A quick (and long awaited) update
over 9 years ago – Mon, May 11, 2015 at 11:01:45 AM

Hey everyone.

I know it's been longer than expected since my last update.  I also am aware that this has been a cause of concern for a number of you.  I will share some details as to why another month passed when I was hopeful to get the website up around the holidays (I know quite a few of you appreciate openness in discussing what the hangup have been along the way, so I want to keep that going).  But that will have to wait for now.  I want this to be a very brief update to let you know I am still working feverishly on this project.

I have been really pushing to get this website live despite the hangups.  And as I was getting close to being able to put a significant portion of it online (as opposed running locally on my computer), I stayed up all night last night and worked through the day today to get it up.

It is still not finished, the aesthetics in particular have been neglected to focus on the functionality (the vast majority of the code goes into making the backend work - then once that is all put together it will need to be beautified on the surface).  And not all of the functionality is enabled yet, but a huge portion of the core is there and even more in the background that isn't visible from the surface yet.

It is not ready to place an order yet, but will be soon.  The technical capability for you to upload an image for each face and compile that into a die design is there.  I have not had time to put together instructions/FAQs/or walkthroughs of the design process yet either.  But I wanted to go ahead and put it up so you can see a portion of what I've been working on.

You have to be logged in to do any designing.  Some of you may be required to reset your passwords.

Depending on where you're located, it may take the DNS servers a little while to propogate before you can see it, but it should be pretty quick because of the way they are configured.

If you were not able to set up an account previously on the website because missed the window that it was open, you should be able to do so now.

The forums are temporarily disabled with the transition, but will be brought back.

I also realize some of you feel slighted be cause I have not been responding to most emails/KS messages/facebook messages/tweets/etc.  I am getting dozens of messages everyday, and if I responded to all of them, I would never get the backend for this website done.  So I had to make a decision to focus on the development as much as I can because that is the backbone of this project. That's not a great decision to be faced with and I'm not proud to say that's where I am right now, but it is.  I am looking into the possibility of paying someone a little bit to answer emails for me and at least filter through some of the easier responses, but I've never done that before and again the software needs to be highest priority for the time being.

I will be back with more instructions on how to work the website soon, but in the meantime I've been awake for over 36 hours (and working over 30 of them)... and it's also my birthday and I promised my wife I'd spend the evening with her. 

(I also haven't had a chance to add the legal stuff yet so here's a quickie: If you do upload anything in the meantime, you understand that you are claiming to either hold the copyright to the design or have explicit permission to use it.  CGL is not responsible for any damages caused by unlicensed images you may upload.  When we do get the legal pages up, you are responsible for checking to ensure you are in compliance and to remove any images that are not in compliance.)

Test Case Examples
over 9 years ago – Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 06:15:41 PM

Hey everyone! We're getting really close, and I can't tell you how exciting that feels. I was going to try to squeeze this update and the next update together, but it didn't quite work out.

I am hoping that with a few more all-nighters (turns out that's the easiest time to work on the programming without distraction), I'll be able to open up the website for design submissions. I am still hopeful this will happen before Christmas as I mentioned before, but it's going to be tight.  We'll see if I can pull it off.

The vast majority of my efforts since the last update have been focused on programming the back-end of the website, which doesn't lend itself to very exciting play-by-play accounts of what's going on. Other than to say that a lot of progress has been made and we should be ready for an initial launch soon.

Rather than boring you with details of the various functions, classes, and database calls, the goal of this update is to show some examples of different test cases and then to give some related guidelines to keep in mind as you're creating or thinking through your designs. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are some pictures:

This was a test of a large engraved area with a relatively small un-engraved space in the center. I wanted to make sure I could get an even fill over the whole surface and still remove the paint from the space in the middle.

This was a series of tests to show different thicknesses of lines.

The most obvious take away there is that you don't want to use a .1mm line! At least in most cases... A .1mm line will actually work somewhat reliably if it is horizontal:

But basically doesn't do anything at all if it is vertical (you just have to take my word that there are vertical lines here...):

You can see this effect in the concentric circles above – the more horizontal part of the circles shows up, but the vertical sides aren't visible. There are a number of factors that play into this (the fact that the laser moves back and forth horizontally allowing heat to build up locally on a horizontal line moreso than a vertical line, the speed that the laser turns on/off as it goes back and forth, etc)... but mostly, it is just important for you to know that it is safer to stick with a thicker line.

Anything .2mm or bigger is fairly reliable in both horizontal and vertical, but to really be safe I would recommend sticking with at least .3mm with .4-.5mm being even better. For the sake of not limiting designer creativity, I'm not planning to set strict limitations on what is used (there may be some instance where that is useful to the designer). But if you try to use a really thin line like that, just realize it may not behave exactly as expected.

I also did a couple of less linear tests... I took a couple of pictures (one of a dog and one of an eagle) and did a quick conversion to black and white (not grayscale – true black and white). I ended up with a couple of images made up of black dots on a white background and wanted to see how this would behave when engraved on the dice.

Obviously, I could have created a much nicer looking dog and eagle with a more simplistic vector graphic, but I think I proved two things. 1) I am not an artist. 2) With more time spent cleaning up the image (and some trial and error to get it just right), this could actually be a viable option for putting a detailed image on dice.  Playing around with dot size and spacing should go a long way toward making these look good.

In the future, I plan to have much more extensive test-case examples available. And images of actual dice people have ordered will of course be a handy reference as well. But for now, this should give enough info to get some juices flowing and help you know what to expect from your designs.

General guidelines for people wanting to get started on or finalize their designs:

1) For the sake of keeping everything centered on the dice with a little safety zone, design it within a 14mm square.

2) Whether you use a vector or raster image, make sure it is black and white (not grayscale). The black area will be engraved, the white area will not be.

3) Recommended minimum line thickness: .3-.5mm

Marching Onward
almost 10 years ago – Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 01:36:08 AM

Another month has passed, which means it's time for an update.­

It's November now, which means we've officially missed the projected delivery date I had set when I launched the project. I won't try to waste your time sugar coating that or make excuses. I am sorry it happened, and I hope to have learned from the mistakes made in planning and prioritizing the timeline for this project.

At this point though, I think we can all agree this project will make better progress if I focus my time looking forward rather than back.

With that in mind, I've got some samples of what I've been working on to show you.

First up are some dice engraved for my uncle. I mentioned in the comments of the project recently that I'd had a family member pass away – that was in reference to this uncle who died after a year long battle with an aggressive form of cancer and trial treatments that were similarly aggressive.

Before his death, he had requested some dice in the colors of his favorite sports team. In honor of his life, I felt it fitting to feature these dice both as the first dice officially produced and sent out by CGL as well as using them in this video to show the progress that has been made with the testing.

Sorry about the quality of the audio – particularly for the first part of the video, I was wearing hearing protection and it was hard to tell how loud I was talking.

The process is not perfect (yet), but we're getting really close to something that can be streamlined and used in full-on production mode! With that in mind, I expect that our next update will be coming a bit faster than the other recent ones have.

There are a few more things I want to iron out, at which point I plan to post a new update with guidelines and requirements for the submitted designs which are more specific than I've been able to provide in the past.

I'm also working hard on continuing development of the software back-end for the website to accept these submissions and assist in the design process itself.

With all of the progress made in each of these areas, I am feeling very hopeful overall about the momentum this project now has. And I am hoping to have orders shipping out before Christmas. Obviously, I can't promise all of you dice in December, but my goal is to at least begin fulfilling some of your orders in that time.

That's not a Halloween costume – that's me getting ready to prime some dice for a print test (a thin coat of a primer is sprayed onto the dice to get them to accept the solvent – the mask helps prevent inhaling airborne fumes).

So far, I've only shown you engraved dice and have mostly focused the discussion of our progress around that. Since the full-color printing was a stretch goal rather than part of the core project, I've been focusing most of my testing on the laser – but I wanted to show that I've also been working to get the printer up and running. Below is a die that I printed the CGL logo on as a test. I didn't have the registration set up right to get everything properly centered on the first go, but overall it was a successful print test. There will be more tests done, but the main focus is still on getting production up and running for engraved orders.

Lastly, I believe I am fully caught up on emails and Kickstarter messages other than a handful that came in the past couple of days which I plan to respond to tomorrow. IF you have sent me an email or KS message more than a few days ago and were expecting a response but did not get one, send me another message to let me know. The best way to contact me currently is to send an email to [email protected]

Calibration, dice, pictures, and apologies
almost 10 years ago – Sun, Nov 09, 2014 at 02:43:06 PM

Once again, it's been about a month since my last report, so I'm here to check in again.

I know some of you have drawn more attention back to this campaign as it gets closer to October. October had been my forecasted delivery date – and honestly I had expected to begin shipping dice much sooner than that.

But as I've detailed in my previous updates, the laser came nearly two months after I expected it to, and it was another month and a half before I was able to get it calibrated (not to mention a couple problems I was having with the software and Windows 8) – leaving a full 3 months between the time I anticipated getting the laser and the time I actually had a laser that fully functioned as it should.

So while I did have some cushion in my delivery estimates, I did not have enough. Primarily due to a lack of experience and probably some naivety in expecting things to go more smoothly than they did. And while I will try to learn from this as I go forward, unfortunately it impacts each of you in that I won't be able to deliver the dice as quickly as I had hoped. I regret that, and truly appreciate your patience as I learn these lessons and gain experience at your expense.

While we're not moving forward as quickly as hoped, we ARE pushing forward.

The laser has been calibrated

As scheduled, Trotec sent a rep out to calibrate the laser for me and give me some quick training as well. The laser was not too far out of alignment, but it was enough that you could notice it on an engraving, which made it impossible for me to test the things I needed to until the calibration was done. While he was here, I made sure he showed me how to calibrate it so I can make any adjustments that may be needed in the future.

He was also able to help me with a conflict that was happening with the software and Windows 8 that caused the computer to sometimes not be able to connect with the laser.

The dice are here!

Well over a thousand pounds (believe it was just over 600kg if I remember correctly) of dice were delivered as well (the remainder of our order). Most of the colors are spot on to what we were expecting – the orange and ivory aren't exactly the shade we'd intended, so I'm talking to the manufacturer about that. But for the time being, these are the colors we've got:

And the testing has begun

There are a fair amount of things that need to be thoroughly tested to get this to a point where I can reliably take your design and deliver a quality product.

Adjusting both the speed and power of the laser allows me to control the depth of the engraving. Move slower and/or use a higher power and get a deeper engraving. Move too slow with too much power and the area around the engraving turns into a melty goo (not a good thing). Move too fast without enough power, and the engraving isn't deep enough to be inked well. I think I've narrowed in on that balance fairly well – to perfect it I will need to do more testing with the paint itself.

I need to test a number of different depths of engraving to see which ones reliably accept paint into the engraving (testing both large spaces and small crevices) AND keep it there protected from wear. Also testing a couple different methods of application and cleanup against the different engraving depths to see what combination works best.

Here's a video of a quick batch I did. I was actually still testing a couple of things with this batch, so they're not perfect – but they were good enough that I wanted to show you the outcome and show off the different colors.

Here is what those dice look like immediately after being engraved – at this angle you can see some of the material that has been removed.

And here they are with some contrast added :)

But it's been a MONTH, why hasn't more happened?

Because I know I'm going to get that email – and I understand why... I might be thinking the same thing in your shoes. It mostly comes down to three reasons.

1) Even just the things I mentioned here are quite a bit. There is more that goes into a lot of this than it sounds like on the surface.

2) I'm only telling the more interesting parts of the story. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes which wouldn't be very interesting to re-tell.

3) Earlier this month, one of my other business projects – the one that is supposed to be paying my bills while I focus on getting this project up and running began to quickly unravel. I was forced to spend more time than I had hoped to this month on that project as it needed immediate attention. If I wasn't self-employed, this would have been similar to nearly getting laid off from my day job if I didn't put in extra hours. So I put in the extra hours to get it back on track.

The month since my last update has been an incredibly busy one. I think I've taken two days off work (it's possible there were three but I only remember one Friday and one Sunday) in that time frame. 15+ hour workdays have become somewhat the norm (though normally at least a couple days a week are shorter than that).

Interestingly enough, while our baby has made life crazier, she hasn't slowed me down as much as I expected... and sometimes changing a diaper is actually a nice break from web development work...

So once again, I thank you for your patience as I continue to press forward with this project. I know at least a handful of you are frustrated with the delays. I promise I'm even more frustrated than you. But bear with me, and we'll see this thing through to the end together despite any setbacks :)

The 6 ½ Pound Titan has Arrived!
almost 10 years ago – Fri, Nov 07, 2014 at 11:16:37 PM

In my last update, I was excitedly letting you all know about the 300 pound mechanical monster that had arrived.

In the time since, while much of the gaming world was prepping for Gen Con, we've had a new arrival – this one was much smaller. When she joined us, Adaiah Gamliel Warren was 6 pounds 9 ounces (though she is growing quickly). Both she and her mother are doing well (and I made it through alright too!).

As expected, she has been consuming a fair amount of time as we adjust to life with an infant. After a fairly long labor, she was delivered via c-section. Which means that her mother also required a bit of extra care as she recovered from both a long traditional labor (with no pain meds whatsoever!) and a surgical delivery (with lots of pain meds!). She's doing well now, but this also means she won't be able to help me as much as we had hoped going forward (even after the initial healing time, she's supposed to take it easy for quite a while all the internal bits heal more slowly). She should still be able to help with some of the bookkeeping and customer service though once she gets a bit more settled and especially once Adaiah has a more regular sleep schedule.

We are excited and blessed. I am glad to report that she is very healthy and happy and growing well.

Thank you for all of the positive comments and well-wishes in response to my last update. It means a lot to have your support!

So where do things stand now?

Laser Calibration

I mentioned a couple further hang-ups with the laser after it was delivered. Here's the update on those:

First, the exhaust port was pretty straight forward to switch out once they sent the replacement part. So the laser is now operational and I have been able to begin doing some testing.

The laser still needs to be calibrated though to fix misalignments that happen during the shipping process. That calibration is scheduled to happen next week. I am excited to have that officially scheduled on my calendar. Having that done will be a huge step because until that happens the testing I can do is somewhat limited.

Dice

The blank dice (well over half a TON of them!) are scheduled for delivery this week! This is another very exciting development. Part of me wanted to wait until I could include some pictures before posting this update, but it's already been a while since the last one. So I wanted to go ahead and post this and share it with you guys.

Further communication issues...

If you've tried to email or message me in recent weeks, you've probably noticed I've been slow to respond. I promise this is not because I'm ignoring you.

It is because on top of being crazy busy between getting this all up and running and taking care of recovering wife and newborn, we have continued to have problems with our internet service.

I mentioned the problems we were having in the last update. A day or two after that update, they got our problem fixed and we had stable internet access... for about 4 days. That wasn't even enough time for me to get caught up on everything.

We've had some problems in the past with our internet, but never anything this severe. Outside of those few days, we haven't had reliable internet access since early June!

The worst part is that they have a monopoly in this area. There are no other DSL options, no cable, no fiber optics. Even some satellite services and most cellular companies won't offer internet service here.

But, I think I've found a solution.

I'm finally jumping on the smartphone wagon. I had originally been looking into just getting a dedicated wifi hotspot that operated off a cellular signal. But it turns out that an iPhone with a data package through US Cellular (which gives the best service in this area) can accomplish the same thing by generating a wifi hotspot.

True to the almost comedic form that many aspects of this project seem to have taken on, setting this up didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

I ended up spending 4+ hours at the US Cellular store trying to get everything set up... I actually left at one point to get a cup of coffee and come back.

My first hint that things weren't going to go well came when they ran my credit and I came back with horrible credit requiring a large deposit. Okay, so you get your money back after paying your bill on time for a while and I REALLY needed this backup internet. So the deposit itself wasn't as concerning as the question of why they thought I had bad credit?

Well, moving forward, I paid the deposit and gave them all the info they needed to get it set up. They service rep puts all the info in and the system tells him he needs to call their call center. So he does. They begin putting the process through for him before finding out they needed to transfer him deeper within the system.

Finally, shortly after being assured that we were in the last steps of setting up the new lines, the rep in the call center reports back that they cannot set it up unless/until I pay an overdue bill (if I remember right, it was something like $384).

I am 112% sure I do NOT owe them any money for overdue bills. Paying a deposit for supposedly bad credit is one thing, but paying nearly $400 for an imaginary overdue bill was out of the question.

“I haven't even had an account with you guys for 2-3 years and I'm absolutely sure I paid my last bill in full back then (in fact they had sent me a check back re-imbursing part of my payment because of the way the prorated billing works) – when was this bill from?”

“April of this year.”

“Like I said, I didn't have an account with you during this time. What phone number do you have listed?

“XXX-XXX-XXXX”

“I don't even recognize that area code – it's not an Oklahoma number, where is it from?”

“I'm not sure, have you ever lived outside Oklahoma?”

“Well yeah, I lived in Wisconsin for a while, but this isn't a WI area code either...”

“I'll look into it.”

He went back to his computer and called another department in their call center to see if he could sort it out. I went down the road to McDonald's for a large coffee.

He periodically came up with another question to ask as they tried to figure out what was going on in their system. Eventually, it came to light that someone named John Warren had moved from Florida to Oklahoma in Feb/March and then promptly proceeded not to pay their bill for a couple of months.

How that ended up tied to me when they were using my social security number and business tax id to run the report is beyond me, but it's clearly a glitch that needs to be fixed in their system. Who knows, maybe they hoped I'd just say, “Oh okay, here's the $400 that some guy I've never met but apparently has the same name as me owes you.”

Once he found that, he called yet another department and they were able to separate this past-due account from me in their system. And suddenly I had good credit again! They refunded my deposit and proceeded to get my phone set up – though they had to start over in their system, so it took some time even after this point.

Ridiculous events aside, I now have the phone set up and working as a backup internet source. I'm still hounding the DSL provider to get them to fix this (they've sent repair men out dozens of times in the past 3 months, but clearly more needs to be done). Because when it does work, it is faster speed than the cellular service. But in the meantime, and during any future downtimes, I now have a backup internet source. While the cellular service is a bit slower than the DSL it will allow me to operate the business (emails, processing orders, printing shipping labels, etc) even when the DSL is malfunctioning.

Even with this, it's going to take me some time to get caught back up on emails. My inbox has been totally swamped with emails. So I both need and appreciate your patience as I'm working on getting caught up with that.

Other notes:

I'm hoping with the blank dice on their way this week and the calibration scheduled next week that the unforeseen delays will come to an end (though there is still the expected delay of raising the baby). And I am hopeful that the pace of things will begin to pick up again in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, there have been other things progressing as well. I have some exciting news (which is not directly related to custom dice, but I still think you'll find it exciting) to share in a coming update.

For any of you that got a chance to go to Gen Con this year, I hope you had a good time. Who knows, maybe I'll see some of you there next year!