Enduro - Toy Cars Built for Tough Drivers |100% Sustainable

Shipping Complete! Your Orders are on their way or already delivered :)
about 6 years ago – Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 01:22:03 AM

Hi Backers!

We wanted to let you know that all Enduro shipments are out the door and should be arriving to you soon! There are about 6 boxes that will ship tomorrow and there are 2 addresses we are trying to figure out, but apart from that everything is delivered or on its way!

About 5,000 products got packed into 1,200 boxes in our small office and shipped all across the globe. This was organized chaos at its finest.

Now that shipping has finished, we can move to better supporting you with any questions or concerns you might have. If you haven’t received a response from us after reaching out, it is because we’ve been tied up with these shipments. We will be in contact with you shortly - we appreciate your patience!

Here are a couple of quick notes to concerns that we have been hearing:

Loose wheels - Enduro vehicles were designed to have a bit of play in the wheels, this generally allows them to spin and turn better. We are aware that a small percentage of vehicles may have too much play in the wheels. This is first production, and we will fix this issue in our next run. If your vehicle is not turning, or rolling properly when being driven by your hand, please reach out to us and we’ll get you fixed up.

Not rolling straight - Enduro vehicles are designed to be driven. Like our Modarri cars they are designed to be pushed and steered by hand, which is unlike most toy cars you’ve probably played with. Toys like Hot Wheels and other die cast cars have fixed axles and steering - so when you push them they typically go straight. While we would really like all of our vehicles to drive straight when free rolling after being pushed, these Enduro cars are designed to be driven. The suspension and steering lend itself to awesome technical driving. The seat is leather and is the perfect place for your pointer finger to take the wheel! Go ahead, put your finger in the seat! Enduro vehicles can be driven in circles, figure 8's, “S” curves, forward and backwards.

Your comments help guide our work to improve Enduro and so please feel free to share your experiences, questions and comments with us. We want you to have a great time with your new cars and so don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected].

Thank you all for the great feedback and love - we really appreciate it. We hope you enjoy Enduro!!

Sincerely,

-The ThoughtFull Toys Team

Packing Boxes for Shipment :)
about 6 years ago – Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 12:49:21 AM

Hey Backers, 

We just wanted to let you know that Enduro has arrived and we are now packing over one thousand orders as quickly as possible!

Shipments will be rolling out middle of next week. It will take a couple of weeks to get everything out the door. If you haven't finished your survey yet, please do so now!

Bear in mind that you may receive a tracking email up to 5 days prior to shipping, as we are shipping by groups (same order contents). 

Again, If you haven't finished your survey yet, PLEASE do so now!

THIS IS SO EXCITING! (and maybe a little overwhelming hahaha) 

Locking Down Addresses - Make sure your address is up to date
about 6 years ago – Wed, Sep 05, 2018 at 11:41:08 PM

Hi all, 

We will be locking down shipping addresses to prepare for shipping Enduro. Please make sure you have your current address listed in your Backerkit profile/survey. 

We will be locking the addresses down by Friday. 

If you've lost your backerkit survey, please use this retrieval link: 

https://enduro-toy-cars.backerkit.com/

If you haven't filled out your backerkit survey at all, please do so as soon as possible. There are still 42 people who have not completed their surveys. 

Have a great day!
-The ThoughtFull Toys Team

Enduro is "on the water"- Arriving Soon! LOCKING DOWN ORDERS NOW.
about 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 12:16:59 AM

Dear Enduro Backers,  

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GREAT NEWS!   

 The day we have all been waiting for has finally came! The container was loaded, the doors were closed and the seal was locked! Enduro Trucks and Racers are officially motoring to Oakland California from Vietnam!

Enduro is now on the water, floating upon a giant container ship. This is what a container ship looks like:

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They are HUGE! We had to ship the toys in two containers, 1 week apart. All of the Kickstarter vehicles shipped, except for some of the trucks… but all vehicles will arrive by the 18th of September and some will arrive even sooner. We can’t control what customs will do once they get here, but we will keep you posted. If they choose to inspect, we will be delayed 10 days. So let’s all hope for smooth sailing! 

 In the mean time, here is a short summary of the final chapter of the first ever assembly line for the Enduro Truck and Racer. It started with a phone call from the factory four days before our trip telling us the aluminum chassis were having issues during injection. The legal lines were smearing. During injection, the molten aluminum is pushed into the mold through ports. The ports were slightly too big and over the course of injecting a couple thousand units, extra material began to build up on the racer body and the truck chassis, smearing the writing. 

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To fix this problem, the gates were reduced in size. To reduce the gates, the tool goes through a revision process that takes about 5 days. Instead of stopping the assembly schedule, we decided to ship what we could and then the rest 1 week later. 

 For the first few days in Vietnam, all of the parts for each vehicle were analyzed, and signed off. The final touches of the electrostatic painting were underway, hand drilling had begun and then 2 days of assembly commenced. As the workers began learning their jobs, every step was approved with careful attention and time was taken to make adjustments to tools and skills and to problem solve. Finally, the first assembled Enduro Racer and Truck was signed and mass assembly began. 

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You can see in these pictures how happy we all are! Each signature was followed by a lot of cheers and celebration! It was an absolute pleasure working with this team of women and men. The factory engineers stayed onsite with us during the entire assembly process and the line managers and assembly team was responsive when we needed special attention to a process. 

 Since this is the first round of assembly we took time to learn and analyze the processes and worked hard to improve techniques so we could achieve our standard of quality. There were a few issues that arose, which we quickly found solutions for. 

There was an issue with the assembly of the wooden truck bed. First, we used a mechanical tool to punch the pins through the wood into the chassis. But this was very difficult for the workers and some of the pins were not punching through all of the way. 

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So they brought out a tool with compressed air assistance. This new tool made installation much easier and more accurate. Due to the defects that we needed to re-work, more wood had to be ordered and air freighted to the factory. 

 Another process that required careful attention was the calibration of the tools so that the wheels, steering and suspension were assembled correctly - allowing for free and secure movement. 

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We are now going to lock down orders and begin processing credit cards. Your orders will be fulfilled as soon as Customs clears the goods and we have delivery. We have over 1,000 orders to process, so your kind patience will be warmly received as we work through the shipping process. I project it could take about 2 weeks to complete. For international backers wondering why we didn't ship from Vietnam - the process was too complicated to complete in the short amount of time we were in Vietnam working on production - we will be assembling the packages at our office in Santa Cruz, California. 

 Some of you will receive your cars before others and we can’t thank you enough for baring with us as we work tirelessly to get your Enduro vehicles shipped. 

 Here are some fun photos, I hope you enjoy them. 

  Please be sure to finalize all of your information inside of Backerkit so that we can process your order quickly - you should have received an email with a link to your backerkit survey. If you can't find it, please recover your survey by using this link: https://enduro-toy-cars.backerkit.com/

 We hope you enjoyed this update, and we are so very excited to finally put these vehicles in your hands!!! 

Sincerely,

-The ThoughtFull Toys Team

Manufacturing Update #16 - Ship Date!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 12:57:11 AM

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Greetings to our awesome and ever so patient Enduro Kickstarter backers! 

After spending 2 solid weeks in Vietnam working at the factory we have determined the Enduro Truck and Racer will begin their sail to California on, or about August 11th. The journey over water takes about 24 days. We are targeting a ship date of September 15th! Here is a timeline so you can follow the shipping process. 

 Manufacturing Enduro has been a tremendous effort with a lot of dedicated people on 3 continents who have rallied around this project. Your financial and positive (even critical) support has been a driving force and Thoughtfull Toys, Inc. appreciates you very much. Before pulling the trigger on mass production, two weeks were spent pouring over samples of the first shots off the tools that travelled from China to Vietnam. Every single part has its own tool and there are a lot of parts. Below is a photo album of the last few weeks of Enduro manufacturing.   

 The first thing we do at the factory is assess samples and answer questions, then we go on tour to visit the factories. For Enduro, there are several factories supporting the steps of the project and I visited them over the course of the two weeks

1. Aluminum injection 

2. Plastic injection 

3. Painting 

4. Carton development 

5. Final Assembly & Shipping 

 This image is of the breezeway at a brand new factory. The injection building on the left and the the tampo and assembly building on the right. This factory will be fully operational in October and it is big enough to handle all 5 processes at one location. Enduro will most likely be transferred to this new warehouse when we place a new order.

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Paint Process: 

Metal parts are painted using an electrostatic process. There is an electrical charge that attracts the paint to the metal parts. This is the most efficient way to paint because there is very little overspray and waste using this method. 

Step 1: Cleaning 

Step 2: Drying with heat 

Step 3: Painting 

Step 4: Drying with heat 

This is a photo of the spray booth:

Quality Control: 

1. Wood: QC checking all of the beechwood parts to make sure they are in good condition after shipping from Northern China. 

The finding was that there was a very small percentage of wood beds that were warped. This is due to several contributing factors. 

a. High Humidity in Northern China in May/June from heavy rains. 

b. High humidity in Vietnam in June 

c. The pieces that warped could have been cut near the center of the trunk of the tree making them susceptible to warping.

d. To resolve this, replacement wood was ordered. 

2. Wheels: As you can imagine, keeping the wheels on these vehicles is important. Take a look at this image. You can see the pin samples from May vs the samples from July. You can see the improvement in the grooves and now the wheels pass the pull test.

The Pull Test is to ensure that the wheels don’t fall off. Pull Test Passed for both the racer and the Truck in July. 

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We spent several days training the assembly and quality control team. The QC team will walk the assembly line during the entire process to ensure Enduro is assembled correctly. They plan to assemble slowly because this is the first time. Enduro has many components and materials. They are complicated vehicles and need to be fully understood during assembly. Our Production Manager will return to Vietnam for assembly and inspections. Please enjoy this video of one of the workers learning how to assemble the Racer wheel.

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Here is the Spring Assembly station: Notice the chassis is placed into a mold to hold it still for the spring installation. 

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Carton Development: Engineers working on the carton development. The trucks are very heavy and carton quality and design are very important to keep Enduro safe during transport.

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APPROVALS: Every piece of the Racer and Truck goes through a process of approvals. This process was done in China in May and a second time in Vietnam. The reason this is important is because the tools can be damaged in travel and everything including the paint and tampo’s have to be fine-tuned to match the approved colors and decorations from China. Below you can see a few images of approvals. 

 By the time our project manager left Vietnam, all of the plastic was injected, the rubber and wood parts were checked, counted and fitting correctly. The fasteners were approved. Injection of the aluminum parts had begun. The leather and the seat parts were ready for assembly. So many details worked out, but still more to do. Once back in the states there has been more follow up and approvals to make.  

1. Revision of the tooling for the axles to ensure a strong fitting wheel then re-injection and testing.

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2. Final product drop and pull tests.  

3. Final scratch testing of the paint finish on the aluminum. Hash marks are made on the finish and then a special 3M tape is placed over the scratch marks. After pulling the tape, paint will either stick or stay. The finish has PASSED the test.

4. Final approval of the carton marks  

5. Final transportation test results: This confirms the product will be safe inside the cartons during transport.  

6. Coordination of the assembly and shipping schedule.  

7. Arranging the documentation required for exporting and preparing to import.  

8. Travelling back to Vietnam for Assembly & inspections  

9. Loading the container and delivering it to the port for on-boarding to Oakland, CA.

Assembly is on schedule for the first week of August. You can see there are many moving parts that have to work seamlessly together to keep a project on time. As long as there are no mistakes or problems, this project should follow the schedule that I showed you at the beginning of this update. 

Since this is the first time these vehicles will be assembled, care will be taken during assembly and our project manager will be onsite to check the workmanship. Machines make the parts, and many hands assemble them together step by step and piece by piece. We appreciate your positive support during these last final weeks of details, assembly and shipping!

Sincerely, 

-The ThoughtFull Toys Team