Sunday, August 4, 2013

New Project Kit Launched

We are pleased to announce that the new Electronic Project Kit has now gone into production.
The first batch of packaging was delivered from the printers on Friday.

We are really pleased with this kit, which is boxed and includes 9 fully functional projects to build.
The draft for this kit was shown on the blog a few weeks ago, and we updated  and changed a few areas of the design.
It is hoped that this kit will be as popular as the original, and it has been designed to be retailed by third parties too. If you are interested in reselling this product, please email us at, info@mallinson-electrical.com and we will discuss details.

The projects all include circuit diagrams, a brief explanation and we have photographed the built circuits. Based on our original concept of re-usable, solderless breadboard, the kit should provide a great foundation to the world of electronics, giving useful components that can still be useful no matter how far your hobby progresses.

At this time, we are retailing this kit through our website www.mallinson-elctrical.com and will roll out the product to Amazon and ebay over the coming weeks

example circuit diagram and photo

This is the most complex circuit, and is project 9.
You will create a circuit that sequentially turns off one of 4 LED's. The photo shows 4 red LED's for clarity, the kit includes 9 LED's, 3 red, 3 green and 3 yellow in the total of over 150 parts which include


Resistors
Ceramic Disc Capacitors
Electrolytic Capacitors
Transistors
Diodes
Variable Resistors
Battery Clip
LED’s
555 Timer IC
Light Dependent Resistor
Tactile Switches


3D Printing

The last two weeks have seen sales starting to increase slightly, I'm guessing that this might have something to do with the school holidays. The weather is a bit more variable, and sales always seem to be up slightly when it rains.
As ever, we have been really busy on the developement front (or playing, according to Kate)

3D printing is now viable in the workshop. I spent 12 hours over the last week or so assembling and calibrating a RepRap 3D printer. The printer was bought in kit form from RepRapPro, and was delivered in 10 days, just as promised.
Our Printer is the RepRap Mono Mendel. All the reprap printers are named after biologists.
I should have taken photos throughout the build, but to be honest, the instructions on the RepRapPro wiki are just so good, it is unneccessary for me to document further.
The only stumbling block came when it was time to download the software.
We have gone with Pronterface, and I didn't spot the "download all" button on GitHub, after several frustrating hours, I called in the big guns (Steve, our IT consultant). Steve looked, pondered, quizzed and generally drank all the coffe in the place before pointing out the download all button (do I need glasses?) 5 minutes later, we were ready to go.

As you can see from the close-up, I sleeved all the stepper motor wires. I only had green and yellow coloured sleeving, so I used this. I sleeved th wires because I was uncomfortable tie-wrapping them directly to screwed bar, the threads can be quite sharp, and easily able to puncture the PVC coating on the wires.
Things to note:
  1. Before downloading anything, make a new folder for your files, we called ours 3D,  save everything to this location, and it will create a folder for your images, we store all our image file there
  2. Do run through a calibration routine, the wiki for this is here
  3. Do take your time, its easy to rush through, particularly when it comes to squaring the frame up. Time spent doing this right will pay off later. Work to the finest tolerance you can.
  4. Don't assume that the settings are just right, all the options are fully configurable. If your prints are not great right off the bat, change something and look at the result
  5. Do change only one setting at a time, so you can see what changes that makes
The plastic extrudes from the nozzle and sticks to the glass heated bed, but only if the glass is clean. I tried acetone, and this was hopeless. The best result came from a damp cloth with detergent, and then drying the glass with tissue.
Printing with black!
Not Happening! A new roll of PLA was delivered, and no matter what I tried, all I got was a big blob around the nozzle. result? the PLA was not good, and part of a bad batch, so it is being returned :(

Here is a very short video of the first print

Friday, July 12, 2013

The Hottest Week

The sun has been shining in Huddersfield, and its been hot!
The office has no AirCon, and no opening windows, I've lost 4 pounds in a week.

Everywhere else, people must be out enjoying the weather, because sales are down for the week :( I guess that they are making hay while the sun shines, instead of being inside and tweeking electronic circuits.

The sales being lower, has given me the opportunity needed to make some long overdue tweeks to our online standing.

Ebay
Our ebay shop now has a spanky new bespoke theme designed for us by the team at the bay web design and as time progresses I will be adding the theme to our listings. Want a sneaky peek? here is the link mallinson-electrical ebay shop


Amazon

Our Starter Kit became the 3rd best selling item in its category this week, up from 25th. I put this down to revising our images, and offering free shipping. Its now also available on Amazon.de

On wednesday, for the first time, we sold more volume on Amazon than ebay, I'm hoping its not a one off.

We had a disaster with a shipment to Ireland,
8 weeks ago, we sent a couple of laptop batteries to a company in Ireland. 4 weeks ago, they told me they had not received them. A not so quick call to Royal Mail customer services, and I discovered that
  1. The batteries had been wrongly destroyed because they thought they were LiIon (they were NiCad)
  2. The report had been filed under the wrong name (A hairdresser in Essex! of all things)
We agreed to send replacements, and guess what. They still haven't arrived! why?
  1. The batteries were designated for destruction!
  2. RM then decided that they would return to sender instead
  3. RM didn't get as far as Returning, before someone decided to forward them to Ireland. This time by road and ship
If it wasn't so bloody frustrating, I would be smiling and laughing at the idiocy of it all

Mallinson-electrical.com

There has also been some big changes on our website www.mallinson-electrical.com
I have finally managed to configure the international taxes, non-EU customers can now buy VAT free.
I have also managed to install the currency bar, so you can see your products in your own currency. (as long as it is Euros, US dollars, Au Dollars or GB pounds), but now I have understood how to do it, I can add other currencies if needed.



In and amongst all this, I have got on with two new projects.

The first new project

I have it in mind to create an animated short film, using components as actors, I have made a very short sample here ( no sound, and low quality, but you get the idea)

The second new project

Based on the original "Electronic Project Starter Kit"  I am working on an upgrade, with a few more components, a more involved booklet (including 10 projects) and this time the kit will be Boxed
Here is the draft of the design
I hope to be in full production by september 2013, ready for Christmas.
Note the new company name on the box "creatronics" which will be our site just for this kit.
I hope to sell these to retail outlets as well as via our own store.


As you can see, its not all stuffing envelopes here, it would almost be work if I wasn't having so much fun (note of sarcasm? maybe)

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Our First ever Show.

We have been to the E2BN conference for a 2 day event

Monday was a not too quick trip down to Bedfordshire to set up our stand, then Tuesday and Wednesday we were talking and showing to delegates from schools and Local Authorities.

The event was certainly useful for us. The Starter_Kit got a lot of interest, even more than the Raspberry_Pi .
This was our first ever event of this kind, and I was a bit nervous.
I need not have been, the delegates were really pleasant, and I think I managed to perform okay.
Having had a fairly quiet start on the Tuesday, I quickly wrote some simple code to get the Pi interactive. Nothing fancy, just hello, who are you etc using Python. This made a big difference, so I'm working on getting the software developed a bit. watch this space

It seems that a lot of the schools have already bought Pi's, and with a few notable exceptions, most are stuck in a cupboard waiting to find a use.
The new curriculum, which will go live September 2014, it requiring teachers to teach a programming language from KS2, and two languages, one of which must be text based from KS3.
It seems that some schools have the belief that the Raspberry Pi is the way to go, but this is not necessarily true.
The two programming languages on the Pi OS(operating system) are Scratch, which is picture based, and Python, which is text based. These are ideal for delivering the curriculum, but they are available open source to run on PC’s that the school already owns.
Where the Pi scores highly is that the students are fascinated by the Pi. Being able to see and touch the circuitry scored highly with the students we met at the conference. They also liked the price point and many would look to getting their own for out of school study.

There was feedback from the teachers, that having got the Pi’s, they did not know what to do next. I will try and clarify a few things if I can.
To use the Raspberry Pi, you are going to have to get a few other parts together, so you can use it
·         Keyboard and Mouse (USB type)
·         Power_Supply (similar PSU’s are used for some mobile phones)
·         Screen. The Pi likes HDMI or composite(Scart or RCA) To use a VGA Monitor you need an adaptor
·         Network Cable for using the Internet (or WiFi dongle, but that needs another USB port, so you will also need a USB Hub)
·         SD Card with the Operating System. This is your “Hard Drive” ( Software can be downloaded_yourself, or you can buy a card with the OS_already_on) the minimum you need is 2GB, but that doesn’t leave much storage for your files. We recommend 8GB
Once you have these few parts, you can go ahead and connect everything together. The Pi has not got a switch, to power up you just plug it in. Do this last.
After a moment your screen will start to show a lot of lines of text. This is the self test and boot up. Wait for the Pi to finish and you will get a command for user name and password.
By default the user name is Pi
And the password is raspberry ( note that you won’t see the letters as you type)
Now type startx and you’re up and running

I will add to this blog with what to do next later

During the conference, I got chance to look at some of the other exhibitors.
I must mention a few of them.
Katie at 2simple
I will be looking into how this software can run on the Pi over the next few days
Laura at Code_Club 
You have got to have a look. This is exciting stuff
Francesca at Zu3D
I bought one of these kits, and hope to make some animations for youtube soon

You can see the other exhibitors on the E2BN_website, and there are links to sign up for next year's event. I hope I see you there


Friday, June 21, 2013

Baby Steps

Another week of site work over, tired and frustrated. We have all been there!

A whole weekend to relax and maybe a couple of beers, Smashing.

As usual, it was not to be,
My youngest daughter (13 at the time) wanted some help with aschool project.
Soldering up a timer to make sure you brush your teeth long enough!

Several hours in, the board was soldered, de-soldered, re-soldered, changed and updated. Still not quite as she wanted.

Out with the solderless breadboard and prototype it up first this time.

This led to a fully working circuit in less than half an hour, and she had made MANY changes.

Long story short, we put some bits together, and created a prototyping kit, which went off to school with her on Monday.

When I got back home on Monday night, she was even more excited, Can I make my friends a kit?

When we had made a dozen, I got to thinking maybe..... just maybe......

Baby steps, baby steps


We offered the Kit on ebay, and hoped we might sell 50. That would cover the outlay (okay, not quite, but you get the idea). I have used ebay on and off to buy components for my projects, and it can be a good place to buy, certainly cheaper than the High Street Stores.

It took a week before the first Kit sold.

This is the kit


I was working full-time, and trying to figure out how to use ebay on my evenings, for the first 4 months I was working 16 hours a day, 6 hours just on ebay. Market research, responding to questions, listing new product, trying to work out margins, oh yes.. and assembling the kits
It was worth it though, ebay was generating an income, OVER £20 a week! sigh :(
The first "books" were printed on an old bubble jet

Don't make these mistakes;
  • Poor pictures
  • Shoddy description
  • No real idea about the market
  • No choice or product variety


Gradually, the listings became better, customers started to notice, and we started to get some sales. The big change came when I decided to take it seriously. To buy stock, I sold a coin collection (not on ebay) and I suddenly had a thousand pounds to play with.
Oh.. and we got the booklets printed professionally

A thousand pounds does not buy much stock. I had to make the few components stretch to a good few listings, and then re-invest the money coming in straight away.

There are couple of tips to selling I would like to share with you
  1. Get your volume up. Even if you sell at or near break even, you need to have a lot of traffic
  2. Keep your price as low as you can. It is cut throat, and you must have the traffic
  3. Aim for Top Rated Seller
    1. Respond quickly to customers
    2. Dispatch quickly. the same day if possible
    3. Be Accurate with your discription
    4. Treat all your customers as if they were the most precious commodity, They ARE
  4. Do expect to be tired, frustrated and poor, at least for a while
The corner stone of what I am trying to achieve has been built on customer service.
Its 18 months now since that first kit, so where are we?

I have given up the day job, and sell on-line full time. We are ebay Top Rated Sellers. I have 3 part-time staff. Our ebay feedback is 13,000+ at 100% and we send out an average of 60-100 parcels a day.

we have our own website www.mallinson-electrical.com and regularly supply to schools and business as well as hobbyists. We are working on a free web resource for circuits you can try We have followers on Twitter  and Facebook
All in all things are going well, and I am really glad I switched.
This blog will be used to keep an online diary of what it is to be an online seller and what I do

And the kit? WE have now sold over 5000, and expect to sell that many again in the next 6 months