Nokē U-Lock: World's Smartest U-Lock by FŪZ Designs

Noke U-Lock: World's Smartest U-Lock

Smartphone Compatibility, Integrated Alarm, Full-Featured App, Nearly Indestructible Body. Protecting Your Bike has Never Been Better.

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Nokē U-Lock: World's Smartest U-Lock

by FŪZ Designs

Update #16

Jun 7, 2016

Waterproof Testing Noke U-lock

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Hello everyone. It's been a little while since our last update and we thought you might like to know what we've been working on. As you know, the first round of tooling completed a few weeks ago. This allows us to torture test the design and make some tweaks to the tooling so we end up with perfect parts and a perfect finished product.

Designing a product on the computer is precise and exact. The final product tends to reflect what's on the computer, but the first tooled parts often don't quite match that perfection. If you haven't been involved in the progression from T1 tools to final tools, you may not know what's involved in that process. I'll give a simple explanation here.

If the drawing on the computer is for a flat plastic part, the steel tool will be created with a void in the shape of the flat plastic part. Pretty obvious. The tool is then put into an injection molding machine to make its first part. This sample is referred to as the T0 or T1 sample. The next sample is called the T2 sample, etc. It can often take a few samples before the part is perfect.

To make this part in the tool, plastic is heated, injected into the mold under very high pressure, then it is cooled and removed from the injection molding machine. In a perfect world, the part is in the exact same shape as it is in the computer model. In the real world, the way the plastic is heated and flows into the void and subsequently cooled results in a slightly imperfect finished shape. To fix the imperfection, the tool can be changed by altering the size of the void in strategic areas, or by changing the texture of the mold and resulting part, moving injection points, etc. All of these things take some time to design, tool, and test again.

This same process occurs on the seals and gaskets as well. Once the parts are near perfect, they are assembled so waterproof testing can begin. We started this a few weeks ago. As with the rest of the tooling process, some tweaks are required. As an example, on the computer, when we put screws into a flat edge with a gasket between two parts, everything is perfect. But, in the real world, where there is tightness right around two screws, there may be a slight relief between the two screws resulting in an area where water can sneak its way inside. We make more slight alterations to the tooling until everything seals perfectly each and every time. It's a tedious process but it's absolutely necessary to ensure a product that will withstand the elements.

I've spliced together some video of the testing to give you a sense for how this works. To be sure the seal is as strong as possible, we don't put our parts in water to see if water gets inside. That's actually pretty easy to accomplish. It is how the final product is tested by the ratings agencies, but it is not as as foolproof as the testing we are doing. We test by assembling everything then pumping air inside the part while it is submerged in water. If we see bubbles, we know where to improve the seal. The part is not ready until we can pump a few pounds of air pressure inside the part without bubbles appearing.

Take a look at the video to see what this testing looks like as well as a test of the locking assembly.

We are about done now and will begin getting all the parts together so we can start assembly in a few more weeks. It's getting very exciting. Thanks again for all your patience and support.