Manufacturing goals
Manufacturing things ethically in a globalized world on the verge of climate collapse is a difficult thing. Some companies label their products "sustainable", "carbon nuetral", or "ethically sourced", but the meaning of those terms is opaque and untrustworthy. Rather than claiming something like that, we've decided to provide a summary of the techincal details of the materials and labour that go into making Lore. As a small manufacturer, we don't have a lot of buying power, so we're forced to stay on the beaten path more often than we would like - but a great deal of care and thought went into the makeup of this product, and we hope it shows. This summary is likely to change over time - we will endeavor to keep this page up to date, and revise as our processes improve.
• Country of origin
Every Lore is made with care in our workshop in Vancouver, Canada. But "made" can mean a lot of things. We did not mine the metal or cut down the trees that were used to make these instruments. By our accounting, weighted using the cost of parts and labour, each Lore was made:
- 66% Vancouver, Canada
- 23% Shenzhen, China
- 8% China / Unknown1
- 3% the Netherlands
1 Many of the components we use are made by companies with factories in different countries, and they do not make public which specific factories make each component. Since these components arrive to us via China, our assumption is that is their country of origin.
• Labour
Our goal is to source our parts and materials from places where human rights are respected, and labour protections are strong. However, most of what we need is only available from places where we can't verify if they meet that criteria, or if they are available elsewhere they are prohibitively expensive to meet our goal of an accessibly priced instrument. We are actively seeking to improve this. If you have suggestions for better sources or alternative parts and materials, please let us know! hello@crowselectromusic.com.
• Bioplastic
Bioplastic is plastic derived from biological processes, rather than fossil fuel extraction. Lore is made with a mixture of PLA and PHA. PLA is a commonly used 3D printing material, made from fermented plant (usually corn) starch. PLA's major drawback is that it needs to be industrially composted to biodegrade without releasing methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than co2). PHA is a less commonly used bioplastic, made from bacterially fermented sugars. The advantage of PHA over PLA, is that it can be home-composted. When combined, we lose the home-compostability, but the material properties of PHA alone were not suitable for making Lore's enclosure. Our hope is that by using a PHA/PLA mixture we are helping to raise the profile and prove market demand for this newer material. PLA is a step away from fossil fuels, but home-compostability should be the ultimate goal for any sustainable plastics use.
• Assembly details
- Circuit boards are printed in Shenzhen, China.
- Surface-mount electrical components are placed on the circuit board by robots operated by humans, and reflowed in ovens in Shenzhen, China.
- Through-hole electrical components are hand-placed and hand-soldered in our workshop in Vancouver, Canada.
- The bioplastic enclosure is 3D printed in our workshop in Vancouver, Canada.
- Each Lore is then hand-assembled from all of the pieces mentioned above, tested, packaged, and shipped, all from our workshop in Vancouver, Canada.
• Climate impact
The actual climate impact of anything even slighty complex is nearly impossible to calculate. As an example: our company will never be able to determine how far the sand for the semiconducters we've used traveled before being turned into chips, or if it was moved by trains or trucks. Even something like how far the workers commuted to the factory that made a part matters if you want to actually know the impact of something. Operating at the scale we are, we can't make many choices on hard data - but when we can, we do. While putting a specific number on it may not be possible, we can say that we believe that the climate impact of Lore is quite small, as long as it is used and loved.
• Materials composition
The matrials composition of every component isn't something we can perfectly gather, since parts manufacturers aren't legally required to disclose that information, and we're not a big enough customer to require them to disclose voluntarily. When we can't know, we make an educated guess. By our accounting each Lore contains:
- 0g of lead - all parts and solder are RoHS certified lead-free.
- TODO: 46g of FR4 (fiberglass and resin epoxy)
- TODO: 29g of other metals
- TODO: 17g of plastic
- TODO: 4g of solder (paste and flux-core, all lead-free)
- TODO: >0.5g of glass
- a very small amount of other materials (silicon, precious metals, ceramics etc.)
Service & repairs
Power
Lore is powered by it's USB-C power port. It uses about TODO mA of power at 5V.
Lore does not contain a battery, but it can run off a standard USB powerbank, like one that you might use to charge your phone. Every battery pack is different, but it can run for just under TODO: 5 days straight off a basic 5000 mAh battery pack.
Changelog
In the interest of transparency, as this document changes - ideally because we've improved things - changes will be noted here:
- November 3rd, 2024: initial outline is complete. Still missing a bunch of data (weights for materials, power consumption).