Hey Everyone,
First announcement: I will be doing bi-monthly updates. Please kick me and text me at 4082036130 (my personal phone number. Please be respectful and text at reasonable times because I am just one guy in an apartment and I run 5 other businesses) if I run behind. I have a calendar reminder to myself to do this going forward.
Second Announcement: We have a delay. Starts shipping in end of November. More on that below.
Third Announcement: I paid all the in tooling out of my pocket. I am not relying on your payment to fund the wheels. If you want a refund, please let me know. I’m not here to scam anyone. I just want to make a really awesome product and make innovations for the community. I am humbled by the response and I am eternally grateful for everyone for joining this journey with me.
Previous timeline
Reasons for the delay:
It is a national Chinese Holiday, “Mid-Autumn Holiday”, which means no one is working for the next 8 days (Oct 1 to 8th).
Had to make tooling changes and these tooling changes pushed it into the National Chinese Holiday. I thought by this time, we’d be close to finishing and I’d be doing testing of the production molds - they would go on vacation and I would be testing wheels. Alas, Murphy’s law...
I had to make changes to the pulley diameter because the Metroboard pulley interfered with the pulley core. The fingers of the ABEC fit fine, but I did not want the pulley to contact the core in the manner:
I added more ribs for more mechanical lock to the wheel (it is on the core side and so it shouldn’t affect performance because that is not the flexy bit of the wheel. So caught in a position where they are still working on the tooling, but now it is the holiday and they are stopping. This means it is another 8-16 day delay. I found this after the fact of starting tooling. Though, there is a chemical adhesion and some very strong mechanical locks. Really over designing it, but better safe than sorry.
Don’t want to end up like this:
Updated Timeline:
All-in-all, it is about a month's delay - December 2nd. The changes in the mechanical lock as well as slight change to add more clearance between the pulley and the core added a little bit more time to the tooling timeline - about 3 weeks. If it wasn’t clear in the previous timeline, I thought I would have the tooling done and then use the Chinese Mid-Autumn Holiday to test while China went on holiday for a week. This was not the case due to the tooling changes.
Furthermore, I wanted to allocate more time to testing as well before I start shipping, so the new timeline reflects that too.
Pulleys fitment:
I am always testing new pulleys. Here is what I have tested recently and work on the latest core design: Pulleys that I have tried: Boosted Kegel, Evolve ABEC, Evolve Kegel, Cloud Wheel pulleys, Metroboard Kegel, Metroboard ABEC, Exway Kegel, Exway ABEC. Kevin G. had this DIY Kegel but had to shave the pegs down. I forget. BKB ABEC
Poorly edited video of me putting the wheels on an ABEC pulley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILK9-spEzJ8
Ron's video of him swapping Hollow Wheels on his Flex: https://youtu.be/Srexy1rTXdI?t=337
Video of me hot swapping onto Flex (ABEC/Cloud 120D), Evolve (Kegel), and Metro board (ABEC). Fitment is kind of scattered in there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-EicXliwOA&t
I know Boardnamics kegel pulleys fit, but the Kegel pulleys are too long by 6mm. I'm currently seeing if there is room to carve out a little bit of space but this will have implications on tooling lead time.
Any other pulleys you want me to test? Get me dimensions of the pulley and I can make sure if it fits.
Very Cold and Hot Weather Testing:
I live in California and can’t just go live in Antartica or Arizona for a month. I would love help from the Hollow Wheel Community. Would like a list of people that ride in very cold and very hot places to step forward. I’ll pay for your time and you’ll get your wheels faster too. I will only have about 10 units. Need people that ride a lot and also ride in very extreme temperatures. Targeting 1000 miles. I’d pay to ship the wheels back for tear down analysis. Here is a google form to apply: https://forms.gle/NLD7BF45nJ4gYXoL8 then I will reach out to everyone and let you know if you’re a good candidate.
I am always looking for feedback on how you think this is going to I can address any concerns. Please let me know in this 5-10second google survey: https://forms.gle/hAzv7F7yV3RfXcqg7
Thanks,Doug