January 01, 2022
Happy New Year everyone!
2021 was a great year for Dreaming Robots and the Electric Eel Wheel line of fiber tools. The EEW 6.0 started shipping and is currently my favorite eSpinner. I also had record sales even though I messed up inventory and was out of all my eSpinners during November and December (sorry to those of you this affected). The engineer in me loves to see the products I make getting used by a lot of people. A lot of my time when into taking a very early proof of concept prototype of the EEW Yarn Counter to having the final version manufactured. These yarn meters still haven’t shipped yet, but they will soon.
The EEW community had huge growth this year and there are now many people posting online about these products daily. I love how much my tools have helped the fiber community and look forward to making 2022 even more exciting!
EEW Pro
I mentioned back in November that this is going to be a high end eSpinner and I had a poll, which a huge number of you folks filled out to help me figure out what features are most important. I’ve been working on figuring out several of the highly rated features in that poll. I don’t want to talk about it much yet since I don’t want to get hopes too high before I’m sure this project will work, but I will say I’m happy with how early testing has been going. This product is the biggest new project I’ve undertaken and is probably 2+ years from being complete. If you are on the fence between waiting for this or getting the EEW 6.0, I’d really suggest getting an EEW 6.0 when they get back in stock. The EEW 6.0 is a great eSpinner and this is a long ways away plus it will be a lot more expensive.
This is my current engineering drawings of the EEW Pro prototype I’ve been creating.
I probably won’t talk about this much more until I have more substantial information to share, but I wanted to mention it here in case there is someone out there who wants to help with the visual appearance. Ideally someone who has experience with product design, but anyone with a good eye and the ability to sketch out their ideas can apply. I’m constructing a very functional prototype, but it isn’t the a visually appealing design. Making it more beautiful will have very minimal impact on the cost since the base is mostly injection molded plastic parts. It would be nice if someone could help me modify the functional design into something prettier. I don’t want to just completely open up this design right now because there are many requirements in the design both from what is manufacturable and from what I want to include functionally. Explaining all this will take a lot of my time so I’m hoping to select just one or two people to work with on this beautification task. If you’re selected and give me substantial ideas on how to improve the design at a minimum I’ll give you a free one of the products when it is released, but I’d also consider paying for services if you have experience in this field. If you want to apply just send an email with your experience, payment requirements, and whatever else you think might convince me to choose you.
Product Stock Update
Due to global shortages and increased demand several of my products are out of stock. I moved arrival of the EEW 6.0 and EEW Yarn Counter in by a month from last month since I have a pretty high confidence I’ll be able to start shipping these in February. This confidence is because the shipping container with these products has left it’s port and is on it’s way to Boston. When I do get them in stock it will be a big batch and there should be enough for everyone who wants one.
- EEW 6.0 – February 2022
- EEW Yarn Counter – February 2022
- EEW Nano 2 – April 2022
Building Update
I was really hoping to have the building in a state that I could move into it in December, but that didn’t happen. I’m really happy with the quality of it, but progress has been slower than expected due to certain items taking longer to deliver than expected and a new permitting schedule mistake. The building looks pretty similar to what it did last month except it now has a metal roof and is mostly wired on the inside. I’ll just take this a month at a time now and see where we’re at next month. When it gets done I’ll put together a video showing it’s construction and the final product.
Smile today and give your fiber a hug!
– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)
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