Kelvin Home Coffee Roaster

Production Timeline
over 4 years ago – Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 11:07:06 PM

Greetings Backers,

As you can see from the certificate above, we have received the UL report and are moving forward with production! This update will share our updated shipping timeline, and highlight the  next steps in the process to get to the shipping date.

Timeline

We understand the main piece of information our backers want to know is when we are shipping. As of now, we are projected to ship Kelvin to our backers in July 2020. This projected shipping date is based on a detailed analysis of the upcoming production and international shipping processes with our manufacturing partners. The high-level activities and schedule are as follows:

March - April : QA & Pilot Production

April - May : Full Production & QC

May : Final QC

June : Ocean Freight

July :  Customs, Receive/Inspect at Warehouse, Fulfillment

As we continue to complete the milestones listed above, our timeline will be updated and shared with our backers. Keep in mind that there could be unpredictable situations that appear in production that possibly result in the timeline being adjusted. As mentioned in our previous posts, we want to express our appreciation for all the support and patience from our amazing Backers during UL testing!

Starting Production

Our team has now shifted into the beginning stages of the production process. Over the past week, our manufacturers have started the pilot production process. The pilot production process will include: receiving materials, manufacturing parts, and a trial assembly of 200-300 roasters. During this time, our manufacturers will follow our QA guidelines to ensure our quality standards are met for safety, performance, and aesthetics.

Coronavirus Update

We shared in our last update that our manufacturer has returned to work, but we must acknowledge that COVID-19 is impacting shipping and logistics across the globe.

Although we don’t yet know what, if any, impact COVID-19 will have on our process by the time we are ready to ship, our team is closely monitoring the situation, and will update backers accordingly as soon as we have new information. We have backers around the world and hope that everyone is staying healthy and safe.

Final Thoughts

As we move forward, our team will be sharing updates as each task is completed, along with an updated timeline after each step. We will be doing everything in our power to ensure Kelvin’s production schedule goes according to plan.

As always, if you have any questions, send us a direct Kickstarter message or email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to help.

Best,

Team Kelvin

Manufacturing Update
over 4 years ago – Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 12:54:56 AM

Greetings backers,

Quick Novel Coronavirus Update

A handful of backers have reached out asking how our production timeline will be impacted by the Coronavirus epidemic currently in China. No doubt, this epidemic is having global impact, ranging from social to economic effects. The situation is still evolving, but after the provincial government mandated a one week extension of the Chinese New Year holiday, members of our manufacturing team have been permitted to return to work last week. More importantly, the UL testing lab is back at work. With that, we are thrilled to report that we have received word that we have passed all critical UL standard tests and are expecting to receive the UL report the first week of March.

From our latest communication with our manufacturing team, we expect them to be ready to begin pilot production as soon as we complete UL testing. We are keeping a close eye on the Coronavirus impact in China, and will provide updates as we get any relevant information. As we have mentioned in our past updates, we will release a more specific production and shipping timeline once UL testing is complete.

We want to once again thank our backers for your continued patience, and are thrilled to be reaching this milestone with our UL testing. As always, let us know if you have any questions by sending us a direct message, or emailing us at [email protected].

Best,

Team Kelvin

Quick UL Update
over 4 years ago – Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 12:58:38 AM

Greetings Backers,

Let’s dive right in:

UL/IEC Testing

We have made great progress since our last update, having passed the critical FCC testing and completed the majority of high-risk tests for the UL standard with no issues or findings thus far. While the testing is not completely final as of today, we are highly encouraged by the positive feedback from our manufacturers, and expect to pass UL shortly after the Chinese New Year holiday is over.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year holiday began this past weekend and goes through the end of the month. With that in mind, the final steps of safety testing are on hold until everyone returns on Feb 3rd.

How Does This Impact The Timeline?

The short answer is that Chinese New Year has a low impact on Kelvin’s shipping timeline. Chinese New Year has always been factored into our projected dates, and our team was prepared for the scenario that UL wasn’t complete before the holiday. The 1-2 week delay in the UL testing just means that the final ship date is that much longer. As we mentioned in previous updates, we will be providing an updated shipment timeline once we get final approval from UL.

Other Workstreams

In the meantime, our team is continuing to work on preparing the green beans you will receive with your roaster, as well as a new website and getting other behind-the-scenes items such as finalizing Quality standards and working out the logistics of fulfilment to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible as we move into production.

In summary, our team is thrilled to share this positive news regarding the feedback and test results so far. We know our backer community will be pleased to hear that we expect to pass the final few tests shortly after Chinese New Year. We are patiently waiting for the final UL results, and will update Backers as soon as we hear back from the UL team with our final results. Thanks as always for your support!

If you have any questions, feel free to send us a direct message, or email us at [email protected].

Best,

Team Kelvin

Back to UL
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 10:26:52 PM

Greetings Backers,

We wanted to reach out to our community in a quick update with some exciting news. We’re officially back in UL testing! If you read our latest posts, you already know that the past few months have required extensive amounts of testing. We wanted to make sure we thanked our loyal backers for your patience during this process.

What this Means

Now that we are back in UL testing, we patiently await the results from UL. We are unable to give an exact timeframe of when we will find out our testing results, but the process usually takes around 25-30 days. As soon as we receive news from the UL team, we will post an update sharing the testing results! In the meantime, there are multiple tasks we are working on to be ready when UL testing is complete. Our team is determined to be as prepared as possible to ensure that we begin shipping ASAP. Let’s take a look at what will be going on behind the scenes.

GREEN BEAN PROGRAM PREP

All of our backer beans will be packaged in our custom recyclable Kelvin bags and sent to the fulfillment site, where they will be shipped with the roasters. Be sure to keep an eye out for more information about each Kelvin bean on our website as we get closer to launch.

NEW WEBSITE

Another important aspect is preparing to launch our new website. This includes updating content and testing the functionality of the site to make sure it is properly integrated with our fulfillment inventory management system to ensure a smooth customer experience. This is especially important when dealing with our new subscription offering. We  will have more information on subscriptions as we get closer to our shipping date.

ROASTER PRODUCTION & QUALITY CONTROL PREP

After UL testing is complete, an important aspect of the production process is Quality Control (QC) inspection to confirm that the production Kelvin units are performing as desired. To prepare for this process, our team is finalizing all of the specifications, inspections and testing processes that the roasters will go through prior to shipment.

Next Steps

As we have mentioned before, once we pass UL, we will be able to finalize the  shipping timeline. In addition to providing this more detailed timeline, we will explain all the logistics that take place from production all the way to delivery, and how long each step takes. Our team is hopeful that UL testing will be a smooth process, as we anxiously await the green light to move forward in the process.

We want to reiterate our appreciation for the support from our backer community. No one is more eager than us to begin mass production of and shipping Kelvin. The process that has lead us to this point has been a lengthy learning experience, but has also allowed us to be highly confident that our backers and future customers will be thrilled with the  performance of their Kelvin roaster.

As always, feel free to reach out via direct message or email at [email protected] if you need to update any information for your order, or if you have any questions.

Best,

Team Kelvin

Testing Update: Significant Progress
almost 5 years ago – Sat, Dec 07, 2019 at 02:08:38 AM

Greetings Backers,

We wanted to check in with an update on our latest testing progress!

As we mentioned in our last update, the purpose of this round of testing is to build upon the  success from recent roasters received, and confirm which electronics and software specifications we will use for the final Kelvin product to be sent back to UL testing.

Testing Update

We received a set of samples the week before our Thanksgiving Holiday, as well as some additional PCBAs with a different version of the software to test. The testing was promising, but we ran into a few data points that required another round of revisions to the samples. We received this next round of samples earlier this week. The results from these newest samples have been excellent. The issues with the no-load and heater cutoff we mentioned in the previous update have been resolved.  We have been doing some final verification testing to ensure that the results we’re seeing carry through, including testing with a range of 9 different types of beans from a variety of regions. After this is completed, we will be doing confirmation testing of the International (220V-240V) version to verify that nothing was missed in the transition of the electronics between the two versions.  We expect to be sending the roasters back to UL testing next week.

Behind the Scenes of Roast Testing

Lastly, our team wanted to help our backer community understand the level of effort put forth during multiple rounds of testing over the past months. As you can see in the pictures below, there have been hundreds of roasts tested over the last few months by us, as well as our manufacturers in China.

We will post another update next week once we hit the milestone of sending the machines back to UL. After UL/IEC testing is complete and it’s determined there aren’t additional modifications that need to be made, we can narrow in on a delivery window.

We appreciate your continued patience while we work to bring you the highest quality home coffee roasting experience!

Best,

Team Kelvin