cool_hardware52:
Experience can be a wonderful thing, it can also impeed the introduction of new ideas. It cuts both ways. Experience can mean avoiding some mistakes (if you learned from the first time around) , but it can result in a "that's just the way it's always been done attitude"
Patrick:
I agree and that is why I take the time to test it and get input from people I respect in diving as well as the end consumer. I have yet to launch a poorly received product and hopefully will continue that trend.
We also produce prototypes of all our goods, and I want feedback from a range of users. Our goods to date have been well recieved.
Patrick:
We agree on control and R&D. There are trade offs for production inside. I don't sew and don't see myself doing it or managing others that do. I am able to keep my costs lower and get the quality that I want.
How do you do any R & D in house without the means, or the ability to sew or RF weld?
cool_hardware52:
Patrick:
When you get close to that amount, we could start a new thread.
I doubt I ever will even approach that number of wings. At times I wonder if I need 6. Can you detail the specific different applications for each of the 16 different wings you currently produce?
cool_hardware52:
Having pretty much all the processes in house allows us to make prototypes quickly, and permits an iterative design process. Additionally, but just as importantly, I don't ever have to try and communicate my ideas to someone else, they just rattle around in my head.
Patrick:
Even though it is nice to have the ability to make something in a few hours, I cannot think of any time I could have used that option. The long time for me is really testing the prototypes. Two or four weeks is a short time frame when I look at the whole picture.
Being able to produce prototypes quickly allows for more "what ifs" The analogy I like is using a spreadsheet vs a tabular pad and pencil. I can look at far more combinations. I can test maybe a portion of an idea, and make changes on the fly, etc. That's what I meant when I said iterative design process. If you can quickly, and at fairly low cost, have test goods ready it makes "pushing the envelope" less risky. I try lots of things, some work, some don't, all teach. If I had to pay outside firms to do this I know I try many fewer.
cool_hardware52:
Why?, If so who will have the income to go diving?
Patrick:
China has state of the art equipment, low wages and a lot of people.
All true, but consider Europe. The United States did to Europe what China is doing to the US, we just did it in the early 1900's. Europe didn't "go out of business" , they changed and adapted. I'm optomistic that the nimble will survive. If we abdicate, and send all production to China the outcome will be grim.
cool_hardware52:
Here again you contradict yourself in the same sentence. If your zipper is a straight line "in the flat", then both sides of the zipper are the same lenght. If both sides of the zipper are the same lenght, then the zipper section has to be a straight walled vertical section. This is not my opinion, this is dictated by geometry.
Patrick:
I see no contradiction. The gusset is a flat piece and the zipper is part of the gussett. It is a straight wall.
This is exactly what I have been saying, zippers need a straight wall.
Pat the words below are yours, taken from an earlier post. It appears that you are challenging my contention that zippers need two sides of equal lenght, and that there is no problem installing a zipper in a section that does not have vertical walls.
Patrick:
I don't think I am the only company that has been able to figure out how to install a zipper on curves.
Don't you have a zipper on the top of your single wings? Is that on any curve or did you place it on the side of the wing where it is straight?
Not quite sure why you have difficulty with it. You are talking theory and I am talking reality. It has been done and was done long before me.
If you were correct about the race track theory then I guess someone ought to tell all the luggage manufacturers out there that their zippers do not work. In the luggage zipper, it really makes some radical right angle turns.
You still see no contradiction in your two diametrically opposed positions?
Patrick:
I thought I read one of your previous threads where you stated that zippers interfere with the cylinder. I know it was not in this thread.
Show me
Patrick:
Tobin, I am happy to see you stay with U wings. I have them in doubles versions. However, the gas does shift easier from one side to another when you are rotating and you also can make a smaller wing profile by taking advantage of a 360 loop. Ask the guys that crawl into bug holes or those that have to maneuver in a cave and ask them if there is a difference. The gas shifts more quickly and it appears seemless.
Should I take this to mean you agree that one of the main adavantages of a donut wing is the resultant narrower profile? Donut wings are
one means of achieving a narrower profile, but not the only means. Look at the center panel of your singles wings. Measure the width of the center panel, by this I mean the portion that does no inflate. I'd guess from the photos that it is about 7-8 inches wide. Ours are just over 3 inches wide. That means by using the volume avaiable right down to where the tank contacts the plate we can make our wings very very narrrow in profile also. More than one way to skin a cat.
cool_hardware52:
You may not believe this but I really don't see Oxycheq, Halcyon, DiveRite, OMS, DeepOutdoors, Zeagle, etc. as my main competitors. I see the Xbox360, Golf, Backpacking, and the high cost of fuel as my competition.
Patrick:
Ya I bet you can, I'll stick with earthquakes.
Tobin
