Oh my gosh! Tomorrow there are three packages already stamped up and going out the door and at this very moment there are NO pending orders. Woman and man alive! I’ve got to think FAST. Maybe this is my chance to escape. Fake my own death. SOMETHING! Ack! RUN!
Just kidding 🙂 Well… the bit about being all caught up is true. Maybe I’ll take a break and go for a walk tomorrow. (pleasant sigh) .. sounds nice.
But that’s not what I really wanted to talk about today. As is usually the case, when Ranger undergoes changes and improvements, inevitably, something unexpected and often unpleasant happens. In 2016 when the wood material was first introduced it became evident over time that it could not retain tension. The solution? Introduce a second more tensile-friendly material. In 2017, spring-loaded feet were introduced. And worked well until reports started coming in from customers explaining that feet were SHOOTING from the ankle like a pointless superpower. “Take that evil overlord. kaPOW! – oh no, I can’t walk anymore”
I’m happy to report this has been fixed now. And in the process the foot has been improved even further.
The spring was added to create upward pressure against the ankle. Before this, the ankle was only getting pressure from the left and the right side of the foot, but with the spring, it got tension from below giving it enough pressure to withstand more weight. Only problem was, that if the ankle joint stemming from the tibia didn’t have enough roundness, it would slip out. The amount of roundness needed was sufficiently subtle to become a problem through mere variability in the 3d printing process. In other words, the design was not “repeatable” given the manufacturing method being used. So while it may have worked well initially, the design requirement was so subtle, that inevitably there’d be an ankle flinging into open air if the circumstance was right.
This was further exasperated by the fact that the foot design had a wall on the front of the ankle preventing it from dorsiflexing very far such that if the customer rotated the foot beyond where it was intended, it would pop off. So now, both of these issues have been solved and this picture shows it best:
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Thanks everyone! Whoever places an order next will be first on my list 🙂
cheers
Paul
Armature Nine Blog 