Hey everyone,
We wanted to post an update since we've been quiet over the past couple weeks. I apologize for the delay in posting this update, but we wanted to make sure we had an update on all aspects of the kit preorder. It's been very busy with our team as well as the CEPD team working together.
Control Tower
We received the first final version prototype boards we mentioned in our previous update and have been very thoroughly testing them to make sure everything is perfect.
In our testing we've found that the board performs significantly better than previous boards (including the beta) in both efficiency and cooling. They work flawlessly in normal use situations. During this testing CEPD did identify a potential issue, though. At high voltages, the boost circuit begins to produce some noise (in the electrical sense) which ultimately would impact battery life and performance when the mod is being fired at very high wattages. We initially thought the solution to this would be a filter, in the form of a resistor and capacitor combination, but after more testing, we have decided the ideal solution is an alteration to the layout of the board. We have now designed the board to have all high voltage power flowing through the same side of the board, rather than routed as it was previously. This eliminates the noise issue and protects the boost circuit. Although we know that ultimately most people would not encounter an issue with these boards as they stand, after a wait this long we cannot do anything less than the best we can do in every use case, so we've made the decision to implement this fix and verify it with a second revision. This type of thing is totally normal in product development cycles, and ultimately is a small fix, but it's just made more difficult by the long delay everyone has already waited through. The only thing we can do is to make sure the product you get in your hands will be the best it can be and something everyone will be happy with, even if we must do one more test batch to get there.
This testing and revision process is already behind us as of this update, so we are just waiting for the second revision boards to be made. We have tested every conceivable way we can to ensure this is the last revision chipset we will have to do.
Ashley is wrapping up her work on anodizing including finishing up all the custom anodizing, and all other mod components are done.
HC M22 Bubbler
The bubblers have continued to be revised and improved while the mod work progresses. As of our last prototype samples, we believe they're as perfect as we can get them. They're being manufactured now and we'll have them very soon.
ESCC v2.5
The ESCCs with the new gold plating and mirror polishing are arriving to us now in batches and we're totally happy with them. The iteration we've done with these has produced a great ESCC to take advantage of the Control Tower. Standalone orders for these have started shipping out. Here is a pic of the new "v2.5" ESCCs:
Also, we will be doing a limited run of AVS Green Control Towers. Anyone with a standard control tower order that would like to change their order to green can do this for free. Just send us a message on the site chat and we'll get it changed for you. Here is a picture of these:
We will post an update again when the boards arrive to us or if there is any important news. If you want to check in with us for an update in the meantime, just shoot us a message in the site chat and I'll let you know where we are.
Steve
September 06, 2022
The wait has been so long, years now. It’s exciting to see it almost coming all together finally! I am amped to hopefully receive the kit before this Christmas. Keep up the good work!