I hope you’re well and we are super excited to continue to see incredible early results from our very first trials with valerian. But as you know we have already began production and preparation for the S2 Pioneer Program. Yesterday I shared a little more on the plant, today I wanted to share with you some changes we are making to the sofi stick in the S2 build that will make improvements to a couple of challenges we all had as Pioneers with the first build.
The issues that are being address with the S2 build are:
- Failure to trigger the switch (aka “The Trigger of Thor” or “my sofi presses aren’t counting!”) - the switch activator now has a longer route with greater flexibility to get to the switch, travel has been increased from 1mm to 2mm so that the switch can trigger earlier in the depression of the top module and the trigger point then moves away from the high pressure part of the travel of the pump.
As we all experience with the current build, the sofi pump has two very different sensations as you press it down - the first 4 mm of travel down the pump is relatively easy but the last 1 mm you properly have to press it hard … we have estimated the force required can be three to four times higher. So we are hoping that the adjustment we are making to the S2 build means that the count will feel better. We also have plans to further improve this in the S3 build.
- Self alignment of the bottle - this now self aligns for at least 75% of the entry attempts when using a printed PCB housing with a modified ABS pump over-cap. We expect this to increase when both parts are tooled properly in the finished plastics.
As you know a few of pioneers ended up jamming their sofi bottles the wrong way into the sofi sticks which inevitably required removing the top cap and the sofi electronics, finding a pair of chop sticks and some gentle persuasion (in one instance the unit had to be shipped back to our mechanical engineer for some further love and attention)! We are hoping that we can now make sure that the bottle orients for a much wider angle of insertion … still best to point the spray nozzle towards the opening of the sofi stick when dropping it in … but this should take care of the majority of wrong insertions and avoid bottles getting jammed.
- liquid build-up around the sofi stick opening - The angle of the liquid opening has been increased as Valerian was found to have a wider angle of dispersal than the water used in previous tests. After real world tests of valerian with the new aperture design over a 10 day cycle (one bottle) there was a very light moistening visible around the edge of the opening but the volume of liquid is so small that didn’t capillary between the over-cap and the PCB housing as it had with S1 build. The pumps themselves suffer from a build up of liquid around their opening (a by-product of the liquid’s properties) but this tends to capillary between the pump and it’s over-cap, and as this is a replenished consumable we are not too worried as it wasn’t much and the water element evaporates away. Photos showing this are included below, the latter issue is obvious by the discolouration of the pump, the moistening on the PCB housing is denoted by the edge of the sofi stick opening being slightly shiny from the mist it has come in contact with.
It was initially our plan to provide each new build of the sofi stick to existing and new pioneers. However, as demand has been much higher than anticipated for our Pioneer Programs, and our ability to secured additional electronic components hampered by the ongoing global supply chain issues, we are going to run the S2 Passiflora Program with a range of S1 and S2 sticks at the same time. This will allow us to maximise the number of Pioneers we help as we develop sofi.
Existing S1 pioneers will receive refill packs of the three new passiflora formulations (more of this to come). The bottle caps will have to still be finished to work with the S1 sofi stick build for our current Pioneers testing valerian. For new Pioneers joining us they will receive the new S2 sticks. The important thing is that all Pioneers participating in the S2 Passiflora program, whether using the S1 or the S2 stick will be using the same app and the same set of formulations. So the benefit of the plant and the latest releases of the app will be shared across all Pioneers.
I hope this level of transparency is of interest to our community here in the treehouse. If so, we will continue to provide details to the production and improvement of the S2 program. Can’t wait!
xx
