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Shipping Products

I’ve been very busy shipping products during the past month.  I shipped 2,600 packages for the EEW Yarn Counter Kickstarter.  I also put the EEW Yarn Counter and EEW 6.0 on my online store and I shipping many hundreds of orders of each of those.  For the Kickstarter shipping I worked with local foundation for individuals with developmental differences called Seven Hills ASPiRE.  They sent over a van with six workers and a manager.  They packaged the EEW Yarn Counters and put shipping labels on them.  I worked right along with them on that shipping project and we both learned from each other.  I was extremely happy with the results and they all were happy to have some work.  The cost was probably around what hiring my past contractors would have cost, but honestly I feel it was easier for me and the results were great.

For my store orders I did most of the shipping myself, but I am transitioning over to having a local business help with fulfillment.  I’m hoping this coming month they will handle most of my shipping so I have more time to focus on my future projects.  I have fallen behind where I wanted to be on my future projects like the EEW Nano 2 and EEW Cone Winder.  I do plan to work hard going forward to get both of those projects back on track.  Both are at stages where I’m happy with the prototypes, but I need to get both ready for manufacturing.  The EEW Nano 2 is really close to getting manufactured.  I just need to approve one final custom plastic part.  The EEW Cone Winder is just starting the process of getting ready for manufacturing.

Testimonials

I’m collecting testimonials from the community to share what you think about my products.  Would you like to participate?  These reviews will help grow the community and give new customerse the confidence to try Electric Eel Wheel products.

If you’re willing to share your experience please feel free to share a short statement (1-3 sentences), and your name by replying to this email.  You can also attach a photo of yourself if you want.  If you would like to upload a video testimonial, you can do that here.

Your feedback is really important to me and I’d love to hear from you!  I’m especially interested in EEW Nano testimonials since I’d like to share some of those in the upcoming EEW Nano 2 Kickstarter, but any product you are willing to give a testimonial for is greatly appreciated.

Product Updates

Below are just estimates and the dates may change.

• EEW Nano 2 – Kickstarter in May
• EEW Yarn Counter – Fourth Quarter 2022 Kickstarter

Happy spinning!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

March 08, 2022

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EEW 6.0 and Yarn Counter Back in Stock

The EEW 6.0 and the EEW Yarn Counter are back in stock!  If you’ve been waiting to buy either of these head over to our store.  Since I’m expecting a large number of orders it may take until March 15th to ship them.  I got large batches of both of these so there should be no problem getting them.

Cone Winder Update

I released a new video how this cone winder works and go over all the improvements since the previous prototype.  Towards the end I also give an estimate of having a Kickstarter for this sometime in the second half of 2022.

New Record in Delayed Shipping

Here is an odd story.  I shipped an EEW Nano to the state of Maryland back in May 2020 (almost 2 years ago).  The package got lost so I sent a replacement which arrived in 2 days.  Just the other day the first package arrived!?!  The reason I know about it is because the customer told me they had given away the other Nano and wanted to buy this one so I gave the person a big discount and it was a win for everyone.  I’ve seen this kind of long delay and then showing up much later after I sent a package, but at 23 months this is the longest delay in delivery I’ve ever seen.  I imagine the package just fell behind a shelf somewhere and then when things get moved around it gets delivered. Overall USPS has a good delivery record and in the very rare cases where tracking shows a package just doesn’t get delivered I give the option of a refund or replacement.  The lost products are just a cost of doing business for me, but sometimes they show up much later like it did here.

Product Stock Update

Due to global shortages and increased demand several of my products are out of stock.  Below are my best estimates on availability.

• EEW Nano 2 – June 2022 (preorders on Kickstarter in April)

Happy spinning!

---

– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

View web version of this email

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

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EEW 6.0 Level Winding Flyer

One of the most commonly requested features for the EEW 6 is a system that automatically moves the yarn hooks on the flyer.  A while ago the Level Wind Systems team, makers of the Autowind Flyers, reached out to me asking if I’d like them to make one for the EEW 6.0.  To which I said, yes!  In general I like it when other companies make accessories for the EEW community.  I just don’t have enough time to do everything you folks want so when other businesses support this community is a win for those looking for the new options being offered. There are many businesses out there making 3D printed accessories for the EEW and I view this flyer as another option for you all to consider.  I sent them some test units of the EEW 6.0 several months ago.  They have finished their design and I’ve tested it.  Overall, I’m impressed with the design. It is battery operated so the hooks move without adding any extra tension to the yarn which is an improvement over how the WooLee Winder works.  This flyer does slow down the flyer speed by about 10% in my testing due to it’s heavier weight, but if you aren’t spinning at max speed this won’t have any impact on you.  Some of the beta testers also noticed some vibrations at higher speeds, and the final design was changed to help reduce these in the final version.  CraftmeHappy wrote an in depth review about an early prototype of their flyer and you can read about it in her blog here.

Just to be completely upfront about this, I’ve had little input into the design and this is not one of my products.  While I currently make a little on each one sold because I sell them the metal spindles, making money is not my goal.  My goal with this is to let you as members of the EEW community have lots of options.  If you think this is a good fit for you then you can find the EEW 6.0 Autowinder here. If you get one I encourage you to post about it to the EEW Facebook or Ravelry group since I’m sure others will be waiting to see how it works for others.

Business Stuff

Handling business overhead is one of my least favorite tasks of running my own business.  As my business has grown I’ve actually started paying people to handle my book keeping, taxes, and shipping.  I still do all the day to day finances, but when I run into uncommon issues then I just let my bookkeeper or accountant handle them.  That said I don’t really hate this work (I just like it less than everything else) and this is an area I’ve learned the most since leaving my previous engineering job and starting this business.  This year my accountant said I’d save a lot of taxes going forward if I started filing taxes as an S Corporation.  I won’t bore you with the details, but because of how tax rules are structured in the US I can pay a bunch of money to handle more complex tax filing, and then save even more money than I’ve spent on these things in lower taxes.  It’s not at all the kind of efficient system I like, but it is the system I have.  Changing to an S Corporation only makes sense for certain businesses once they reach a certain size to cover the overhead and I passed that size several years ago.  I just keep putting off going to these more complex tax laws because I didn’t want to do all the extra work.  I am setting things up now so my annual amount of time spent on these things won’t be much more than the old systems, but I will have to pay others to do extra work each year.  Some examples of things I need to do is keeping accurate quarterly accounting records, filing new quarterly taxes, filing payroll, and filling out two full sets sets of taxes each year instead of just an extra form that gets appended to my personal taxes.  This one time task of setting up all the changes to my business infrastructure for the new tax laws was a large portion of my work this month.  Thankfully it is done now.

In addition to all the setup for S Corporations, I also found a new insurance company that gave me a significantly lower rate of insurance.  I’m used to spending some time each month on business things, but I try to structure it so the amount of time is pretty low so I have more time to work on my products.  This month was definitely an outlier in how much time I spent with these things.  These are the required parts of running an efficient small business that most people don’t talk about because it’s kind of boring.  Hope it wasn’t too boring to read about it here, but I don’t bring up this stuff often so I thought this month was a good time to pull back the curtain just a little at the less glamorous side of a small business.  I think it’s good to know about these things since all these little reworks do end up getting factored into the final price of a product.  I do my best to keep my overhead as low as possible to make my products more affordable for you.

Product Stock Update

Due to global shortages and increased demand several of my products are out of stock.  Below are my best estimates on availability.

• EEW 6.0 – Early March 2022
• EEW Yarn Counter – Early March 2022
• EEW Nano 2 – May 2022 (preorders on Kickstarter in March)

Happy spinning!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

January 01, 2022

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Happy New Year everyone!

2021 was a great year for Dreaming Robots and the Electric Eel Wheel line of fiber tools.  The EEW 6.0 started shipping and is currently my favorite eSpinner.  I also had record sales even though I messed up inventory and was out of all my eSpinners during November and December (sorry to those of you this affected).  The engineer in me loves to see the products I make getting used by a lot of people.  A lot of my time when into taking a very early proof of concept prototype of the EEW Yarn Counter to having the final version manufactured.  These yarn meters still haven’t shipped yet, but they will soon.

The EEW community had huge growth this year and there are now many people posting online about these products daily.  I love how much my tools have helped the fiber community and look forward to making 2022 even more exciting!

EEW Pro

I mentioned back in November that this is going to be a high end eSpinner and I had a poll, which a huge number of you folks filled out to help me figure out what features are most important.  I’ve been working on figuring out several of the highly rated features in that poll.  I don’t want to talk about it much yet since I don’t want to get hopes too high before I’m sure this project will work, but I will say I’m happy with how early testing has been going.  This product is the biggest new project I’ve undertaken and is probably 2+ years from being complete.  If you are on the fence between waiting for this or getting the EEW 6.0, I’d really suggest getting an EEW 6.0 when they get back in stock.  The EEW 6.0 is a great eSpinner and this is a long ways away plus it will be a lot more expensive.

This is my current engineering drawings of the EEW Pro prototype I’ve been creating.

I probably won’t talk about this much more until I have more substantial information to share, but I wanted to mention it here in case there is someone out there who wants to help with the visual appearance.  Ideally someone who has experience with product design, but anyone with a good eye and the ability to sketch out their ideas can apply.  I’m constructing a very functional prototype, but it isn’t the a visually appealing design.  Making it more beautiful will have very minimal impact on the cost since the base is mostly injection molded plastic parts.  It would be nice if someone could help me modify the functional design into something prettier.  I don’t want to just completely open up this design right now because there are many requirements in the design both from what is manufacturable and from what I want to include functionally.  Explaining all this will take a lot of my time so I’m hoping to select just one or two people to work with on this beautification task.  If you’re selected and give me substantial ideas on how to improve the design at a minimum I’ll give you a free one of the products when it is released, but I’d also consider paying for services if you have experience in this field.  If you want to apply just send an email with your experience, payment requirements, and whatever else you think might convince me to choose you.

Product Stock Update

Due to global shortages and increased demand several of my products are out of stock. I moved arrival of the EEW 6.0 and EEW Yarn Counter in by a month from last month since I have a pretty high confidence I’ll be able to start shipping these in February. This confidence is because the shipping container with these products has left it’s port and is on it’s way to Boston.  When I do get them in stock it will be a big batch and there should be enough for everyone who wants one.

• EEW 6.0 – February 2022
• EEW Yarn Counter – February 2022
• EEW Nano 2 – April 2022

Building Update

I was really hoping to have the building in a state that I could move into it in December, but that didn’t happen.  I’m really happy with the quality of it, but progress has been slower than expected due to certain items taking longer to deliver than expected and a new permitting schedule mistake.  The building looks pretty similar to what it did last month except it now has a metal roof and is mostly wired on the inside.  I’ll just take this a month at a time now and see where we’re at next month. When it gets done I’ll put together a video showing it’s construction and the final product.

Smile today and give your fiber a hug!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

December 04, 2021

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EEW Nano 2 Reveal

In this video I cover all the major improvements of the EEW Nano 2 over the EEW Nano 1.1.  Since recording that video I’ve asked the community on Ravelry and Facebook a few questions.  Based on their feedback I decided to go with the plastic hooks instead of the wire ones (both types were in the video).  Also based on community feedback I’ve decided to go with a black base and a blue base.  For the bobbin the most common colors were blue, gray, and green.  I know these were not everyone’s favorite colors, but it was these did get the most votes while meeting my requirements of at least one neutral color and one brighter color for the base.

One other decision I’ve made based on feedback is I will run another Kickstarter for the EEW Nano 2.  This will let me give you a chance to get this one at a discount (I’m trying to keep the Kickstarter for this under $100), and it will force me to tell the story of the EEW Nano 2.  I will let you know when the Kickstarter for this is ready, but I expect to have a much faster turn around for this than my past Kickstarters since I’m getting into production before I start the Kickstarter this time.

Fiber Festival of New England

I attended the Fiber Festival of New England in Springfield, MA.  I had a great time selling out of my eSpinners, talking with customers, and having conversations with other vendors.  I made a video while I was there where I walked around the festival and talked about random topics.

Product Stock Update

Due to global shortages and increased demand several of my products are out of stock. I really wish I was able to get these in stock sooner.  When I do get them in stock it will be a big batch and there should be enough for everyone who wants one.  I’m trying to be conservative on my estimates so it might be a little sooner than the dates below, and I will keep you updated if there are any changes.

• EEW 6.0 – March 2022
• EEW Yarn Counter – March 2022
• EEW Nano 2 – April 2022

I sent an email to my wholesale sellers asking if they had any EEWs left.  Most were out of stock, but Wol-lokaal in the Netherlands got back to me saying they do have some EEW Nanos in stock.  So if you are looking for one and are in Europe then check them out.

This is a picture of assembled EEW 6.0s.  I’m waiting for the EEW Yarn Counters to finish assembly since both these products are coming to me in the same shipping container.

EEW Building Update

This month had a lot of things get done with the new building for my business.  I was hoping everything would be finished in December.  It is looking like I can probably move in in December, but it’s a few non-essential things probably won’t get finished until next spring.  They say a photo is worth a thousand words so here’s a photo of the latest progress.

Have a wonderful finish to 2021!  I’ll be back in 2022 with more updates.

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

November 01, 2021

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EEW Pro

I’ve been generating new feature ideas for a high end eSpinner for years.  Many of my feature ideas have never been in a consumer level eSpinner before.  The working name for this eSpinner is the EEW Pro and it is likely years before I’ll be ready to release it.  At this point I’d like to get a feeling for what features are most wanted by the community to help me focus on the right priories.  Please help out by filling out this survey about the possible EEW Pro features.

Fiber Festivals

I attended the New York Sheep and Wool Festival a few weeks ago and it was amazing.  I sold all the eSpinners I brought on the first day, talked with interesting vendors, and got useful feedback from customers.  If you weren’t able to attend, I did make a video of me walking around the festival and talking about random things here.  Below is a photo of my booth at this festival.

I’m going to the Fiber Festival of New England in Springfield, MA on November 6-7.  If you’re attending this festival I will be at booth 536-E.

Yarn Counter and Cone Winder Updates

I released a short video about the final version of the EEW Yarn Counter which is going to production and a longer video about the latest prototype of the EEW Cone Winder.  If you are interested in the progress of either of these products those videos are worth watching.

EEW Building Update

Here is a photo of the progress made on the new Dreaming Robots workshop where future EEW design work will be done.  In last month’s email I explained in detail why I’m building this, but this month I’ll just give a quick build update.  Progress has been a little slower than expected because some of the roof pieces got delayed, but we have just received them and work in underway again.  Windows are also delayed which means final completion has been pushed back into December.  Like my business, global shortages are also affecting them, but I’m really happy I went with this builder as even though there are delays they are keeping things going as best they can and when they do get the items they are waiting on they get right back to my building.

Product Stock Update

Due to global shortages and increased demand several of my products are out of stock. I really wish I was able to get these in stock sooner.  When I do get them in stock it will be a big batch and there should be enough for everyone who wants one.  I’m trying to be conservative on my estimates so it might be a little sooner than the dates below, and I will keep you updated if there are any changes.

• EEW 6.0 – March 2022
• EEW Yarn Counter – March 2022
• EEW Nano 2 – April 2022 (More info about this product soon)

Happy spinning!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry GroupSave
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

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New York State Sheep & Wool Festival

I am attending the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival (also known as Rhinebeck Festival) on October 16-17.  If you are attending check us out in building 31 at booth 26.  In addition to selling my products I’m hoping to bring some prototypes for a few new products. You can get more information about this festival at their website.

I am also planning to go to the Fiber Festival of New England in Springfield, MA on November 6-7. I am still looking for a helper for this festival.  This person would demo and help anyone interested spin (levels range from young kids to expert spinners).  I pay $20 per hour.  While I’m not sure what this festival requires, I will ask anyone working at my booth to be vaccinated and to wear a mask due to the large number of people we’ll see each day. If you are interested in this, reply to this email with any experience you have and I’ll schedule a quick phone call to chat.

New Building

This has been a long time in the works, and now is finally the time to share this exciting news with the community.

Let rewind back when I started making eSpinners in 2009.  Back then I was just assembling a few of them at a time in my basement.  As my my business grew I hired some locals to help with assembly while I continued shipping them out of my basement.  At this point I had converted nearly my whole basement space for my business.  This was great because it kept my costs very low.  In early 2019 I had to rent a warehouse space in Shirley, MA thanks to the massive success of the EEW Nano.  It has been a great space for me and I negotiated good terms for the three year lease.  About ten months ago I found out my lease would be going up by 60% and I started looking for other options.

After a lot of research I decided to build a workshop and office at my house.  This will be a much better space for new product development than I’ve ever had, and it will let me keep work separate from our house which is important to my work-life balance.  I also love that my daily commute will be a 30 second walk from my house.  Construction has started on this building and there is a picture of the foundation below.  It will be at least a few months before I can move in, and I’ll keep you updated on the progress of this new Dreaming Robots HQ.

Another change that comes with this, is shipping from my home with the current volumes just isn’t practical even with this new workshop.  So I’ve also found a fulfillment center 10 minutes from my house in Leominster, MA that has given me great terms.  The cost of this fulfillment space is less than one-third of what I’d pay if I stayed in my current dedicated warehouse space.  The way this new space works is they will give me a little space to setup a fulfillment station in a way that is efficient to ship my products.  Then they will store most of my pallets in their large warehouse area.  I will have access to the warehouse anytime I want, which is one reason I went with this fulfillment location.  I wanted to keep the shipping as flexible as possible going forward and this helped accomplish that.  I plan to continue shipping all the daily orders like I do today for a few weeks until I have a very efficient system setup.  Once I’m happy with the setup I will hand off daily shipping to an employee at this warehouse.

These two changes will let me focus more on improving existing products and developing new products.  I actually like the time I spend each day shipping out orders because it’s easy and relaxing, but I do admit it isn’t the best use of my time.  I think these changes will help me keep my prices affordable and will let me do more creative new products for the EEW line at Dreaming Robots.

EEW Yarn Counter Case

I am giving away some free 3D printable files for a custom case to hold the EEW Yarn Counter.  I know the this Yarn Counter hasn’t shipped yet, but maybe this will help pass the time.  This page gives you some options to get 3D printed parts if you don’t have access to a 3D printer. Manufacturing of the Yarn Counter is looking good and I should be providing more updates on that once I get final samples from the factory.

Happy spinning!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry GroupSave
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

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EEW Pro

I’m in the very early planning stages for one product I might be working on after the EEW Cone Winder ships.  I’m considering making a more expensive eSpinner than the EEW 6.  It would probably be about the same size as the EEW 6.0, but would include many more features than the EEW 6.0.  I’m investigating a level winding system for bobbins, a built in graphical screen to help display a menu system, and a few other major never seen on an eSpinner features.  If I do this, it would be the most work I’ve ever put into a fiber related project.  Just the software I’m envisioning for this one will probably be as much work as the entire EEW 6.0 design.  I won’t make any promises at this time because I need to test a lot of the ideas I’ve come up with over the past decade to see if they work as well as I’m hoping.  The main reason I’m mentioning this now is to let you community members send in your suggestions for features you’d like to see included in high end eSpinner.  I have a list with 14 major new features, but I’d like to grow that list bigger so I can pick the best ones that make sense for this project.  Please respond to this email if you have ideas of new things you’d like to see included in a eSpinner.

EEW Cone Winder

Here’s a new video about an updated Cone Winder prototype that I’ve made.  The biggest change is the new tension system, but there are a lot of other things I mention in the video.

EEW Yarn Counter

The EEW Yarn Counter will come fully assembled, but I thought people might be interested in how I assemble them.  This would also help if you want to take it apart either to see how it works or if you have plans to modify yours when it arrives.  Anyways if seeing me assemble an EEW Yarn Counter sounds interesting you can watch the video here.

The manufacturing of the EEW Yarn Counter has been going quite smoothly.  I’m planning to provide some updates on that process in the future.  After manufacturing is done I’ll need to ship them to my warehouse in Massachusetts and that is looking like it will be difficult since their is a worldwide shortage on ocean freight shipping.  I’m already starting to look into that so it doesn’t become a big speed bump.

Happy spinning!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry GroupSave
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

August 07, 2021

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Yarn Counter

I’ve been working through all the details needed to get the EEW Yarn Counter ready for manufacturing.  One item I’ve done this month is the user manual for the Yarn Counter. I received a lot of feedback on an earlier version of this manual that I showed to Kickstarter backers, but this link is to a new version with all the suggestions I received.  I think it’s looking really good now and like how the line art in the manual looks.

Cone Winder

There is a lot of waiting on my Yarn Counter manufacturing partners, and I fill in those down times with EEW Cone Winder work.  I released the video below that explains the kinds of decisions I’m making when figuring out what cones can be supported on the Cone Winder.  After releasing that video I got a ton of great feedback and have been working on a new prototype to improve many aspects of the yarn counter.  I know a lot of you want to see the Kickstarter for this Cone Winder, but I need to get the design to a point where I’m very happy with it before I will run the Kickstarter.  I expect that will take a few more prototypes.  This newsletter will keep you updated on the progress and let you know when it’s available.

Have a great summer, unless you’re reading this from the southern hemisphere and then enjoy the sweater season!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server

July 01, 2021

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The EEW Yarn Counter kickstarter was a huge success.  It sold over 3,100 of the counters, which will let let me make a huge initial batch.  If you missed the kickstarter then I will be selling it on my store after I finish shipping all the kickstarter rewards.  I did release a video that goes into a lot of detail about the Yarn Counter.

EEW 6.0 Switch

A EEW community member showed me a new style of switch that can be used by your hand or switch that works with the EEW 6.0.  If you are interested you can purchase it on Amazon by searching for “tattoo foot pedal”, but since there was a ton of interest in it I’m going to investigate what the price would be for me to include a switch like this with the EEW 6.0 in the future.  Below is a video that goes into details about the differences between my current foot switch and this alternative.

3D Printed Parts

As I’m sure many of you know I like releasing 3D printable parts accessories for EEW products I think might be useful to the community.  I always release the files for free and let other people sell prints since I know most people don’t have 3D printers.  For things like bobbins 3D printing gives you many more color options, and others parts aren’t popular enough to justify me making an expensive mold so 3D printed versions are the only option for those.  If you have access to a 3d printer or would like to see what you can buy from others I suggest checking out my 3D printing page which gives more information.

Cone Winder Prototype Update

I made a video about the latest prototype cone winder I’ve been working.

EEW 6.0 Sliding Hooks

I made a video that announces I now have the EEW 6.0 sliding hooks in my store. The video also shows some new 3D printable sliding hook options for the EEW 6.0.

Happy spinning!

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– Maurice Ribble
(Inventor of the Electric Eel Wheel)

www.dreamingrobots.com
EEW Facebook Group
EEW Ravelry Group
EEW Youtube Channel
EEW Instagram Account
EEW Discord Server