[NewCandle] Schlicher 'drive'

[Kyle R. Mcallister]

John Steck wrote:
> Kyle,
> I will work with you to develop a new unit...  are you a 'start cutting 
> pieces and fit them together as you go along and document later' kind or 
> a 'engineer the crap out of it with calculations, simulations, drawings, 
> etc. before you begin cutting' kind of person?  I ask only because of 
> the inherent conflicts when mixing nuts 8^).  I fit in the latter 
> category, BTW.

I can do either or, it doesn't matter. I'd prefer a healthy mix of 
design phase vs. construction phase. I'm a bit better at the building 
aspect of it, so if you can help in the design phase, that'd be excellent.

> First thing I would like to do is 100% reverse engineer what you have as 
> the baseline.  Once we have that modeled up (in the computer), we can 
> interrogate the configuration and see what elements should be tune-able 
> so that we can do some high level DOE.  From there we can generate a 
> scale model that incorporates those adjustable elements and then start 
> building it.  Don't sweat the funding... I am a very resourceful 
> scrounger with a bag full of favors I can call in any time.  Lets see 
> what we need and we can go from there.  Once we have a good test 
> platform to work with, it should be fairly straight forward to isolate 
> the key elements of the design and determine the sweet spots that 
> generate the greatest output effects.

Alright, let me know what you need. In the mean time, I'm going to go 
dig out the patent papers I have, and try and figure out a few things. 
I'll let you know what I find.

> What is your comfort level taking dimensions and generating sketches?  
> Feed the info to me and I can build it on my end in 3D and generate some 
> 2D prints.  We can trade info back and forth until we get it right.  
> Worse case, you loan me the unit and I bang it out in a couple days (I 
> do consulting work like this from time to time so it's not a big deal).  
> Being a unique item, my preference is to not risk the item shipping to 
> me however. It's your call.

I can probably measure and draw it fairly well. Again, let me know what 
information you specifically need to get started, and I'll start taking 
measurements.

> I'm in if you are game to try.

Absolutely, this is great fun.

--Kyle