acorn Posted December 16, 2014 Author Share Posted December 16, 2014 At this point I am definitely interested in feedback to see what people are interested in feature wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared Goguen Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 You could also take pre-orders. That would give you a good idea of just how many people really want them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acorn Posted December 16, 2014 Author Share Posted December 16, 2014 You could also take pre-orders. That would give you a good idea of just how many people really want them. As soon as I finish the tooling and prints to get quotes for some of the machining in order to speed up build time, I was planning to. But you are right at this point I don't know if 5 people would want them or a hundred. Obviously differences in volume is going to change pricing and if there is enough interest I would be having springs made vs reusing existing BB gripper springs which I have had to do on the prototypes. I plan to serialize the first 100 in each size as well in case collectors are interested. - Aaron 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobsterone Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Cool maybe there should be a green light! How does it work? Tested a green light and it was not as visible in daylight conditions. The red was higher contrast so I went with it. It looks orange in the vid, but it is really a nice bright red. I would rather not go into specifics on how it works publicly at this time. Would hate to see a Baraban or other copy in a week after spending 5 years and at least a couple thousand out of pocket in R&D material costs alone not to mention time. I will say it is reasonably high tech though and there are electronics in the handle. - Aaron So true... oh look my version of the Ivanko... Vulcan... whathaveyou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobsterone Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 I received as a gift last night a calibrated gripper with an adjustable set stop and a red signal light when desired poundage is met. We ,as inventors are about 70-80 years late. Thing is a piece of art and proudly cast into the frame"23 patents in 23 countries" it is super cool. I guess patents are expired but not good imagination is not . Very cool. Yes I researched the patents on the design and found quite a few. I could probably still get one or 2 for the improvements but the hassle may not be worth it. Still thinking on it. Gonna likely make a few of them though. - Aaron It's not a unique idea in and of itself. It may well have been you I read talking about it years ago but, as far as I know, patents aside, no ones made any. A thought or two: 1) Rather than make single expensive grippers which light up etc etc why not think up something which can be added to ANY similar TSG style gripper (a collar of sorts). A small premium on price over the mark up on single grippers That's long term useful but unless you adapt grippers sent in they only get to buy grippers from you and I can see customers wanting these kind of grippers on those we can certs on. 2) I have been closing grippers in such a way that I can see the ends but many do not (hence the proliferation of YT vids) and, IIRC, back when this first came up it'd be cool to see it on a screen, light box etc. 3) Maybe license the idea (nice fat fee upfront) to gripper companies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobsterone Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 So based on the response it looks like you guys liked it. I will keep working on it and make the tooling needed to make these faster. This first finished prototype took me about 4 weeks of spare time as many of the operations were still being figured out and do not have tooling yet to make them efficient. The basic design and all the electronics were already figured out though. Lots of time with a file and remaking parts that didn't play out the way I liked. Thankfully I was able to get the indicator lens design figured out as that is what caused me to stop working on it a couple years back. Just not enough room to get full light expansion. I did finally have an idea this time around that worked for that though and here we are. The whole electronics module including batteries is about 29mm long or 1.15" in order to keep as much structural integrity in the handle as possible. Batteries take up about half that length. If I can get the time to make one done to a reasonable amount it might actually be relatively reasonably priced. Still more than the custom MM grippers though I'm sure partially because of additional parts / materials but mostly due to time to fabricate and assemble. Another option would be something Vulcan like or modified Vulcan with light up handle as well. - Aaron Obviously, given your own comments on copies etc subject to David's agreement?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acorn Posted December 16, 2014 Author Share Posted December 16, 2014 (edited) So based on the response it looks like you guys liked it. I will keep working on it and make the tooling needed to make these faster. This first finished prototype took me about 4 weeks of spare time as many of the operations were still being figured out and do not have tooling yet to make them efficient. The basic design and all the electronics were already figured out though. Lots of time with a file and remaking parts that didn't play out the way I liked. Thankfully I was able to get the indicator lens design figured out as that is what caused me to stop working on it a couple years back. Just not enough room to get full light expansion. I did finally have an idea this time around that worked for that though and here we are. The whole electronics module including batteries is about 29mm long or 1.15" in order to keep as much structural integrity in the handle as possible. Batteries take up about half that length. If I can get the time to make one done to a reasonable amount it might actually be relatively reasonably priced. Still more than the custom MM grippers though I'm sure partially because of additional parts / materials but mostly due to time to fabricate and assemble. Another option would be something Vulcan like or modified Vulcan with light up handle as well. - Aaron Obviously, given your own comments on copies etc subject to David's agreement?? Obviously. I would not make a Vulcan knockoff without his blessing. I may make something completely different though that does not use an extension spring nor look at all like the Vulcan. I briefly discussed the possibility of doing factory modified Vulcans with him a few years back with this modification when I was very early in the development. He was not interested at that time. - Aaron Edited December 16, 2014 by acorn 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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