The cat, 'Tiddler' providing a mouse mat facility as I process orders, it is a family business after all !

The Christmas Season

So December kicked in and all geared up with stock of each product I was positive all was covered.   That lasted approx 10 days into December, stock has gone out and re-orders placed for product - especially the coolers. Fortunately the stock of bases and hubs has held out well - looking back the investment in a good volume ahead of the game was a wise / lucky ... one.

I will take a look back at sales volumes over the last 6 months to see how the growth has been. It may provide an indication of the potential for next years season. I suspect demand to fall post xmas, but then it has exceeded my predictions month on month from the outset. My worries of cash being tied up well into the new year are lessoned as the additional sales volumes have provided some timely working capital and refilled the coffers .... a bit - it may almost be sustainable on its own :-)

Sub assemblies of drives & mount brackets are ready to go and with the exception of a couple  of dozen fan hub disks which require turning, stove top fan-c and fan-ce volumes can be turned on as soon as the coolers arrive later today or tomorrow. Next is the TEGs which we will have to re-order due to the 2-3 week lead time. We may run out just ahead of xmas we may not.

We managed to secure a further dozen chrome coolers (the Black Chrome units) for Fan-C production - which is good as NONE of the coating companies have come back with a quote following my requests and calls. Staggering, just staggering. Seams the recession may have left fewer companies but those left are too busy to follow up leads or the assumption is it would be too difficult and not worth the bother.

So next plan of attack is to try to see if I can get a local 'like minded' individual to undertake the investment in a DIY coating facility, similar to that used for the gold plating everything from iphones to pens etc. How to find one is another matter. I would undertake this myself, but space constraints and other ventures preclude my developing this area. If we can't resolve this they will be dropped from the portfolio - shame given its been such a popular product.






New Product Development has been slow, other commitments have taken their toll on progressing the prototypes and to be honest, I wanted a break from Fans for  a few days. Having a couple of commissions in the wings for Oak Bowls I took the opportunity to clear the lathe for a few days creative work. More orders followed as I posted images across social media so a couple of days work is now a week.

Time for wrapping and packing , then off to the postoffice with last nights orders. Then back to the lathe.

Up until now all the bases have been made from purchased precut billets of aluminium which are then machined by the subcontractor or since last month myself. Having got new quotes for finished bases to the new drawings; I decided that I should undertake the machining myself on the Boxford AUD ..

Having purchased 1500mm of 75mm diameter Aluminium bar stock from a scrap metal merchant (via a very nice chap called Keith !) a couple of weeks back (a real deal providing I could either cut it down myself or borrow a sawing unit to do it at little cost) I set about setting up my  Wadkin C6 bandsaw to try a few test cuts....


How I wished mine looked like this - alas I rebuilt mine from a scrapped unit out of a skip at a factory closure, no table, blade guides or fence. But for free what could I say ?

It now sports a 600 x 900mm x 30mm thick solid steel table, a set of decent guides and shares a fence with my old startrite table saw. It also runs a single phase 2kw motor and has a very dented set of guards thanks to the skip entry and exit ! A rather effective blade guard fashioned from Ali' chequer plate completes the unit.

What I needed to do was to guide a 1500mm by c25kg length of bar stock under the saw in such a way that it would cut true, not spin the bar, twist the cut or result in my losing finger tips etc. I decided to build up a sled jig which would allow me to both clamp the bar to a fence, run it along the guide dado in the bandsaw table and also an additional guide down the saw table free side. 

First cut was 550 mm off the end of the bar - to make things a little less long for handling.  The next question was that of saw blade selection. A couple of years back I came across Ian John  - Store Owner at Tuff Saws  http://tuffsaws.co.uk/ 

Now Ian is one of those guys that you know he knows what he is talking about and can trust. I have purchased quite a few bandsaw blades from Ian in the past and can only say that every last one has been perfect for the job in hand be it cutting up big heavy Oak wet logs or air dried oak cabinet joints. So I dropped Ian an email Sunday lunch time, I got a reply a couple of hours later ... get the idea :-)

I ordered a 4 tpi super hard carbon blade on his recommendation. Meanwhile I searched the workshop for a pack of old blades I dug out of the skip and found an unused 8tpi carbon steel blade which whilst 3/4inch wide looked like it would do the job to get things started while I awaited Tuff Saws best.

I vacuumed out all the saw dust form the saw behind the doors, striped and cleaned the blade guides and lubed with the new oil can for the Boxford :-) All set up; guides adjusted and blade tensioned and running true to the sled face,  I cut the bar stock - nice and steady with light thumb pressure. Noise asside which was not great but different to the wood cutting noise, all went quite well...

The bar in two I checked the cut ends with an engineers square - less than 0.3mm deviation from true - perfect for minimum facing up on the lathe, less scrap and time at the lathe. I adjusted the length stop and then set the shorter length of bar stock up for the first disk cut. 30 disks later and all well except for my getting a numb thumb from the vibration.  I varied cutting pressure and didn't get much difference in speed but lots of heat and more deviation so kept things slow and steady - I will finish the short length cuts in the morning and then re-clean the saw down to ensure the aluminium particles go into the scrap bin, then its on with the turning.

Meanwhile, sales continue to hold up with the HT modifications proving to have opened up the market. 

Investment has now been fully recovered and at last materials are being purchased from revenue streams rather than continual cash injections to meet the growing demand from stock. I expect that there will be a further demand blip ahead of the festive season followed by a slowing down for the end of the cold season ... but who knows for sure ?

Mid September we took the plunge to invest in some equipment to help speed up the prototype production of fan hubs and bases not only for the HT version but also the two new products being developed in the background ... top secret couldn't possibly tell you more at this time without then killing you !

Having searched for what would provide the best degree of flexibility within the available floor space (5ft x 3ft of workshop floor) I plumbed for a centre lathe. Then it was down to either  a new chinese unit from Chester Machine Tools or something from the used market.  The key feature for my mind was to have a powered cross feed to enable me to make good clean facing cuts on the bases - this sealed the fate of the Chester units as the footprints were too large as was the price tag.  I got a small degree of satisfaction when I discovered an old English make and on line forum for owners / users http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BoxfordLathe-UserGroup/

My Boxford AUD, purchased via ebay from a School in Sandbach took 6 lads to lift it into the workshop after my virtually stripping all down to lesson the load.  It now sports a bright red coat of paint, single to three phase inverter and I have stripped down and rebuilt the cross slide, saddle assembly to ensure smooth cross cutting.  Having not used a metal lathe since I was 15yrs old and doing Metalwork O Level at a Grammer School - it was surprising how much I could recall (very little !) The wood turning of the last 5 years has helped to a degree as far as tool grinding etc. 

A new Chinese 125mm dia' chuck was purchased, as the 100mm chuck wouldn't open to take the 75 m base blanks for machining.  The frustrating thing was that the new chuck only just takes them with the jaws sticking out 18mm !  So I looked and found a used 5" Bernard & Pratt 3 jaw scroll chuck - lovely bit of kit unfortunately on the wrong backplate for my lathe - so then we had to make a new backplate from a part machined blank.  This was proper engineering,  working to 0.0005" for a fit !  I managed after a few hours to get the location plate boss machined into the chuck backing plate.  Then all that was required was to drill and tap through the chuck body M8 - a tight fit through the old imperial holes but when complete it runs true as a nut on the Boxford - where-as the 4 jaw scroll chuck from RDG which cost twice the price of the used B&S runs out of true ... quite a bit - something I will try to resolve when time permits

To finish things off, a spare set of inside/outside jaws and some soft jaws also from ebay . Oh , then of course there was the cutting tooling, quick change tool posts, spanners, allen keys etc etc and Oil Can.... all that was left was to learn how to turn .... and determine what the final design of the HT Fan-Ce base would be. Now I had ample time to make samples for testing.

Having now turned a lot of  bases from sawn billets and machined all of the older bases into the new design it all seams to be going fine (kiss of death). I should add, we purchased a milling bracket, collet set and tooling to 'get the job done right' !

Quite a chunk of additional investment over and above the outlay for the lathe & power conversion. But its 75% paid back already so no bad thing !

Sales in October were strong - well over the total sold from the start of the year through to Sept'. November is looking good, as the HT base and some dircet mails to previously found clients looking for a HT version have all resulted in sales. The additional costs, + VAT and recovery of postage costs not previously allowed for have resulted in a substantial price hike - which with the increase in sales numbers has taken my by surprise - economics A level I'm sure sugguested higher prices push demand down - unless we have now entered the real of  'good of ostentation' !

It has not been all good news, we have had a few returns - notable of which was one set of charred remains which were returned apparently not the result of the fan being exposed to temperatures over 200 degrees C.  The fan blades were gone, the copper work looked like that of a twenty year old immersion heater - the soldered tips had migrated - the TEG cooked even the Teflon coated wires had melted. Quite a sad mess - ALL the returns are as a result of high temperature exposure and the resultant TEG failure. With the exception of the Charred remains, all units have been repaired and returned at cost - clients picking up the bill for the new TEG and my changing the base to the new HT version as a preventative measure.

As I type, another order for a Fan-Ce Black HT has been paid for - leaving me out of stock when they arrive already !

Nice position to be in though.

Nov 6th 2012

Time has wizzed by since the last post / update.

Having made various versions of base profiles and designs to overcome the excessive heat exposure on some stove tops and having thrown the towel in on a few occasions .. or rather toys out the pram !
After quite a few months we found a solution which was both effective and cost efficient.

Armed with pages of data (well a dvd anyway) logged from thermocouples recording both hot plate temperature and base top temperatures (TEG exposure Temp), Fan RPM and motor voltage and current , Tony Gospel arrived at our premises to repeat the tests and put the project to bed with a successful result.

First problem was moving the 600 mm x 600 mm Steel Hot Plate into  safe position within the workshop - quite a heavy lump of equipment. Once installed on heat proof materials with plenty of head room and free air around the unit was brought upto temperature.  Now anyone that knows the workshop knows its not heated - so the 6 degree C air temperature was not helping with the heating up !  After a couple of hours the plate had just about managed 395 degrees - however initial tests of the same fan assembly were concerning as they HT base did not appear to be preventing the TEG exposure exceeding 210 degrees.

We were troubled to say the least ? why with all the same equipment and test subjects were the results repeated in the Lab in Nottingham not repeating here ?  Trying to salvage the day, we set up the Hot Plate to 350 degrees C which it held quite happily, we tested multiple base samples / fan combinations to ensure that normal manufacturing tolerances were proven. The net result, well not the 400 degree C exposure we wanted but at 350 degrees C the TEG exposure was 190 degrees C.

In our view this would cover the vast majority of Stove Top Plate Temperatures. After the heating kit had cooled sufficiently to handle it was loaded up and Tony left me to convert the stock of Fan-C & Fan-Ce over to the new HT  base design..... once i had made the first batch.

As of November 1st, all products shipped have been HT versions. Additional improvements include High Temperature adhesive for fan blade to hub & drive plus grub screw amongst others.

Meanwhile, we have managed to secure a stock of the popular Black Fan-C bodies and these have sold as fast as i make them up. The Fan-Ce in black on the other hand is a rare beast and attracts a premium when the units become available - the additional costs in building these special order products will soon preclude sales..... or maybe not ? The current units of which I have two pre-ordered at just shy of £200 and a third to hold as stock.

It is a shame I have as yet drawn a blank when it comes to finding a nickel chrome plating service prepared to undertake the operation - a new search must now be high on the list of things to do, in order to supply this niche market with a select product.

This image taken by Tony Gospel from the Environmental Technology Centre University of Nottingham shows a Fan-C airflow test underway.  The results demonstrated upto 200 cu mtr/hr at full speed, not bad for a small stove top fan  under 6" tall. If I recall that Hot Plate burnt out after testing and a new larger unit was purchased for the test program - thankfully I never had to pay the bill.

August Already !

This was my deadline for getting stock together in time for the September 'rush' or autumnal season when I believe order volumes will increase... well the date by which I had to decide if I was going to invest in the parts and materials to make the stock.

Never one to shy away from an 'acceptable'  risk where I believe there will be a suitable return, I have pumped cash into the business and placed orders sufficient to meet my expected demand.  Ok so not exactly scientific in approach for forecasting etc. But a considered approach all the same.
Worst case scenario - I am left with stock which may take some time to sell - but even at current levels this will only be 6 months - surely clients will buy more in the winter than the summer months ?

The 'Add' campaign has been extended in duration and reach - now covering most of northern Europe - I figure if I can reach Australia via the Navitron (see earlier posts) site then Norway, Denmark, etc should be pretty simple.

Started sending out inquiries for some specialist coating to determine the options for a 'bespoke service' - to develop a specific range for Trade not available on-line. In such way I hope that retail outlets will then set their own price in accordance with my Trade price to them and not shy away due to low margins competing with on line prices. Who knows ?

Managed to destroy my first TEG module whilst assembling a special fan - the fragile ceramic case cracked and whilst the unit still operated it was not right so the fan was taken apart and the unit replaced with a little less vigor when tightening the clamping screws. Frustrating given the component costs and wasted time. Lets hope its a lesson I remember :-)

Am now on the lookout for some nice colored cherry for the central fan disks - the last batch has been used up / scrapped due to shake running through the sections.  Most of my remaining stock is still drying out and lacks the range of colors I like to see.  I have some pretty looking yew so may in fact try this as an alternative.

Must add some new images as the blog is looking a bit text and more text at present.

New Trade inquiries again this week.

The product certainly looks well and is attracting interest, however, the trade price v's RRP remains the problem. No matter how I look at the manufacturing and purchasing costs I can see little in the way of options to reduce its costs without the huge volumes required for automated production, or a lower cost TEG module.

The current work level involved in each every fan made warrant 30 minutes minimum build time, larger production batches help to an extent but we are talking a couple of minutes saved rather than 10 or 15 minutes saved.  This will only come with a redesign of he main fan element to remove its assembly and replace with a pre-built component to fit.

Having converted the new batch of coolers into fans - it was frustrating to find one unit was 'faulty' out of the box - 'botched' soldering -unfortunately I had dismantled the product before I realized rendering a return to supply pretty unlikely - a call for Monday I feel. That aside, the operation was trouble free and all new batches came together well. Average build time was 28 minutes for both fan sizes.

A larger batch of components have been ordered and the production of these is scheduled for next week supply the following week. Stocks should cover the next two weeks based on previous average week order levels.

This leaves the only real option of improving Trade margins down to increased RRP - the results of which remain to be seen. Online prices direct through www.stovetopfan.co.uk provide a very healthy return enhanced through the fact that not only to I retain the Trade discount but also being non VAT registered this 20% from the RRP. I am now considering the development of Trade Branded lines. Which I will only supply to Trade and ensure they remain unique to each market and as such let the Trade develop their own retail price - this requires a little more thought on unique features / branding without increasing my production costs - as that would rather defeat the point.

As I type the UK population and several million TV viewers are building (according to media) into a frenzy of anticipation for the 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. I am unable to muster much more than feeble waft of  a Union Jack flag. Switched off by the Giant Corporate Power / Brands and a true loss of the real sense of wonder at athletes of the world.

9.00pm and the ceremony starts - best go watch just in case its a good show :-)

Seams a while since I last updated the Blog, but then I can't see the point in writing with nothing to include.

Since the last update.

The retail outlets have been busy, with new interest, sales, and website updates.  Margins continue to be an issue and its clear that with the Trade Price offered and VAT the retail outlets have slim pickings from the Fan-C. However, the Fan-Ce is better and as this was seen as the main product for retail it is progressing well.

We have taken delivery of the first batch of New coolers to convert rather than 'pre-loved' coolers. additionally, we now have a new batch of smaller higher output TEG modules which should combined produce an improved air flow through great power output & less losses.

The whole import, customs duty & handling fees are a frustration and erode the margin. But they were built into the original costings.  We are awaiting hubs for the Fan-C, and drive mount fixtures - once received we will re-order a larger batch to remove the bottle neck.

No words from the Academics on the test results, and thats progress updated. 

We are still thinking through the key design features of the new product, I hope to have prototypes by the end of the summer and roll out should be pretty quick there after.

Website hits remain consistent, a news letter out to 60 associates is hoped to bring in some further interest locally along with increased site traffic generally.  The Google Adds YouTube campaign is still running and at a low cost level send half a dozen clients to the website each day.  At current levels the add fund should be good to end August.

Done.

Progress has been steady, we have secured support from Nottingham University to undertake some research and development work on our behalf to enable us to develop the fan, assess its  performance (RPM v's Temp etc) and we hope to have results by the end of July.

The YouTube Video hit rate continues to climb ... well it can't go down cumulatively can it !

Total views to date now exceed 1280, the analytics report  extract below is interesting to see the source of these views.

In summary 50% of hits have come from the youtube advert and whilst this has been a paid for add, it is still running and has not yet used all the free credit allocated.

Having discussed with the AddWords Team at Google - who I have to say were excellent; we modified some of the target information and Keywords for the add and this seams to have boosted views over night (not shown above as the You Tube analytics take 24hrs to update now).

Has this translated into orders? Well not easy to say, the last few fans sent out were all via word of mouth from others that had come across the fan on line and as such I can not confirm if these found the fan via You tube add or a Google search.   But as the current marketing and Adds seams to be costing little (£0.80 / day) and orders are coming in I have no plans to change things.

As an aside I ran a Free Facebook Add for our www.peakdistrictcreations.co.uk website. When I say free we were supposed to get £50 worth of free adds on FB - the entire process is as far as I can determine far from simple and yet very similar to the Google Adds. At a budget cost of £4 per day (any lower and the add crashed ??) the Add started to gobble up the budget and produce clicks - but no direct benefits (LIKES) or apparent website follow through. After a very quick £20 - I pulled / canceled the account as the direct debits are taken each day. On investigation it appears that  there were 2 similar adds running side by side so the costs was nearer to £10 per day - the direct result of the Add Set Up center crashing mid way through my setting it up - so starting again a new add was generated - it was only after checking the billing that I could determine that two adds were running - which could have resulted in each add bidding against itself and increasing the cost of placement - which is rubbish. No offer of support from Facebook unlike Google AddWords with emails and then phone call for 30 minutes on an 0800 No.

We have now sent off a sample Fan-Ce to a South Manchester Outlet for assessment - I can already feel that margins will be squeezed.  Sadly we have found that the stunning black versions of the Fan-Ce & Fan-C will not be available other than through www.stovetopfan.co.uk directly as special orders - as the coolers have been discontinued - meaning that only the recycled version will be available sporadicly- the website will require modification to reflect this and the July Price increase will be implemented at this time.

Now its off to the workshop to check on progress in the other product areas.

Thought we would take a quick review of how the YouTube promotion is going;-

In short the video as been viewed 911 times, most of which kicked off in the first day of the Addwords Video Add campaign - then I realized that I could target geographical areas, also added the website link www.stovetopfan.co.uk .  after reviewing the add results on day 2 it was clear I was somewhat adrift - following various emails with the help team at Google Adds, I established some ground rules and set about tweeking the add - mainly with the following;-

1. UK Base
2. Males in certain age group
3. Overlay Add redirected domains strip off google analytics so this was sorted
4. Cost per day v's budget was realistic and has remained unchanged

This is now delivering a handful of charged click through each day. We await the report at the end of the week when the add finishes. There remains a good portion of the views which don't click through - but as all these add to the view number it will lift the video position in the event someone searchs for Stove Top Fan on You Tube - which reminds me that I also have to work out the best KeyWords for the video tags and add these.

So based on a £10 investment - no orders but plenty of hits which will lift its ranking so far so good and its not half spent yet !

Following yesterdays production of 23 units, we have today listed the Fan-C on Ebay.

We have done this for the following reasons:-

1. it should increase awareness of the product 
2. and this Blog 
3. & the Website 
4. It may even result in sales who knows  

At £0.40 for the 10 day listing and having increased the price to cover PayPal & Ebay fees - got to be worth a punt. Not sure if the inclusion of the Website infringes Ebay Listing - as the website price is lower..no Ebay fees to contend with ! (should have read a bit more small print with regard use of the word 'Ecofan'....ooops (see below)

Update Wednesday 13th June

So here's the thing, foolishly I had included the following  'EcoFan'  in the listing title as

"Not An EcoFan"  

 ....Ok dumb ass mistake. Interestingly 5 watchers before Big Brother stamped All over it and squished the listing (I wonder how many were 'ecofan paid'

Lucky for me I have this copy of the original Add so I can correct my error and re-list :-) without having to re-create it all. All done and re listed in 10 minutes.

Makes me wonder how much it cost Camfromoaners to lodge the complaint - now you see a lot of Eco Stove Top Fan references - which get pulled up with the same search criteria .i.e Ecofan. I guess if you pay for the TM you have to Pay to protect it - but wouldn't it have been better to protect the idea/design principle - the 'Asian' imports are pretty hard to tell apart unless you really know the products..... they do not appear to have tried to 'improve the design' merely pass it off...

Now just to be clear - I LIKE THE ECOFAN and I recognize the term ECOFAN is a trademark and I am not trying to copy it or make use of it by trying to 'pass my Fan-C off as an Ecofan - If I could put the little 'r ' in its circle I would ! From now on I will do my best to avoid reference to it or its makers - nice guys I'm sure.

If the makers had come up with a low profile one for under £100 I would have never started off on this track - they didn't, so I did and am already looking to improve it.

They must be watching the market pretty well in each country ! BIG EYES everywhere !

Wet, Wet Wet...

The recent 3 weeks of wet weather which I had hoped would generate better order levels after the blistering 3 weeks of early May,  has not had any noticeable impact. Full of a head cold as I type after cutting up some wind fallen beech and getting soaked over several consecutive days the glorious summer looks some way off as yet.

Website hit rates continue to bob along the 8 - 10 hits a day on the Fan-C pages - pretty good as far as the website hits goes, but conversion of hits to orders now has to be the focus. The Twitter @Thefan_Ce tweets now use the www.stovetopfan.co.uk reference which is re-directed to the existing pages in the hope that it is a more memorable website address than the actual location, buried as it is 3 levels down.

			Paul Morgans of Peak Films , a friend and client, has offered to come over and help put together a professional promotional video for the website and Fan-C - which is a great opportunity. I have started to put together a 'story board' of the sequences so at the least we have a starting point to frame up and work with. This includes what I hope will be some 'sexy' looking close up panning shots of the components that go into the product. I hope I have use of my nose by then in the event of any 'voice overs' !
			This generated a few ideas for me to see what I could do with what I had, that is to say, some product still shots and Windows Movie Maker. After about 90 minutes work I came up with the following sequence. Which given I had not used the software I think just goes to show how good software is now at making a job intuitive. Additionally, a quick search on YouTube and a few minutes watching tutorials I was up and and away.
			For next time, I will try to get a music sequence which I can trim to the movie in the software rather than adding it in via YouTube which will not allow trimming / editing of  these file types.

The Queens Jubilee Weekend

Jubilee Sunday... a Bank Holiday Weekend which means raining most of the days and true to form it has been since 11pm last night. That being said it did stay dry long enough for the kids to have their first night in a tent - shame they were both too tired to stay up for the marshmallow toasting on the fire basket :-

Having only camped an hour from home, we came home early and I can hear the dripping tent hung to dry as I type. It also means Roast for tea not noodles !

Progress today is focused on getting https://web.tweetdeck.com to work - it seams my older desktop version is now out of date and as such does not allow scheduled updates -meaning I have to be around at key times to tweet & re-tweet to promote the business. -times which usually coincide with the kids dinner time leaving me frustrated.  Isn't this what IT & improved Communications were supposed to help resolve ?

Having now got the 'on-line' version running with all the twitter accounts listed and a test tweet sent with the scheduler, the plan is to come up with a tweet worthy of being picked out by @TheoPaphitis
 if I get lucky, OK very lucky, this could provide a huge exposure for the Fan-Ce at a stroke.

How does it work ? as best I can work out, the Dragons Den Star and Entrepreneur runs a scheme where every Sunday between 5.30pm and 7.00pm if you tweet him about your business with the #SBS (Small Business Sunday) tagged, he selects his favorites and re-tweets them to his 250K followers.  Now we have to assume that some of these followers (a high proportion for that matter) will never bother looking at the #SBS tweets but given my existing followers amount to less than 200 across two accounts - there is every chance it should be a little more successful.

On the plus side, if the #SBS is anything like the @lookeastmidland #EastMidlandsHour I may pick up a few followers who look at the new profile twitter page.

So now for the Tweet - strap line.....erm.... still working on that and I have 2 hrs until it starts. But then there is always next Sunday :-) ...

9.45pm - ok so maybe I should have read the website about it first ... only one tweet per business, 'referrals' don't help and lots of other useful to know bits of info'.  Well like I say there is always next week.
Picked up a few follows and website hits went up - which is always useful.
I have some additional tooling due by post this week - another bottle neck removed from the assembly operation I hope.

Catching Up

Thursday 31st May 2012, we received a small number of the base discs and the small hubs to complete some products already sold. Before postage, we managed to grab some product images....

Now, I have never been very good with 'product images' no studio, no large windows streaming with natural light.... I live in a part of the world where it is rare to see the sun for a few days in a row, further I struggle with the whole 'how to set it up' what will look best ?'.

 Whats more I have to admit to being part of the photographic club of  "All the Gear No Idea" Fortunately lack of funds has forced my exit from the club as I can't keep up with members quest for new better gear and there is only so far a lack of knowledge will get me ...

  - I first picked up a digitial SLR 5 or so years ago, I've upgraded several times to the point at which I now have a camera with more internal processing capability than was used on the first Apollo space missions. Thanks to Nikon, I have lots of 'gear' all of which combines to produce high quality capability - me being the limiting factor :-)

 That being said - I am quite happy with some of these. Taken inside a £15 light cube from ebay (thanks Mr Coull) & below a north facing Velux skylight.

 I prefer the last image and will work on that for the larger Fan-Ce images. Next job is to see about getting the base discs engraved / etched with product name / web address. I suspect it will be cost prohibitive, I have a hankering for a bench top CNC engraving machine.. which go for £300 on ebay- couple it with an old PC and a little router I have - it may suffice ???

It is now the weekend of the Queens Jubilee and two Bank Holidays - which of course means its raining or dull, cold and overcast at best - shouldn't grumble as May produced me 365 KW/h of Solar PV from my 16 panels - you can see 6 of them being installed here:- http://www.peakdistrictcreations.co.uk/about-us/environmental-policy/solar-pv-panel-installation/

Wednesday 30th

The morning was spent chain sawing a large Beech tree up for woodturning and Stove Fuel (in a couple of years), so the afternoon has been spent taking it easy - a tonne of wet wood takes some shifting, I think about 200mtrs plus stacking to dry.
Finally got to speak to 'Mr Smith' aka the owner of the machine shop today and he assured me that a small batch of parts would leave them tonight for me. Then I got another call confirming details and another checking for a minor mod to help with their machining.... so I have to assume they are on with the job :-)

I found this useful and I hope the guys will be ok with me pasting a bit here:-

The 5 Minute Guide To Cheap Startup Advertising

 Strategy #1: Try to Get Permission

Seriously consider offering something in exchange for a visitor's email address. It can be a free trial, a free report, or maybe even a free book. But gaining the means and permission to contact that customer again will increase your conversion rate over time in most cases. There is great power in an email list.

Strategy #2: Use Advertising to Test

Use advertising as a testing tool rather than a long-term stream of customers. Very few startups can withstand the cash outlay required to turn advertising into a marketing activity with positive ROI. Even if you figure it out, advertising is a volatile marketing medium. Prices increase rapidly in online advertising as new competition crops up or prospects grow bored of your ad and your click through rate drops. When this happens, all of the time you invested in optimizing your ad campaign is *poof*...gone. So instead of relying on ad traffic as an ongoing stream, use it for what it's best at: the ability to generate a slew of visitors very quickly, and to be turned off just as quickly. This kind of traffic source makes it great for split testing and user behavior testing using tools like Clicktale and Crazyegg. It also gives you insight into how certain traffic converts for you. With properly tracked conversions and an ad on Facebook, you can determine that men from 35-45 convert at a rate 15% lower than women of the same age. This is valuable information, especially early in your marketing effort when you're still trying to figure out the ideal market for your application. Often this is not the largest market; it's the one to whom you can market for the lowest cost. As another example, with AdWords you can learn in a hurry which keywords convert for you, and which don't. This is insanely valuable as you invest the time and money on the long-haul of search engine optimization. Knowing the keywords that really convert for your business, as opposed to the ones that you think will convert, can save you piles of cash and many months of SEO effort. 

I'm still reading the article .... having now finished the prospect of having $300 to invest at this stage is shall we say a little way off. However, I note FB are promoting free Addword credits for small business pages , so efforts underway to gather 100 LIKES on our FB page http://www.facebook.com/TheFanCe

This blog is looking bland with no images, promise to upload some product images as soon as the parts arrive.
.... its Friday ! what happend to Thursday ??