Hey! This is neat to see people interested in it!
Jools eluded to it in his blog post, but by the time he had received his prototype (shipping to him takes a lot of time), I had already received a decent amount of feedback from beta testers about their concerns and legitimate issues they found. So indeed, there will be another prototype version that needs to go through another round of beta testing. <-- more on the new version at the end of this post
Know Legitimate Issues:
-- The increased power of the new motor/controller combo means that if your connecting it to a pad with a valve on its side (like therm-a-rest pads) it can now suck in your groundsheet or tent floor on accident and poke holes in it with the fan blade spinning.
-- The clips that connect to controller housing to the top of the inflator are to weak and have broken on one tester already
Areas of Common Concern:
-- The housing feels to weak and needs to be made more stiff. Currently, it was designed to be compliant because I thought warping was better than breaking. But it turns out warping is just annoying, you have to squeeze the unit back into its circular shape from time to time if it gets squashed in your back.Most beta testers agree that they would like to see something more stiff.
-- Most of the beta testers also think the wires that the controller dangles from seem to weak and are a likely point of failure for anyone doing a through hike with it.
-- The general layout and design is finicky/fiddley for a lack of better words. The process of unmounting the controller, connecting everything, making sure the wires aren't tangled... it's just a pleasant experience. It's not a terrible one, but it also not pleasant.
Fixings the issues
Originally I had planned to fix the stiffness and wire issues with a simple change in material and adding some kind of wire loom to the motor cable as mentioned by Jools in his blog post.
But then I came to the realization that these solutions are ultimately just boot-strapping a bad design to work slightly better. So I spent my uni spring break working on a simple yet objectively better layout and dhousing design.
Motor Cable Issue Fix:
The solution here was simple in my mind, just dont leave it exposed like I have been doing on all my previous versions. With it being routed through the interior, its protected from any long term mechanical wear and tear.
Ducting Rigidity Fix:
This one was a little trickier to solve, even went down the generative design rabbit hole. But without boring everyone with the details, I was able to reduce deflection by over an order of magnitude without having to change to the more expensive glass filled material I was contemplating doing.
And another picture showing 26lbs (11.7kg) of force until noticeable deflection and another picture showing its ability to rebound back to chape afterwards.
Exposed Fan Blade Fix:
The fan blade being exposed was both a danger to injury (it spins that fats on the highest mode) and to gear (as some poor beta tester found out). So I designed a simple snap-in grid that adds rigidity and acts as a barrier to the blade. The grid can be removed for you microgram weenies out there.
outdoorvitals.com
