Welcome to another Kokoon update! We said last time we’d be following with another update quickly and here it is. This time we’re very excited to be showing off a lot of progress with tools and even the very first “off tool” parts. We also cover schedule below. In terms of next steps, we’ll be planning to do another update pretty soon as we receive more parts in the coming weeks, using the tools completed in the images below
Tooling progress
Last time we talked through Richard and Andrew’s time in China working with our tooling partners, monitoring progress as they turned our designs into tools to be used for mass production. We’re pleased to say this process is almost finished, and is on track. Tim has been out to China to join Andrew and Rich and we can share pictures with you all.
Below we have an image of a large collection of copper EDM cutters and also some finished mould tools that will be used to produce our injected plastic parts.
A selection of our copper EDM cutters
As mentioned in our last update, the EDM cutting is for the fine detail and one of the final phases of shaping our tools.
Below you can see the copper EDM cutter, which is used to shape one of the mould tools used for production of the headband plastic housing.
Headband plastic housing cutting tools
Here we have one of the copper EDM cutters, which is used to produce the mould tool for our end caps. Our end caps are moulded plastic and will be finished with a metallic finish via PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition).
End cap copper EDM cutter
Our headphones are complex and need us to produce more tools than the average headphone. This is part of why this process has taken so long to complete. You can see Andrew below inspecting some of the final cutters, with some members of the mould tool team.
Andrew inspecting EDM cutters
As mentioned, the copper EDM cutters are then used to shape our steel mould tools. These mould tools come in two parts (sometimes more), are clamped together and molten plastic is injected at high pressure through the holes you can see. The result will be perfectly formed headphone parts that can be mass produced at the pace required to practically produce the volume of headphones we need. There are a series of photos below showing these mould tools:
A selection of the completed mould tools
Andrew doing more inspecting! This time of finished tools
Tim holding one of the tools that will be used for the production of the headband’s plastic housing
We appreciate it can be a little hard to understand what is going on from photos of mould tools, so we’ve tried to capture a few close up images of some tools and some with their specific part from our sample headphones, which you’ll be familiar with.
Below we have the tools that will be used to create the audio chamber (at the top) and also part of the ear cup (at the bottom).
Ear cup and audio chamber tools
Next we have the tools used to produce the plastic arms for our headphones. Hopefully you can see the shape of the arms in the moulds below!
Headphone arm mould tool
Close up of the headphone arm tool (still very rough and needs EDM and other finishing processes)
Finally we have our end cap tool, photographed next to one of our headphones to try and give you an idea!
End cap mould tool
Off tool parts
We mentioned that we had the first of the “off tool” components ready. They’re not too much to look at yet, but they are the first of many. Below you can see some of the metal components from our pivot and also some of the silicon parts from the ear cups, produced using final tools.
Pivot parts
Ear cup parts (sorry for the poor photo!)
Schedule
There has been no update to our schedule since the last update. Tooling continues to progress as planned, parts are expected in the coming weeks, as discussed, and first off tool units on track for November.
That’s all for now, we hope you enjoyed reading. As always, we love hearing from you either through email or our social media channels Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Best wishes,
The Kokoon Team
