Finalizing Addresses
almost 8 years ago
– Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 07:24:13 PM
Hey everyone,
We’re excited to say we are only about 9-10 days away from receiving your packs from our manufacturer. Then we will promptly ship them out over the 2-3 days that follow.
We have sent a mass email to all of you to finalize your addresses. If there are no changes to your address then no action is necessary. If you have moved please click the link in the backer kit email and give us the correct shipping info! REMEMBER TO CHECK SPAM FOLDERS!
WE WILL FINALIZE YOUR SHIPPING ADDRESSES ON JULY 9th! After that date we cannot change your shipping information.
We cant wait!
We hope to be sending out a link in the next update of some of the brief video tutorials about the best way to use the Chameleon and it’s many features. Look for that soon!
** We also wanted you all to be able to share the love, so please refer any family and friends or camping/hiking buddies to our last call pre-order link to save 30% OFF! Tell them to act fast, after July 10th the discount code expires!
SHARE THIS LINK: Https://trailform.com/discount/LASTCALL30
Thanks again to all of you for your support!
Pete, Mark, and Chris
TRAILFORM
Production Update #9
almost 8 years ago
– Sat, Jun 09, 2018 at 02:00:51 AM
Hey Everybody,
Sorry it took an extra week to get this update out. We've got great news! As of June 11th your Chameleons will officially be on the water!
Whew... it feels good to finally say that. We should receive the shipment at the latest by July 11th and then we will promptly ship them out to you guys. We know this has really tested all of our patience. Thanks for sticking with us, although it has not been easy.
We used a great quality control company that did a good job of inspecting every single Chameleon before packaging. We had a 96.8% pass rate, which we were happy about, but it still left 3.2 % of packs that either needed serious tweaking, or reconstruction. Which is what took a few more days than we wanted. They documented the QC and packaging processes with photos. Here’s a few pics:
Also- within the next 30 days we will be posting some video tutorials to showcase the Chameleon and the best/most efficient ways to get the most out of its versatility. We will show packing and unpacking, set up and take down, and especially show you all of The Chameleon's many features. You can look forward to that.
In the meantime, don't wait to get out and capture life by the horns.
Pete, Mark, and Chris
TRAILFORM
Production Update #8
almost 8 years ago
– Sat, May 12, 2018 at 02:24:47 AM
Hey Guys,
It's Mark again. I had a great week in Beijing with our manufacturer. I would have loved to go the prior week but stayed home to see my 4th child, and first son Clifford be born! He’s mostly boring right now and just eats, sleeps and poops... but hey, I got a Boy! He loves the outdoors too!
So here is the rundown...
Production is not done yet, as you all already gathered. Production was moving slower than anticipated, hence the second trip out there to physically be there and hold their feet to the fire! We have tried so hard to keep a positive attitude and not let this stuff bog us down, which isn’t always easy... Here are a few vids overseeing the assembly line.
You will see in the video below some strength tests we did with the new snaps. The snaps need to be be strong enough to not disconnect on their own, but also not too strong or pulling apart the snaps could also put too much tension on the fabric and rip the seams of the nylon. (Below)
You can see the large side zipper access of the Switch Bags. (Below)
We were told last night that they finished all the black packs and are now almost done with orange!
QUALITY CONTROL FINDINGS:
As you can tell these packs aren't on the water yet, however we are getting close with production. I also want to inform everyone of a couple of findings that I was glad to have caught during quality control. My brothers Pete and Chris know I am very detail oriented, so I want to provide a detailed description of what we found and what we are doing about it.
1. When I showed up I saw that the snaps on the Switch Bags were put on backwards, exposing the silver backside of the snap rather than the front side. As a result, all of the Switch Bags need to have this changed. (Watch the video below that shows this pain in the butt fix)
As a solution we are having them make both sides of the snap with a black face. This will add a little time to our production, but they will also look aesthetically more pleasing. They are already working on the fix.
Snaps fix video: Pete wouldn’t let me edit the end... sorry!
2. We put the bags through a series of quality checks, one of those, is checking all the zippers for a "sticky zipper" or "zipper failure." Most bags were fine but there was a number of bags that had the center zipper stick, and fail to zip up and down smoothly. We used YKK zippers to avoid these issues, so we were super dismayed to find this problem. We never encountered this problem with the samples and prototypes, so this caught us totally by surprise. We are replacing all disfuntional zippers with functional ones and because I wont be there, we hired a 3rd party QC company to check every single bag as it comes off the line.
TIMEFRAME:
We find it a little tricky to give a concrete time frame at this point because we are at the mercy of what we are told by the factory. As you know, their ability to fulfill given timeframes in the past has not proved very accurate. With that said because of the mistakes found in production that need correcting, we are estimating 15 days from today to finish production. Which puts us a month behind our original May 28th timeframe.
As frustrating as this is for you, we feel at our wits end too. We know this is BAD News and some of you have had enough. Not much else we can say other than sorry, we are still working on it. We feel like we are so close yet so far away.
CUSTOM SWITCH BAGS:
We should be getting close on the Custom Switch Bags too. The Camera and Cooler bags are pretty much 90% done with design. We only have to order the new matching snaps, so they can be interchanged with the Chameleon and also order a different buckle for the straps.
The Dry Bag is the one taking the most time Pete has continued to want to test it over and over and he just hasn’t found a zipper he loves that seals tight enough to not leak some water inside when fully submerged. Almost no true dry bags exist with a long zipper to access the main compartment.
So we have 3 options: 1. go with a true roll top dry bag and lose the side zipper entry. 2. we can have a “mostly waterproof”dry bag with the side zipper access but not submersible. Or 3. Keep looking and testing.
Push come to shove we are doing the best we know how and frankly that probably isn’t good enough for some of you. For anyone who has ever disappointed someone else (let alone 700 people), we ask again for a little more patience. Pete and Chris refuse to let us get negative about these obstacles, but view them as part of our learning curve and journey. Sorry that you all have to be along for the ride! I guess that’s kinda the blessing and curse of crowd funding right?
Thanks for your continued support! It means a lot. We will give you another update this coming week too!
Mark
TRAILFORM
