December update

/

Holiday Shipping

Please note that during the next few weeks the shipping schedule may be modified a little — we normally ship all orders on Tuesdays, but during the holidays we may slip a day or two sometimes, but will also be shipping more than once a week whenever possible to try to get orders out in time for the holidays. All the shipping services seem to be struggling lately so please be patient.

New Product Development

About 4 months ago I did a “deep dive” into the Strum Fix Plus 3 (SFP3) design to improve its reliability and make it easier to build and less likely to have alignment or other issues. The biggest change was to start making more parts using the SLA resin printing process which can make strong parts with extreme precision. This has been quite successful and I’m happy to report that the SFP3 is now very reliable.

In the past I avoided SLA printing for production parts because the parts were too brittle, but there are resins available now which are easy to work with and are incredibly strong. Knowing this I decided to re-think the strum fix design with the idea of using SLA printing from the start. This means I can attempt to make things that just aren’t feasible using “normal” FDM 3D printing processes (plastic filament printing).

So for the past couple months I’ve been working on a new version of the Strum Fix, the Strum Fix Plus 4. I’m currently sending out pre-production units to beta testers to get some feedback, and if it goes well the Strum Fix Plus 4 should be available in January of ‘24.

The main features of the Strum Fix Plus 4 are:

  • LED lights that illuminate the translucent strum bar when you strum. There are 2 LEDs - one that lights up when you strum up, the other when you strum down.

  • Long-life mechanical keyboard switches for reliability and feel.

  • Very positive “return to center” spring action. Snaps back to center without “overstrumming” (accidentally activating a strum in the other direction).

  • Shorter travel than the SFP3, but a little longer than the SFP2.

  • Integrated hard stops to prevent the strummer getting stuck in the up or down position.

  • Replaceable batteries (used to power the LEDs) — accessible from the front, you don’t have to open up the guitar to replace the batteries.

I’ll make more details available soon. This is not the only new product in the pipeline, so keep an eye on this space!

Best regards,
Scott P (owner, Byte Arts)