FINALLY!
Two years of R&D are complete, Mountain Life Magazine has called 360 Quick Connect "The Best New GoPro Accessory" and... our first production run has landed. So the first thing I did was see if I could break them.
Yeah. Break them.
Why?! First off it's fun. Second off, I wanted to test our secret formula of plastic that Craig Gauld and our plastic supplier came up with, to see if it ticked all the boxes that we were looking for in so far as performance. It had to be strong in all temperatures. It had to be flexible so if it took a hard hit it would flex instead of shatter and go back in shape if it got deformed. Also super important was the formula had to have that "stickiness" that you need when you put 360 Quick Connect parts together with GoPro and third party polycarbonate mounts. The stickiness combined with pressure is what keeps the part in place. The better the stickiness the less hard you have to crank something down to make it stay in place.
I’ve always loved Bones Wheels, because Powell-Peralta created their own secret urethane formula. It's what makes them so great.
Not satisfied with simply using what everyone else was using to make GoPro accessories, we took a page from George Powell's book and came up with our own secret formula because we wanted our product to be the best GoPro accessories on the market, just like Bones are the best wheels for skating.
Of course, we finally got the formula right after the molds were finished. So when I received our first batch of production pieces, the first thing I did was cut away the stopper that keeps people from over tightening the the lever tension because the regular material would break without them, and overtightened the nut as far as I could. No damage. Then I cranked the bolt tight on the tines to see how far they could go before they deformed and broke. They deformed until all three tines touched. Then they went right back into shape with no deformities.
Stoked! Secret formula for the win.
We didn't want to make anyone wait any longer for their parts so I figured I'd modify by hand, the camera mounts of the first production run. We're getting the mold tweaked for the new plastic now that the first run was done. So if you are getting one of the 360 Quick Connect Camera mounts from this first run, you are rolling with bespoke GoPro accessories.
Long story short... The final destructive testing on our parts using our own formula is complete. After 2 years of R&D I’m finally satisfied with what we will be selling. Our first production run is here, I'm furiously dremel'ing and filing the camera mounts to make them perfect.
360 Quick Connect packaging arrives on Friday so it’s time to build and pack some boxes and then ship everyone their product on Monday. Yessssssssss
YESSSSSSSSS!
Ken