The Super Storm is almost here!

True that it's almost here, but there have been many many delays as I battled through all of the materials logistics and manufacturing hurtles.  I plan to wait to offer a pre-release until I have at least 10 units in stock that I feel are "production quality."  The electronics aspect has been complete for some time now.  I've recently been working on getting repeatable quality faceplates made.  Up until just recently I was attempting to manufacture them in-house.  After wasting 200 faceplates through countless mistakes and trudging through the long hours on a manually operated drilling/milling machine, I decided to look less costly and laborious options.  I spent many hours improving the accuracy of DIY drilling/milling machine and finally got it dialed in.  I also spent many hours making various jigs for metal bending (the mounting base plate) and for alignment of parts on different machines.  It was a crazy amount of work just getting the machines set up for the most precision possible.  After all my effort I realized the level of tolerance I need for the metal working needs to be less than +/- 0.00025".  I found that's simply impossible to achieve with my equipment.  That alone means I should consider outsourcing, but I was concerned the cost would be too high.  The bottom line is that I got a couple quotes (2 different manufacturing methods) from domestic companies.  Both quotes would cost me less than my cost for just the metal...  and they would be providing the metal!  I simply can't compete and won't even try to.  That will free up a significant amount of my finely spread time and ultimately it will lower the cost of the Super Storm substantially.  I'm currently waiting on the first test batch from a company who laser cuts the face plates out, along with all the necessary holes, from 4'x8' sheets of aluminum.  After I am able to confirm quality fit and finish with repeatability, I'll move forward on getting the bottom support plate made by a 3rd party.  That particular part requires a 90° bend, which I was having a terrible time trying to align perfectly.  After that's resolved the product is manufacturable on a larger scale than anything I made before.  That'll be the point at which I can confidently offer a pre-order with a short waiting time for customers.  Please standby as I work out these last couple issues.