Ordering the tooling

We ordered the enclosure tooling this month. The order covers the steel moulds used to make Stake’s glass-filled nylon parts. Until now, we could change an enclosure drawing and make another prototype without altering a production tool. From here, a small change can mean cutting steel again.

Tooling is our biggest single development cost. We are paying for a way to make the same shape repeatedly, including the thread, seal surfaces and spaces that locate the board. Those details have to come out consistently across a batch. They also have to survive cooling and removal from the mould without becoming a different shape from the one we checked.

What we froze in the drawings

We kept Stake at 28 cm tall, with moisture pads at 5 cm and 15 cm below the surface. We checked the screw-on cap against the changes from our spring trials: cracked caps in frost, condensation in the second enclosure and weak Bluetooth range behind sheds. Those problems are in the review notes attached to the drawings.

We checked how the body closes, where the seal sits and how the antenna fits inside. We also reviewed assembly access. If fitting a board requires an awkward bend in a wire, that problem will repeat through every unit on the bench. We want to find it in a drawing or sample rather than halfway through a batch.

The tooling order feels like a point of no return because it commits money to these shapes. It is not permission to ship a known defect. We can still revise a tool, but doing so costs time and money, and we need to leave room for that possibility in the schedule.

The first parts are another checkpoint

We are allowing roughly 10 to 12 weeks for tooling and first samples. That is a planning allowance, not a confirmed delivery date. The first moulded parts need dimensional checks, trial assemblies and feedback to the toolmaker. A correction can add another round before we have parts suitable for a build.

Our next major stage is an engineering validation build of 200 units. We will use it to check complete assemblies and repeat drop, cold, water and radio tests. A moulded enclosure that fits together on the bench still has to work in soil.

Radio certification is planned for December 2026. We are aiming for a production run in February 2027 and shipping reservations in April 2027. Tool corrections or a failure in validation could move those dates.

We will show the first parts and describe what needs changing when they arrive. Ordering steel is an expensive step, but the evidence that matters will come from the parts it produces.