrow.
  • Fixed a problem with how subscriptions work. That was a hairy one. Associating the subscription to the user to the device, and removing them from which device when the user wants to cancel… had to think long and hard.

If the CNC router is working, I may have an enclosure to show everyone by next week. Woohoo!

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Merry Christmas!

Hark! The herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King!

Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled.”

Joyful, all ye nations rise,

Join the triumph of the skies,

With th’angelic host proclaim:

“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”

Hark! The herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King!”

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing by Charles Wesley

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal! This is without a doubt my favorite holiday of the year. I love the get-togethers (when possible) and gifts and cool nights and snacks and movies and surprises and worship and lights and music and calls to friends and memes and cheer. What a blessing.

Been busy this month trying to get SecureCoop ready for sale:

  • Set up the shop for the Early Bird pre-sale. Did you get your coupon? Jump on the mailing list.
  • Tried to find the best power supply: It must be waterproof AND not have a huge brick at the wall (I hate those) AND have enough wattage AND the right voltage AND be constant voltage AND have a long enough cord AND have the right plug at the ends AND be UL-listed AND be FCC-verified AND be RoHS-certified AND have overcurrent protection AND have a warranty AND be available at a reasonable price. Whew!
  • Finished designing the enclosure, pictures below. That was the last major piece to design. It’s all minor stuff from here on out. Once the enclosure is carved and assembled I’ll post pictures.
  • Set up the shop with all kinds of fun chicken merchandise.
  • Set up PayPal, which was incredibly difficult, not sure why it was, but it’s working now.
  • Tried to set up to receive cryptocurrency, but that’s not working quite right so I’ve disabled it for now.
  • Found a better obstruction detector.
  • Repaired the CNC router, which is the tool used to cut out the enclosure. It is a 3D printed tool but I had left it in a hot car, and the pieces melted just enough to make the tool no longer usable. Had to re-print almost every part.
  • Repaired the 3D printer. In the process of re-printing the parts for the CNC router, I damaged the main control board, had to replace one sensor, and in general had to perform a major overhaul of the entire unit. It’s working well now.
  • Fixed bugs in the backend communication processes.
  • Added some necessary error reporting to the phone app.
  • Added a step to test the door operation process and obstruction detection in the setup wizard.
  • Wrote the FAQs.
  • Fixed backups.
  • Probably fixed another 12 things I’m not thinking of right now. Hah.

Feels good to make so much progress! I should be on track to getting it ready for sale by the summer at the latest. The FCC lab testing I’m sort of worried about, but I have good help and this is a low emissions product, so there’s probably nothing to worry about. I may have to take it to the lab twice though, and each attempt costs about $2,000. But it’s not expected that I would have to visit three times.

Here below are the screenshots of the finished enclosure design. Cool, huh?

I think you’ll like the cool stuff in the shop.

Image source: Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal – 11×14 Unframed Art Print on Amazon