Golly I love lasers. This one is 80 watts of pure joy.

I’ve been in love from day one and am now spending most work moments I’m not fulfilling Boiler orders developing something very different, but also very cool. I should have something to share very soon.

It's off to the Post Office we go!

As those on the mailing list already know – after 2+ years of batch production and pre-ordering, Backcountry Boilers and FlyGrills are now shipping from stock! I’m still working to streamline the fulfillment process to next-day, but most orders are fulfilled in a few days, and I’m ramping up production of the Hard Anodized Boilers to bring their time down from a couple weeks to a couple days.

Hooray for less waiting!

The closer I get to receiving the first batch of new Boilers, the more I think I sure could use some help around here. So I’d like to try something out…

The Boilerwerks Work Trade Program

• Duties: Assembling, picking, packing, and shipping Boilerwerks products from our wonderful, new Boilerwerks studio.
• Qualifications: Desire for a Backcountry Boiler or FlyGrill, a friendly disposition, innate conscientiousness, and the ability to follow rarely-arbitrary instructions.
• Compensation: $10 in Boilerwerks credit for every hour worked with a minimum commitment of 8 hours. So that’s a FlyGrill and retying kit for 8 hours, a Backcountry Boiler for 10 hours, or a Hard Anodized Backcountry Boiler for 12 hours. No cash compensation for these positions, sorry.
• Benefits: You get to check out the studio and hang out with me and my buddy Mat. We’re both pretty cool.
• Limitations: Work trade times must be scheduled in advance and are subject to my availability. For now, there is a limit of one work trade term (8-12 hours depending on desired product) per person.
• Location: Would love to make it virtual, but just Pittsburgh for now. Why not plan a visit to the exotic City of Bridges?

If you’re interested, please drop me a line @ devin@theboilerwerks.com. I think this could be a lot of fun. I could also sure use the help, and what better way to get a Backcountry Boiler?

Still moving in...

Along with a first full time employee, Boilerwerks also now has a physical studio:

Boilerwerks LLC
124 South Highland Avenue
Suite 212
Pittsburgh PA 15206
412.362.5209
devin@theboilerwerks.com

Visits are extremely welcome, and available most weekdays by appointment.

The studio is part of the very musical Werner Building in the East Liberty neighborhood. My neighbors include a voice teacher, an Emmy-award-winning recording studio, and a live music venue. I ran into the voice teacher one day as I was moving in and he apologized for the noise, but absolutely love it. The old structure is always resonating with different, wonderful sounds. NPR, right now the Diane Rehm show, is my contribution.

Now I’m back to work. Catching up on assembly and some fulfillment I had fallen behind on as I took the floors in the studio from this to this to this to this. That finish is zero VOC and the whole space now smells of linseed oil and the coffee I just made.

I am so pumped for the great things to come! If you’ve liked what I’ve been doing with Boilerwerks, it good news for you too. You can expect more products, better availability, and quicker service. Yay!

Available on SparkMade! Starts shipping in September.

Three big things are going on at the Boilerwerks.

1) I just got a studio and official home for the Boilerwerks! I’ve spent the past two weeks of evenings remodeling and have been posting my progress on Twitter. The big project: finding and rescuing a beautiful oak floor from under layers and layers of carpeting, tile, and tar paper. Lots of labor, but it’s going to be beautiful.

2) That second product – the FlyGrill – is available to order on SparkMade, a brand-spanking new project by a friend of mine and me. The mailing list got early word about this and the sample batch has sold out, but shipping on the production batch is only a few weeks out. Video forthcoming.

3) And! Drumroll… I just got a 100% production-ready sample of the New Backcountry Boiler! The first batch is already halfway done, so I’ll be releasing info about the new (way exciting) specs and opening up orders early next week. As in very early next week, so keep an eye on your inboxes mailing-listers!

There’s so much more I could say about all three developments, and they’ll each get their own post soon. Especially number three. But until then, wish me luck. It’s going to be a busy weekend!

Almost time for dinner.

For those curious, a teaser is above. For those interested, worry not, I will post in many places when they’re ready to be released. It should, btw, be no later than early next week.

Needle-nose pliers: the only tool you'll need to rebuild the FG.

The other thing that’s cool about the FG is that it’s completely rebuildable. Not only does this allow for certain components to be kept lightweight without sacrificing the longevity of the product as a whole, but it also allows it to evolve over time. A reincarnation with every rebuild.

Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature has provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.
- John Locke, 1690

Locke was talking about the creation of ownership rights in the previously unowned, right, but I think the concept applies to everything we “mix labor” with. You may “own” that old, broken down Jeep as soon as you pay the scrap yard, but once you put in a new engine, rebuild the tranny and finally replace the dry-rotted upholstery, that when it’s really yours. I hope that by making it inherently rebuildable, the FG will lend itself to not only a long life, but the same opportunity for users to mix their own labor with it and really make it theirs.

The controller for an independently-designed headlamp being programmed. Image courtesy of Dan Freschl.

The other thing to know about Bosavi is that it was made by just one person: Dan. Start to finish. The standard line would be to say: “Wow, look at what just one guy can do.” But after my experience with the Boiler, as well as a whole slew of other independent designers I’ve talked to, I tend to think that a lot of what enables these products to be so great is the fact that they are made by a single, visionary maker who carries them from start to finish. It allows the products to maintain a certain conceptual coherence that can be lost when a product has to go through layers of different departments for all the requisite “okay”s.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had several exchanges with Dan recently, and it has given me some very interesting insight into how headlamps work and the kinds of decisions that go into making those modes we click through. From Dan:

I think the programming of the chip was probably the most interesting part of the project. I tried really hard to have as many high-end features as possible, while leaving all of the simple function easily accessible. If you are a low-end user I wanted it to be simple to turn the headlamp on, scroll through modes, and turn it off. If you are a high-end user I wanted to give you more options like accessing the gas gauge and programming out modes that you don’t use. I figured that high-end users will probably invest more time learning the interface.

The chip has been programmed to perform several different functions in response to two user buttons. The headlamp also performs a number of functions in response to other “non-user” factors such as the battery voltage and the presence of a usb cable. These inputs are called interrupts. Interrupts are any event that tell the chip to stop what it is doing and respond to an external stimulus. The chip not only needs to see an interrupt but also figure out what to do as a response. An example is: If a button is pressed the chip first determines which button was pressed, then determines if it was a single click, a double click, or a button hold. As a result of these states the chip will either turn on, change modes, turn off, go to boost, or display the battery voltage information.

The most important function that the chip performs is the battery monitoring. At 400 cycles per second the chip checks the battery voltage, and regulates the LEDs in response to the changing voltage. This keeps the LEDs at a constant brightness and regulates the HB LED without a resistor that can reduce efficiency. The recorded information about the battery voltage is also used to give the user information about the battery life through the “Gas Gauge” function.

I am still trying to figure out how to take care of the lock function. I want to be able to prevent the headlamp from turning on by accident in a backpack. The original program allowed the user to double click the unit and put it into a lock state. It worked great but unfortunately many lower-end users couldn’t figure out how to unlock it. I was concerned that I would get a lot of units sent back to me as damaged when they were only locked. If you or your users have any feedback on that, I am still open to making some changes.

Just to make sure this comes across the right way: Calling users “low-end” and “high-end” is in no way making a value judgement. It’s just designer speak for those who are very demanding and want a lot of technical functionality, and those who just want something to work and don’t really care about all the fancy bells and whistles.

Like all Kickstarter projects, getting a deal on one of the first Bosavi’s produced is a limited time proposition. I highly recommend checking it out, and if you like what you see, back Dan’s Bosavi before June 15.

Packed room.

On the Boiler front, its tooling has been modified to accommodate design updates, and spinning samples are due by the end of next week.