The Mod

The Mod was Comingle’s first product. It was conceived of by myself (Craig Durkin), Paul Clifton and Andrew Quitmeyer. Our vision was to make a line of hackable sex toys (all based on the same software/hardware platform) but ultimately something that people could modify to create fun new forms of interaction. This could be just making your toy vibrate differently, or it could be adding some form of sensor feedback, remotely controlling a toy, or creating new types of toys altogether.

The Mod itself featured 3 motors along its shaft, a user-programmable button, and 2 USB ports: one for charging and code upload, and another for accessing inputs/outputs of the Mod (more detail about this on the Dilduino page). It also was made entirely of silicone, unlike most other sex toys. Common practice in the sex toy industry is to encase all of the toy’s electronics in a hard plastic that is then overmolded with silicone. This is a much easier process, but results overall in a rigid toy that has only a thin soft surface texture.

We raised over $50,000 on Indiegogo to produce the Mod. After over a year, a variety of production issues and a patent troll lawsuit, we were forced to shut down Comingle, shipping only a small fraction of our original orders. This was pretty shitty for everyone.

Early prototypes

Prototype

Early prototypes were based on the Arduino Lilypad USB board. We came up with a 3D-printed holder that would hold the Lilypad, a lithium polymer battery, and a simple PCB for motor control. It had mounting points for buttons and ports for USB access. It was crude, but they occasionally worked. These were a huge pain in the ass to build: we would cast all of the electronic guts in to a “pre dildo” that put things in the right place. From there, we would cast the skin on top of that.

Prototype Prototype

Production version

Mod finished

The final Mod design. We worked with the very talented Blake Pomeroy on creating the design:

Mod concepts

We ultimately came up with the design featured at the top of the page – smoothed out a bit from the concept, with recessed buttons and a thicker shaft to match the average length/girth of a penis.

Internals

We also moved to our own dedicated dedicated electronics, with various daughter boards for buttons/LEDs/USB port breakouts. The motors of these were wrapped in heat-shrink plastic to maintain their relative positions

Mod pre-injection

Varka of Bad Dragon pointed out to us that our manufacturing process was backwards: we shouldn’t be encasing the electronics in silicone and then casting a skin atop that. You should cast the skin first since it’s the thing that needs to be pretty and perfect. If it messes up then you only lose the silicone and not all the electronics and labor. Once you have a good skin, you cast the electronics in that.

So we developed a new process: We made a silicone mold for making skins and a plastic piece (the “gutspacer”) that sat inside of the skin while it was curing so as to form a cavity for electronics insertion. The skin mold sat in a box with registry points to hold it in place and the gutspacer keyed off of those as well.

Mod Skin Mold

Mold for creating skins.

Box for holding the skin mold

Box for holding skin mold + gut spacer and maintaining consistent dimensions

Skins

Completed skins

Skin defect

Thin spot on the skin.

Once we had a good skin, we had to put the electronics in to the skin, line them up, plug their USB ports to prevent silicone from clogging the port, and fill the remaining empty space with silicone. Since silicone has the viscosity of honey, it does not tend to fill small spaces very well without an outside force. Some places will cast under vacuum so as to draw out all air and pull silicone in to every nook. This approach would not work well for the Mod, as it would have clogged the motors, USB ports, and buttons. Instead, we injected silicone in to the bottom of the skin using basically a caulk gun.

Mod pre-injection

The tube with the brass fitting was inserted in to the skin along with the electronics (the white stick that is visible is a USB port protector and orientation guide). We mounted the skin in a supporting box and attached the caulk gun to the tube and began pumping. The silicone would fill the skin from the bottom (the tip of the toy), displacing any air as its level rose. When we had pumped enough to reach the USB ports, the tube could be withdrawn and the mold was weighted to prevent anything from shifting during cure.

5 Mods curing

5 Mod molds precariously curing

Mod post-cure

Mod post-cure.

Mod finished

Finished Mods.

Xmas miracle

A Christmas miracle!