New 10th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote

[DemonFire]

Thanks Richard for answering those! I figured those were correct was but it's good to hear it from the people making it I've got no problem with the gesture setup that you described, keep as is

 

[Richard B]

I was wondering if the emitter/collar teeth are finalized or if they'll be tweaked. I ask because the teeth on the pictures from SDCC seem to have less of an angle to them than the ones shown on your pictures of the prop being scanned.

You're correct - the angle on the teeth isn't quite the same as on the prop. This has been on our to-do list to adjust for a while, but I'm afraid it might be too late to change it now. I'm a little behind with things having just got back from holiday and I need to check where we're at with the ordering of the various parts, but I think that this is one issue that we're stuck with for the first production batch - sorry about that.

After just sitting and reading through this entire post I've just poked money away in an envelope on my desk entitled "10th Sonic Screwdriver", and as soon as possible will be ordering one from Thinkgeek. The responses from Richard have been amazing and I'm always happy to hear from someone who actually stand behind their product and will answer to it.

Many thanks for all your support and encouragement.

I've got no problem with the gesture setup that you described, keep as is

Thanks for the confirmation - we probably will keep it as-is. Our factory wants us to have the user manual artwork finalised by Friday, and we're away at meetings tomorrow and Thursday, so there's not much time left to make any functionality changes anyway.

 

[themeinside]

I'm afraid it's very unlikely that we'd ever release an Eccleston sonic - as was suggested back near the start of this thread, most of our customers wouldn't know the difference between that and the Tennant version. In fact, more people have asked us why ours doesn't have "that black spiral thing inside the clear tube" (i.e. the fake moulded black wires inside the Character Options toy version) than have asked us for a 9th Doctor's version, and quite a few people have got slightly uppity and argued that the Sonic we're making is actually the 9th Doctor's not the 10th's.

That's fair enough- I wasn't expecting a standard run of the 9th alongside the 10th! I just wondered if a limited run, like the recent 50th anniversary reissue of the 11th that you did, would be feasible at some point?

 

[Richard B]

That's fair enough- I wasn't expecting a standard run of the 9th alongside the 10th! I just wondered if a limited run, like the recent 50th anniversary reissue of the 11th that you did, would be feasible at some point?

I'm afraid a limited run of the 9th Doctor's Sonic is still very unlikely, as most of the changes would be in the plastic parts, which are expensive to get tooled up. We'd have to make new tooling from scratch for the main body, the button and probably some of the internal parts - we wouldn't just modify the tooling for the 10th Doctor's Sonic, as we couldn't then use it again to make more 10th Sonics. (For the 50th anniversary reissue of the 11th that we launched last month, there was no new tooling needed except for the gift box - the gold and silver plated parts were made using the existing die cast tooling.) Sorry not to be more positive about this!

 

[themeinside]

All very good points. That's no problem at all- i'm still very excited about the 10th- it's just 9 was my Doctor, and it was the CO 9th that let me down so much all those years ago xD I'm sure I could grab a couple more of the 10th and attempt a modification myself (or more likely wait for someone else to do it on here, and see if it's possible- I don't have the know how myself!). From my viewpoint it would only be a change of wire colour and button switch to create an acceptable facsimile, but I see this is more difficult. Thanks for your reply!

 

[NakedMoleRat]

All very good points. That's no problem at all- i'm still very excited about the 10th- it's just 9 was my Doctor, and it was the CO 9th that let me down so much all those years ago xD I'm sure I could grab a couple more of the 10th and attempt a modification myself (or more likely wait for someone else to do it on here, and see if it's possible- I don't have the know how myself!). From my viewpoint it would only be a change of wire colour and button switch to create an acceptable facsimile, but I see this is more difficult. Thanks for your reply!

It would be abit more than that. First up, you would need to completely dissasemble it to change wires from yellow to red and black. Which may not be easy to do, based on how it goes together.

Also, the real prop had a huge 8mm groove cut into it with an 8mm push button used as the slider. It was always concealed on film. Any replica with a huge button on it is an idealized prop based on the azteck sonic, and is not screen accurate.

As much as I loved Chris as the Doctor, I would take David's sonic over his any day!

 

[Oncoming Storm]

It would be abit more than that. First up, you would need to completely dissasemble it to change wires from yellow to red and black. Which may not be easy to do, based on how it goes together.

Also, the real prop had a huge 8mm groove cut into it with an 8mm push button used as the slider. It was always concealed on film. Any replica with a huge button on it is an idealized prop based on the azteck sonic, and is not screen accurate.

As much as I loved Chris as the Doctor, I would take David's sonic over his any day!

I'm going to try to make an Aztek sonic out of a WC. May be a huge failure, but we'll see. I am concerned about whether I'll be able to get to those yellow wires to switch them out. Also need to figure out how to re-work it to have a stationary switch, but still allow the center to be pulled out without knocking wires loose.

But if I can overcome those two obstacles, I'll have a damn fine 9 sonic on my hands!

 

[shaderun97]

When Richard says that the ridge teeth, etc., won't be altered on this batch, am I correct in inferring that these could be altered in later runs? In short, waiting could result in a more screen accurate sonic for the purchaser? Sorry if I'm a bit vague.

 

[TheNickFox]

When Richard says that the ridge teeth, etc., won't be altered on this batch, am I correct in inferring that these could be altered in later runs? In short, waiting could result in a more screen accurate sonic for the purchaser? Sorry if I'm a bit vague.

I believe, as has been hinted at before, that the teeth will remain in their current shape for the foreseeable future. The Wand Company isn't mass producing so many of these things as to make complete retooling a possibility. So better grab one now since waiting will probably only ensure you get the exact same product...just with a longer wait before hand.

Remember, tooling is expensive, so any time they have to retool a part that adds HUGE amounts of cost. While that might not be such a big deal for a company like Sony, TWC is reaching a niche market, so having to retool something would threaten to undercut their bottom line...which could mean no more awesome Sonic products from them.

...I'm sure some nerds here will make conversion kits to tweak these remotes in due time.

-Nick

 

[Oncoming Storm]

When Richard says that the ridge teeth, etc., won't be altered on this batch, am I correct in inferring that these could be altered in later runs? In short, waiting could result in a more screen accurate sonic for the purchaser? Sorry if I'm a bit vague.

I'm going to have to disagree with Nick... Richard said that this is something that they're stuck with for the first production run. Like you, I took that to mean a more accurate sonic later. But I also assume from other things he's said that a single production run is probably close to a year. ...Which is a long time to wait for something as small as the angle on the teeth. I'd jump on one now, and if corrected teeth come down the pipe later, buy it and eBay the old one. You'll probably make close to all your money back.

 

[The Barn Owl]

Once more,

Has anyone asked if the Black usb cover was delrin? It looks a bit like hardened rubber in the video…Il have to refer to the blueprint I suppose- excellent feature btw- anyone else impressed slightly at the mostly accurate but inflated sounding explanations? As if the blueprints were tucked behind the psychic paper …"WEll"… on the inside jacket pocket ? Cosplay options?

 

[Richard B]

When Richard says that the ridge teeth, etc., won't be altered on this batch, am I correct in inferring that these could be altered in later runs? In short, waiting could result in a more screen accurate sonic for the purchaser?

Remember, tooling is expensive, so any time they have to retool a part that adds HUGE amounts of cost.

I assume from other things he's said that a single production run is probably close to a year.

Sorry for not being more informative about this earlier. The teeth aren't actually a tooling issue, as they are formed during the CNC machining operations - the only aspects of the aluminium parts that are fixed by tooling (i.e. the extrusion dies) are the longitudinal profile of the struts on the emitter head. Everything else about the aluminium parts is machined after extruding the basic profiles, and it's not expensive or difficult to change the CNC programming. The issue for the first production batch is that we have already ordered all of the aluminium parts for the first production batch, so the supplier for these parts is well underway with their production and asking them to stop and change the design will delay our final assembly and hence delivery to our retailers.

So, the shape of the teeth could indeed be altered in later runs, if and when we do another production run. As Oncoming Storm correctly guessed, we're aiming for the first production batch to last us for about a year – the total time taken to make a batch is around 20 weeks (including the lead-time for the components, which is 12-14 weeks for a couple of the ICs), so it's unfortunately not a case of making a small quantity, seeing how they sell, then making some more. We also have fairly large minimum order quantities for some of the parts (if we want to have them at a decent price). Our first production run for this product is just under half the quantity that we made last year for the 11th Doctor's Sonic remote - we hope that this product will sell well, but there are a few risks, e.g. it's not a "new" idea this time, it's not the current Doctor's sonic, it's a more expensive item, etc.

It's therefore possible that we'll sell out at Christmas and have another production batch ready by the middle of next year, but if it takes much longer than a year for us to sell the first batch, we might never make another one - our BBC licence expires at the end of next year, and they explained to us during a meeting with them yesterday (where they were very happy during a review our 10th Doctor's Sonic) that there's no option just to extend our existing licence for a longer period - we'd have to start the negotiations again from scratch and commit to new up-front payments and minimum guaranteed royalties. I'd like to hope that we'll continue to be a Doctor Who licensee, but it's by no means a certainty - I'm thinking now of the time in the not-too-distant past when Master Replicas lost their licence to make Star Wars lightsabers. (As you can probably tell, I'm the pessimist within The Wand Company team.)

Lastly, even if we do make another production batch, I can't promise that we'll make any changes at all - if, when that time comes, we're up to our eyeballs with developing our next product then we might just do an exact repeat of the first production run, which is much less hassle to organise - one thing we've learned is that almost any change, no matter how simple it seems, nearly always leads to unexpected complications or creates the opportunity for confusion or screw-up somewhere in our supply chain.

Apologies for the rather rambling post - I hope that all makes sense.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[Richard B]

Has anyone asked if the Black usb cover was delrin? It looks a bit like hardened rubber in the video…I'll have to refer to the blueprint I suppose.

Ah, well spotted! The annotations on the X-ray image don't actually specify the material of that part, as we weren't sure what it was going to be made from. It was indeed a material rather like hardened rubber (actually thermoplastic polyurethane or TPU) for the first prototypes - we've changed it to a more conventional harder plastic now, but it almost certainly won't be Delrin - the latest sample parts were moulded in polypropylene, and I think we're going to stick with that - they look and feel much better than the first TPU prototypes. The issue is that it needs to be a bit flexible for the user to be able to snap it on and off the end of the aluminium tail part repeatedly, and polypropylene is good for that sort of thing.

 

[Oncoming Storm]

Richard, thanks for being so forthcoming. As you noted in one of your earlier posts, there's been a lot of drama around this prop, and a lot of that stemmed from licensees making promises they couldn't keep or assuring everyone that things were accurate when they clearly were not. I wasn't a member then, but I've lurked here for the last 13 years on and off, and I've followed it all. It's refreshing that you're up front about the limitations, inaccuracies and compromises. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have to say: It makes me confident that I know what I'll be getting and makes me excited to give you my hard-earned money.

 

[The Barn Owl]

Oh, Ive seen polypropaline used in cold steel sparring weapons…very durable im sure, but how would you say the texture feels in final production? Would milling be possible to the end of the aluminium tube if one wanted to screw on and off a personally supplied delrin cup/end cap? Thoughts on if that could work..? Id like to have an accurate construction material version personally, and sure if im careful I could get that done easily.

 

[Richard B]

Oh, Ive seen polypropaline used in cold steel sparring weapons…very durable im sure, but how would you say the texture feels in final production? Would milling be possible to the end of the aluminium tube if one wanted to screw on and off a personally supplied delrin cup/end cap? Thoughts on if that could work..? Id like to have an accurate construction material version personally, and sure if im careful I could get that done easily.

The polypropylene is likely to look and feel like a slightly more matte texture than the turned Delrin on the original prop - it's similar to the keys on my MacBook (in the areas where they haven't been worn smooth by my fingertips), but not as rough as the keys on my older Dell Inspiron laptop. (I suspect that's not a terribly helpful comparison, but hopefully you get the gist.)

It would certainly be very straightforward to make your own replacement Delrin end cap - you could either turn a thread onto the end of our aluminium tube (which would be a little awkward due to the taper that you can see in our X-ray image) or, simpler still, just make it a push-on fit like our end cap (where it snaps into a groove on the aluminium tube, just in front of the tapered section).

 

[The Barn Owl]

Thanks so much, super helpful. Also, the end cap sounds like it operates like the CO toy's, which im sure the people who have only seen the toy before (Most of the people who would by the remote down the line) would find that extremely simple and effective, as it is.

 

[Richard B]

Richard, thanks for being so forthcoming. It's refreshing that you're up front about the limitations, inaccuracies and compromises.

No problem at all. As I mentioned before, we're not trying to claim that our Sonic will be the most screen-accurate replica of this prop - there are other products out there already that very nicely serve the needs of those who want the ultimate in screen-accuracy and are prepared to pay a bit more for that - so I see no reason not to be open about the limitations of our product. We're just aiming to make a remote control in the shape of a Tenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and to improve on the accuracy compared to the Character Options toy as far as we can within the constraints of the price point (and hence manufacturing cost), the development timescales and fitting the electronics inside. To be honest, when we started the project, I was expecting that we were going to have to make some much bigger compromises to fit everything inside, so the end result is going to be a pretty decent step up in terms of accuracy for the average Character Options toy owner. (I'm expecting that we'll get quite a few complaints from customers telling us that our product is too small and that the screen-used prop was actually the same size as the CO toy, but never mind...)

Thanks so much, super helpful. Also, the end cap sounds like it operates like the CO toy's, which im sure the people who have only seen the toy before (Most of the people who would by the remote down the line) would find that extremely simple and effective, as it is.

Again, no problem - I'm glad it helped.

 

[TimeyWhimyStuff]

(I'm expecting that we'll get quite a few complaints from customers telling us that our product is too small and that the screen-used prop was actually the same size as the CO toy, but never mind...)

Anyone that thinks the actual prop is the same size as the toy is blind.

 

[Muldwych]

Anyone that thinks the actual prop is the same size as the toy is blind.

Yes that particular myth does refuse to die down. Its on on Wikipedia, which to some people, makes it true! Actually, I'm surprised someone has not changed it!