Simrad WP30 Belt Tension

[Richard19068]

Please let me know if you are interested in one of these or go to our website and respond.

Cheers,
Rick
i3DGear Marine

Thanks.

I'll likely be in touch.

 

[dLj]

This is Rick from i3DGear Marine. As Brian (SabreToothedEngineer) has already pointed out, we are almost finished designing the new V groove ring and new rollers. It is made of a tough, slightly ductile, plastic - the ductility is important to increase its strength by not being brittle. This plastic is non hygroscopic - meaning it does not absorb water - important for marine parts.
Cheers,
Rick
i3DGear Marine

So Rick, what is the plastic you have chosen?

dj

 

[i3DGear]

So Rick, what is the plastic you have chosen?

dj

I'm sorry, that's proprietary information and makes it too easy for somebody to copy what we've done. I will likely have put 100 hours of engineering into this part, which includes re-engineering it to remedy the Simrad flawed design, choosing better materials, testing, making installation instructions/videos, marketing information etc - and in the end, we might sell a few dozen of these ever. Pretty hard to make a profit re-engineering and selling parts for obsolete autopilots. That's why I do this as a retirement business so I can donate my engineering time and don't really care if it makes money. I do it to reduce equipment waste. That said, I do not need some person to take all my engineering design changes for free, including my material choice, and start printing them and under cutting my price. I hope you understand, if that happens, it makes my business untenable and I'll just stop doing it. The plastic we are using is one of the strongest plastics available for 3D printing. It is very slightly ductile, which increases its strength even more. And, it is smooth and abrasion resistant making it good for wear surfaces. I use this on all of our running parts which need those properties and it's been very successful in over 7 years of practice.

I’m being very open on this forum with the design. But if the thread doesn’t value my requirements for making this at least a tiny bit beneficial for me by respecting the intellectual property I’m generating, then I will honestly drop this like a hot potato. I have dozens of these types of design projects on the go. I’m the only person in the world putting this kind of effort into this and I’d like to be able to continue. Being a sailor, retired engineer, not in need of money, and an expert in 3D printing puts me in a unique position to be able to do this.

 

[dLj]

You got me wrong. I fully support what you are doing and sincerely hope you make a good business out of it. One of the strongest plastics I'm aware of currently being 3D printed is PEEK. But I would doubt you are using that as it is very expensive. Plus the machines capable of printing that material are not for the feint of heart...

dj