Wright R Mechanism v3
Welcome to Version Control! It’s been a while since I’ve done a version deep dive on a product, but talking in depth about the Wright R mechanism is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
But first, a preamble.
Designing the Wright R has honestly been the single most difficult project I’ve taken on. The level of precision and skill required to perfect the Wright R is orders of magnitudes higher than any previous designs. Failure and major setbacks were practically guaranteed and I’ve certainly had my share.
This Version Control post was originally going to be a deep dive into the modifications made to the Version 2 mechanism in the final run of prototype parts. But—as these things tend to go—the world heard my hubris and waggled its finger.
Like Version 1, Version 2 ultimately didn’t work as intended. I’ll go into that in more depth below, but the important thing is that there’s a Version 3 mechanism and that’s what we’re here to talk about.
Join me on this journey of setbacks, failures, silver linings, and aluminum.
Original Hybrid Mechanism (December 2021)
Version 1
I’ve talked about the downsides of this mechanism elsewhere, but the rough outline is this:
The internal “bolt action” style wasn’t as smooth as I wanted
It didn’t make a satisfying click
Engaging the pen wasn’t intuitive and was confusing to use
Mechanism V2 (July 2022)
Version 2
The July revision was a typical spring-loaded click mechanism. The central plunger—when clicked—would follow a path internally to go from exposing the pen to hiding it.
The main problem was: it almost work. It was closer to the bolt action design above than I originally thought. When you clicked it, the central plunger would need to rotate, which in turn meant the cap would have to rotate as well.
The light amount of friction from your thumb would stop this rotation, causing the pen to mis-click sometimes. You were never sure if you were about to write or not.
Technically there was also a Version 2.5. I received the initial V2 prototype run in June, made some updates that I hoped would fix some problems, then ran a small prototype run of V2.5 in July. I received them in August and realized that I had fixed the problems…it just didn’t make it work better.
Version 3
Unlike the jump from V1 to V2, I didn’t have to reinvent the entire mechanism this time. Generally, Version 3 still functions the same way as Version 2 with one major difference: to click the pen you no longer need to overcome the friction of your thumb.
Let’s look at it a little more in depth:
The Cap Problem
The core problem of the Version 2 design was the cap. When you click most pens, the cap goes down, then back up. With the Version 1 and 2 mechanisms of the Wright R, it went down, rotated 30 degrees, then came back up. That rotation was causing major issues.
The Cap Solution
To solve the cap problem, I couldn’t just tweak the design like the 2.5 revision. I needed to complete redesign the plunger component , which then created a series of cascading changes:
The cap needs to be rotary-locked; it can only go up and down.
Something needs to twist to trace the teeth of the Sleeve (clicking the pen).
Version 2.5 Key
Dark pink: Sleeve; Yellow cylinder: Plunger; Yellow threaded: Screw; Light pink: Cap.
Version 3 Key
Light pink: Toggle; Yellow: Plunger; Dark pink: Sleeve; Pale pink: Cap; Orange: Screw.
Version 3 Changelog:
Removed teeth on Cap and Sleeve that previously attempted to force Cap rotation.
Replaced V2.5 round Plunger with a hexagonal Plunger to rotationally lock Plunger and Cap.
Introduced a new hexagonal channel cut into Sleeve to guide new Plunger.
Plunger now threads into Cap to rotationally lock it when clicking.
Introduced new component: Toggle. The Toggle can freely spin inside the hexagonal Plunger. The Plunger hooks the Toggle into its teeth, then pushes it clear of the Sleeve. When the Cap is retracted, the Toggle is hooked by the Sleeve and “clicks” the pen.
What’s next?
One of the core parameters of redesigning the mechanism was not touching the pen body. I currently have 20 prototype bodies that I’m really happy with, so I didn’t want to pay for remachining.
I’m going through the final manufacturing audit for the new mechanism components and most likely pursuing another run of new mechanism parts. Hopefully, this is the last run of pre-production parts, but I also said that 2 versions ago.
Know when the Wright R is available! I’m still targeting late 2022.