[simpits-tech] Display news...

[Brian Sikkema]

*dances in the street*

:D

Great news, Gene!

I'm very anxious for the Inventor drawings. I imagine I'll be able to 
scale down even your GA version for the Mercury pit. Someday... ;)

Brian

On 1/30/2012 1:11 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:
> A couple of weeks ago I chased down a lead and found a Mylar vendor that
> can supply material up to 124" wide. It's _cheap_. For example, a 100 foot
> roll of .5mil @ 96" wide is roughly $200 shipped.
>
> We've also come up with a way around the patent issue - instead of the
> curved "ears" at the ends of the mirror, it can be more square - something
> shown as "prior-art" in the patent, but a feature we couldn't use because
> we couldn't get Mylar wide enough.
>
> What this means is that we're now open to making plans&  short kits
> available to people.
>
> We're looking at two "reference" designs.
>
> The first would be large enough to accommodate standard GA aircraft right
> around Cessna 152-172 size up to something around a Lear or Cessna
> Citation.
>
> The second would be a "big iron" display that could be used with cockpits
> around the size of the Boeing 737.
>
> If there is enough interest, we'll go ahead and get the design work done
> and I'll build Inventor models so you can see what they'll look like.
>
> However, we're not going to build prototypes for either one of them until
> there is enough commercial interest. This doesn't mean a bunch of folks
> going, "Hey! I'd buy that!", it's some number of people (say 5 for this
> example) willing and able (and actually do!) put down a down payment for a
> short kit.
> We're doing this because building one of these things takes a ton of time
> and effort when you're writing the manual for it at the same time. The
> materials aren't cheap either - the prototypes and kit parts will be in
> 18mm and 12mm Russian Birch - it's a high quality material. It's not the
> kind of endeavor that either one of us can fund ourselves on the hope that
> someone might buy one someday.
>
> A "short kit" is typically parts that most folks can't make themselves -
> all the shaped parts, etc. Any dimensional lumber, fasteners, Mylar,
> projectors, etc. would be supplied by the builder.
>
> We'll also look into providing the vacuum management system - this would
> likely consist of an Arduino Uno style "shield" and the parts to build a
> servo controlled bypass gate similar to what you've seen in our videos.
> Servo not included.
>
> There will definitely be size issues you're going to need to be aware of
> if you're going to build one of these. Our single-seat version is a tight
> fit in a room with a 9' ceiling. You can just about be guaranteed that the
> GA display is going to be bigger than that and I shudder to think how much
> shop space that 7x7 display is going to eat up.
>
> Because of the size&  scope of this thing, don't expect any concrete
> results out of us until April-ish.
>
> I'm going to re-post this to various places in order to make sure the
> folks that are interested see it.
>
> Thanks all!
>
> g.
>