The making of the BLF UC4 charger: the start of a new venture, INTEREST LIST, UPDATE 7 (Well, ramping stopped :/ )

Interested

Interested !

Wondered why I’m not on the interest list then realised that I did not say the magic word in my post #130

Please add me to the interest list.

Please, add me to the list for two.

Thank You

Interested in 1 please.

Great project!
I am interested in 1 item.

Sorry everybody, but I put the BLF UC4 CAD modeling on hold because I currently have a CAD project on hand.

Sorry for the delays again, but school, at times, is more important than BLF. :confused:

Fair enough - stuff you have to do always takes precedence :+1:

Interested in 1 please.
Thank you!

Fair warning, I am only interested if you finish this project within the next ten years.
:wink: LOL

If there’s no real progress by this summer, you can forget about the next 9 years. A feature list and perhaps some rough schematics is nice, but the real work is getting a reputable company to agree to build it. They’re the ones that are going to determine whether it’s going to get done, or not.

IMO, the better way to go would have been to pick an existing charger, and get the company to modify the firmware to add (or subtract) the features that are wanted. If new injection moulding is required, or expensive machining, there’s no way this is getting done for anything close to the price. You might not get 100% what you wanted, but 90% is better than 0%.

BTW guys, this project will have to be put on hold…

I just reread an email from DLYFull and this is what they had to say:

Dear BlueSwordM,

Firstly, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

I am sorry the UC4 charger is pending because of higher price with no big wholesale customers. So my boss asked my engineer team to stop it for other projects. Was not okay for this.

We know BLF projects usually are successful, but my boss was not agreeing even with the design sent by you. He said current chargers are good enough to make money and not risk with completely new designs.

But the good news is that we are going to make a advanced charger which will better than the UC4 which is suitable for the battery engineers. We have talked

about the functions last week. It is so complicated charger, so we will need many time to check functioning features . It may be started at 2020, total will cost about 1 year

to finish. All function and appearance will be designed by ourselves.

So once the project is working, I will let you know and tell our team to consider all feature that you mentioned. It has been very good working with you. I think I may find a way for you to work in the design process,

but don’t know about result from boss.

Best regards,

Jeff

TLDR: They are considering building a charger similar to mine, but with their stuff instead, for which I understand.

TLDR2: I should get myself a 3D printer to do some prototypes.

TLDR3: Since they are not working with me right now, I guess I should build a functioning basic charger prototype for the casing.

TLDR4: I just got someone else to work with me, so project should go a little quicker.

Do you think theirs will be made & up & running before yours?

What will the production BLF charger do that an Xtar VP4 Plus that I can buy today can't do?

Will the BLF charger be a holiday 2020 ship to buyer or later than that?

Will the price and performance be worth waiting for?

Is this a part time on again off again project that can be cancelled at any given time?

Sounds like they’re taking your charger ideas and making it for themselves. If they do indeed copy your charger, make sure to let them make a bunch of money off the design before turning your lawyer loose on them.

Hi,
I am very new to these BLF projects (but not to product development in generall) but what I did not understand from the start is: why should one person do everything alone when it is called BLF project? No R&D team would work like this - not just because of the workload but also because of knowledge and ability. The best project manager will not be the best electronic designer and the best electronic designer will not be the best mechanic designer. I am sure there would be people willing to help with their expertice, time and abilities. IMO the most important job here is not so much to do something but to direct forces in the right direction.
I can also understand DLYFULLY’s boss that he does not believe that someone from some forum would be able to come up with something better than his experienced engineers - that is - to be honest - a bit arrogant. I am sure that he would think differently if it was a group of well organized people with different backgrounds and experience from a forum.

Generally I wonder:
*do you guys know what moulds cost? The prices for the tools necessary for this charger (what I did read so far) would never be justifyable with this couple of 100 chargers more or less promised to be bought here.
*are you guys aware that the company needs to be able to produce a charger that you pay 40USD for, for around 10-20USD (my absolute max guess is 30USD) due to these tools, development, overhead and what ever cost (the less they sell the worse of course). That works great if they keep using the same parts over and over again …
*do you guys know that a big part of all these parts that need tools are not generally cheaper in China than in the rest of the world (if you expect near similar quality)?
*was a bit surprised that it should be possible to produce a charger with an aluminum housing at that low price. Of course al moulds make less numbers (around 80k) than plastic (generally around 500k) and therefore the al mould is used more efficiently. Another point is surely that the al-housing can be used for heat dissipation which might save parts but that definitely does not mean that an al housing can save money against a plastic housing.

My personal opinion: if the forum is not willing/able to order a couple of thousand chargers or come up with a design so good that they will be able to sell it to others as well (which is usually the result of some professional input), you will need to live with a charger made with mechanics they more or less have already …
As for professional input: the big advantage they have is: they do have chargers already and so they do have lots of parts that they can reuse (if not the part itsself then at least the CAD model). That is just impossible for some forum member. So the forum member would have to design every single part from scratch.

regards

that is a joke, right? Which lawyer? Sue someone in China for using something someone gave them without asking for? Good luck … I guess some people here will/need to learn a lesson about dealing with Chinese …

Sorry to hear that, BlueSwordM. Looks like the boss at DLYFull’s had an attack of Not Invented Here Syndrome.

Ignore anyone who says you should have done things differently. You’re doing the work, you decide how you want to do it.

I appreciate the way you’ve solicited input from the rest of us here on BLF - thank you for that - and I wish you every success in your efforts.

Oh my god...

BSM has helped countless people and has contributed a massive amount here in just a very short period of time. He was on to something that many of us wanted and tried his best to make it happen and may still make it happen.