jim_s

Not sure what you don't like about the holes, but it looks great to me! I suppose the other thing you could do is figure out the common volume between the top and bottom plates, then hollow that area out underneath (leaving some wall/roof thickness), leaving material around the screw holes, and a few webs spanning the length and width. (This is similar to what I did on the underside of the F2 pieces, but my job was simpler, as there was no twist, and the top and bottom are also the same size!) From the printing perspective, its probably not as much a lightening thing, as a time-and-materials-saving thing.

Nice!! That came out looking super! I agree that the sides look perfectly fine - also important to bear in mind this will be buried beneath a binding. :-) Sounds like the angle issue won't really be an issue at all - its definitely happening at the outer envelope of what anyone would reasonably expect to generate, and it can be compensated for by setting a larger height param. (I like your approach to applying the height to the middle - that'l really help in figuring out the range of bolt lengths you need.) Yeah, things often (usually) don't come out quite as 'pretty' in OpenSCAD, but for me, aesthetics are typically low on the list of design priorities, and the easy ability to customize the resulting model - even by people who don't know OpenSCAD - is where it really shines. Additionally, my mind just is not of the visual CAD mindset - managing planes, dragging things around, etc, is just not a natural fit. (That having been said, I think I like Onshape best of the ones I've tried in a while...) Holler if you need any help on anything, but it looks like you've got it fully in hand - really nice work, and I bet you'll help a lot of people out with it!

BTW, @erazz - there still seems to be a problem w/ the translation/rotation order - try setting a lift angle of 8 or more degrees, or a cant angle of 10 or more degrees. (These may be outside the range of any values that anyone would ever set this to, I don't know. Might be worth noting though, if its possible people might use such angels.) The original model doesn't seem to have this problem, but you noted there were some unanticipated induced angles in the original - so just a question of which approach fits the real-world need better. This is much of the fun of parametric design, eh? :-)

false alarm post about smoother body - more work needs to be done <:-)

Makes sense! You could potentially include the cant, lift and twist values in lettering on the top of the plate - I'm doing that on my F2 shims, and it definitely helps keep them straight, when you've printed a variety of them. I played around a bit with a slightly more conservative approach to the body construction last night - it doesn't really end up being any faster, but it does seem to provide more smoothness on the sides, for the same amount of time. I'll mess with it a little more this evening, and shoot you a version, if I get it working well. You may like it better, or you may not - the transition to the sides from the top and bottom plates aren't quite as organic looking. Turns out the Thingiverse Customizer has been having this library problem for a week or so (lots of posts on it on the Thingiverse forums) - hopefully they'll get it fixed soon!

You're right, but there certainly is some beauty in smooth, organic curves. :-) 20 layers looks like a pretty good compromise, though - its pretty darned smooth, looks nice, and rendered for me (locally) in 4:40. (There's something up w/ Customizer on Thingiverse - when I try to run it there, it throws an error, saying it can't find libCGAL.so, which is the graphics library that does the full-on rendering. I'm assuming that somebody has already alerted Thingiverse, but it its not fixed in the AM, I'll try to figure out how to let them know, just in case.) Ooh, good find - Thanks!!! I definitely had not noticed that - really glad you pointed that out, as I'm likely to use that approach again sometime, so will be sure to pay better attention to that order. Your plates look great - I'm impressed with how fast you've jumped into OpenSCAD and gotten a really nice result out of it! (You need to make your little arrow on top, though - that looks really cool. :-) If I understand the binding setup correctly, you run the bolt through the binding, then through this plate - if that's correct, countersinking the top of the screw holes isn't important from a screw head perspective, but from a 'getting the daggone bolt to go into the hole' perspective, it might be helpful. You could just diff out a little inverted cone around the top edges, such as I've done here: (its a kludge of an attempt, that I just threw together to illustrate, so I'm embarrassed to even post the code as it currently is, LoL :-)

Ok, so, I was a bit irresponsible in how I handled the sub-plates (ie, that created by the component_plates() module), as well as with $fn values - as I noted, I did minimal testing on the little demo - I should have worked things through further, and optimized them more. As a little background, OpenSCAD uses two different engines for the 'preview' and the actual 'render' operations. (Preview being what you see when you hit 'F5' or the '>>' button on the screen. Render being when you hit 'F6', or the hourglass or 'STL' button on the screen.) The preview engine is fast and dirty, and skips some details along the way, to produce decent output as quickly as it can. (terms like 'fast', 'quick' and 'time' frequently have somewhat dubious meanings in OpenSCAD, under the best of conditions...) The full-on render is much more detailed and thorough, so things that appear in a reasonable time in the preview mode, can sometimes take inordinate amounts of time in the full-on render mode, as you've seen. Some common ways of reducing render time are to #1 reduce the complexity of the model, and #2 to reduce the number of faces that things like curves and spheres require - this can be particularly critical when using the minkowski() operator. I tromped all over item #1 - in muddy boots - in how I built up the body using the sub-plates - consider that each sub-plate is 2*end_rad thick, and I'm stacking 'steps' number of them together to make up the height of the body, when in reality, I really only need height/(2*end_rad) of them to do the job - so, there's a LOT of stuff being rendered there that doesn't really need to be rendered - its just all overlapping over/inside each other, to no end effect but multiplying time (it is providing a nice, smooth surface on the sides, but at a high cost in time). One way to combat that is to reduce the 'steps' param - taking it down to a value like 10 will dramatically decrease the time it takes to render - the down-side is, it'll have a bumpier surface, as we're still getting the edges made up of spheres of radius end_rad. That can be fixed by using a reasonable number of thinner, non-minkowski, plates between the top and bottom plates, and stacking them vs overlapping them, so we get the nice curved edges on top and bottom, but construct things without the inefficient overlaps. But, for the sake of sanity, try reducing 'steps' to 10; it should render in a matter of a few minutes on a decent machine, with that change alone. (could be 4-5 minutes, depending on your machine.) I'll play further with improving that process. Item #2 is where the $fn system parameter comes into play. (There are two lower-level params, $fa and $fs, that are calculated from $fn, and that can sometimes provide better performance if set directly, vs via $fn, so those bear playing with a bit, too.) So, to start with, my $fn choices were made without responsible consideration of actual render efficiency. (They'll give *great* results, but you'll need to wait *great* amounts of time for them.) Setting $fn=12 before the minkowski() call should speed things up considerably, and fiddling with $fa and $fs, vs clobbering them by setting $fn, might yield even better results. I'll play around with those a bit, and see if there's a sweet spot, but to start with, I'd add "$fn=12;" on the line before the minkowski() call in the component_plate() module. I'd also either remove or reduce the $fn=45 param passed to the 'sphere()' command at the end - stipulating 45 faces to make a tiny sphere was a pretty grossly inefficient choice on my part. So, below are the changes I've discussed above (reducing 'steps', reducing '$fn', and its rendering for me in about 90 seconds. Its got a bumpy side surface, but we can work that out. (You can also increase 'steps', just realize that it'll come at the cost of time.) Anyway, this is a solvable problem! :-) Nice job on the approach to the lightening holes, BTW - you're totally getting the 'OpenSCAD Way' of things!! len = 245; //total length wid = 120; //base width (twist will result in wider overall dimensions) edge_rad = 4; //edge radius of top and bottom surfaces ht = 23; //minimum height (cant and/or lift will result in taller overall height) - NOTE: ht must be >= 2*edge_rad twist = 27; //degrees of twist cant = -3; //degrees of cant - this simple demo only supports positive (leftward) cant lift = 0; //degrees of lift - this simple demo only supports positive (heel) lift screw_size = 6.25; //screw hole size lightening_hole_spacing = 10; // spacing between lightening holes lightening_hole_size = 35; //self explanatory steps = 10; //smoothness factor - more steps = smoother sides //this adjusts the total height, to take into account height added due to the edge radius - shouldn't be changed by user adj_ht = ht - 2*edge_rad; sh_rad = screw_size / 2; // screw hole radius lh_size = ((wid-40)/4)-7; // lightening hole size lhz = lightening_hole_size / 2; //call the plate module to initiate the render difference() { plate(); //center lightening hole cylinder(h=100,r=lhz, center=true); //screw holes translate([20,20,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=sh_rad,center=true); translate([20,-20,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=sh_rad,center=true); translate([-20,20,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=sh_rad,center=true); translate([-20,-20,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=sh_rad,center=true); //lightening holes for (i=[0,180]) rotate(i) lightening_holes(); } module lightening_holes() { translate([0,(wid/2+18)/2,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=lh_size,center=true); rotate([0,0,twist/2]) { translate([len/2 - lhz - lightening_hole_spacing*2,0,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=lhz,center=true); translate([len/2 - lhz*2 - lightening_hole_spacing*4,lhz + lightening_hole_spacing/2,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=lhz,center=true); translate([len/2 - lhz*2 - lightening_hole_spacing*4,-lhz - lightening_hole_spacing/2,0]) cylinder(h=100,r=lhz,center=true); } } //because OpenSCAD performs all rotations around the X, Y and Z axes, it is necessary to move the geometry to // proper relative position wrt X, Y and Z. Cant and Lift will be rotated wrt X and Y axes, respectively, so // for Cant and Lift rotations, the geometry should be aligned with X and Y axes //for Tiwst rotation, because this needs to be around the center of the plate, the geometry must be centered // on the Z axis, which requires moving the piece so it is centered at Z, rotating around Z, then moving it // back to where it needs to be (it needs to be in a different position for Z rotation than for X and Y rotation...) module plate() { lift_rot_shift = lift>0?-1:1; cant_rot_shift = cant>0?-1:1; //translate([len/2, wid/2 + (len - wid)/2 * tan(abs(twist)), edge_rad]) for (s = [0:1:steps-1]) { translate([0, 0, adj_ht/steps * s]) rotate([0, 0, twist/steps * s]) translate([lift_rot_shift*len/2, cant_rot_shift*wid/2, 0]) rotate([cant/steps * s, -lift/steps * s, 0]) translate([-lift_rot_shift*len/2, -cant_rot_shift*wid/2, 0]) component_plate(); } } //generate a plate of the desired length and width, with a thicness of 2*edge_rad (this how minkowski() works) // minnkowski operation here is cheap/quick, as its applied to a very thin piece of geometry //$fn value should be high on the end radii, for smooth side surfaces on the end module component_plate() { $fn=12; minkowski() { hull() { //note the adjustment for edge_rad contribution to X and Y that will be added back by minkowski() translate([-len/2 + wid/2, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=wid/2 - edge_rad, h=.001, $fn=120); translate([len/2 - wid/2, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=wid/2 - edge_rad, h=.001, $fn=120); } sphere(r=edge_rad); } }

see if this version of the plate() module fixes the cant and lift direction limitation - now it should handle negative lift and/or cant values, and do the right thing, I think. (Note... very minimal testing was done...) module plate() { lift_rot_shift = lift>0?-1:1; cant_rot_shift = cant>0?-1:1; translate([len/2, wid/2 + (len - wid)/2 * tan(abs(twist)), edge_rad]) for (s = [0:1:steps-1]) { translate([0, 0, adj_ht/steps * s]) rotate([0, 0, twist/steps * s]) translate([lift_rot_shift*len/2, cant_rot_shift*wid/2, 0]) rotate([cant/steps * s, -lift/steps * s, 0]) translate([-lift_rot_shift*len/2, -cant_rot_shift*wid/2, 0]) component_plate(); } }

BTW, you can bump up the $fn on the sphere in the minkowski operation a fair bit - something like $fn=60 will add a few seconds to the render, but end with much smoother edges. ($fn=45 might even be a good compromise between smoothness and speed) ex - just adding "$fn=60" to the sphere command module component_plate() { minkowski() { hull() { //note the adjustment for edge_rad contribution to X and Y that will be added back by minkowski() translate([-len/2 + wid/2, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=wid/2 - edge_rad, h=.001, $fn=120); translate([len/2 - wid/2, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=wid/2 - edge_rad, h=.001, $fn=120); } sphere(r=edge_rad, $fn=60); //<<== $fn=60 added here } }

I hope it helps! :-) A great deal of things are done in OpenSCAD rather counterintuitive to how one initially thinks its going to happen - like, just about every single thing I design, at least... :-) Sometimes its just 'an OpenSCAD thing', and sometimes - like this one - its because the 'standard' way ends up being gawdawful to render. (I tried 3 different approaches - 2 sort of 'standard' approaches, each w/ their own issues (one of which is *still* trying to render), then this sort of 'cheat' approach, which worked the best.) I'll play around a little more for the opposite cant and lift options - its just a matter of moving the piece to the opposite side of the X and/or Y axes, if there is a negative cant and/or lift value, then doing the rotate around X and Y in that orientation, then moving it back. I also want to take some more time to learn more about Onshape - you've got my interest in it piqued! As you noted, its lots of fun to be able to combine the hobbies, isn't it?? :-)

@erazz - here is a modified and commented version of what I first posted. The first approach applied the OpenSCAD minkowski() operation to a linear_extrusion() operation, which does rounding/smoothing, but takes absolutely frickin' forever. This modified version uses minkowski() in a more conservative way, and fakes a linear extrusion, which runs in a different way, and renders instantaneously. It should be producing the same output as the fist approach, but I can't confirm, as the first approach (tried rendering it at a higher resolution) seems to be following Starman around the inner solar system, and hasn't been heard from again... I documented the various params, so you should be able to twiddle with those to get your desired dimensions. Note that at present, this Q&D little test only supports left cant and heel lift (that having been said, you can flip it around, and what was left cant becomes right cant, and what was heel lift becomes toe lift. If someone wants left cant w/ toe lift, though, its not going to work. Its totally do-able, just not with this proof-of-concept model.) Let me know if this is not behaving as advertised or needed - again, this was a quick & dirty attempt, so there'll definitely be something I've hosed up, LoL. :-) len = 200; //total length wid = 100; //base width (twist will result in wider overall dimensions) edge_rad = 4; //edge radius of top and bottom surfaces ht = 10; //minimum height (cant and/or lift will result in taller overall height) - NOTE: ht must be >= 2*edge_rad twist = 10; //degrees of twist cant = 4; //degrees of cant - this simple demo only supports positive (leftward) cant lift = 6; //degrees of lift - this simple demo only supports positive (heel) lift steps = 100; //smoothness factor - more steps = smoother sides //this adjusts the total height, to take into account height added due to the edge radius - shouldn't be changed by user adj_ht = ht - 2*edge_rad; //call the plate module to initiate the render plate(); //because OpenSCAD performs all rotations around the X, Y and Z axes, it is necessary to move the geometry to // proper relative position wrt X, Y and Z. Cant and Lift will be rotated wrt X and Y axes, respectively, so // for Cant and Lift rotations, the geometry should be aligned with X and Y axes //for Tiwst rotation, because this needs to be around the center of the plate, the geometry must be centered // on the Z axis, which requires moving the piece so it is centered at Z, rotating around Z, then moving it // back to where it needs to be (it needs to be in a different position for Z rotation than for X and Y rotation...) module plate() { translate([len/2, wid/2 + (len - wid)/2 * tan(twist), edge_rad]) //move finished plate to the positive quadrant for (s = [0:1:steps-1]) { translate([0, 0, adj_ht/steps * s]) rotate([0, 0, twist/steps * s]) translate([-len/2, -wid/2, 0]) rotate([cant/steps * s, -lift/steps * s, 0]) translate([len/2, wid/2, 0]) component_plate(); } } //generate a plate of the desired length and width, with a thicness of 2*edge_rad (this how minkowski() works) // minnkowski operation here is cheap/quick, as its applied to a very thin piece of geometry //$fn value should be high on the end radii, for smooth side surfaces on the end module component_plate() { minkowski() { hull() { //note the adjustment for edge_rad contribution to X and Y that will be added back by minkowski() translate([-len/2 + wid/2, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=wid/2 - edge_rad, h=.001, $fn=120); translate([len/2 - wid/2, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=wid/2 - edge_rad, h=.001, $fn=120); } sphere(r=edge_rad); } }

Ah, thanks for the explanation on the twist factor - makes sense, especially in the context of a softer board than we typically run hard plate bindings on. One of the challenges of allowing lift and cant is that the screws end up being at an angle with respect to the binding body. Spherical washers are the only answer I can think of on that. (For small amounts of lift and cant, its probably not a big issue, but for larger values, it starts becoming a problem.) Its great that your plates support that, though (and in reality, I'd be especially in soft boots, people aren't running large lift or cant angles...) I threw something quick & dirty together in OpenSCAD, just to see what it would entail. The basics of the plate with lift, cant and whet I'm calling 'twist' is straightforward. As with many things in OpenSCAD though, what might look to be complex is simple (the configurable block with lift, cant and twist), but what should b e simple is complicated (getting nice rounded edges - fillets and rounded edges in OpenSCAD are invariably a pain, and are often very slow to render due to the use of what's called the 'minkowski' operation.) The following renders in seconds w/o rounded edges, but takes about 30 minutes to render with rounded edges, even at a relatively low polygon count - thus the scalloped ends. This is shown with 6 deg lift, 6 deg cant and 20 deg twist (my overall dimensions don't exactly match yours - I was just shooting for the same overall proportions in this test.) Good news is, its a very simple/short OpenSCAD script (no holes added yet, but that'd be the simplest part), and is completely controlled via a handful of parameters (which would work directly in the Thingiverse Customizer). Anyway, I like the your Onshape model, its beautiful, but if you are interested in going down the OpenSCAD path, the following is about 20 lines of script in OpenSCAD, and every aspect of it - length, width, height, lift, cant, twist, corner rounding radius, etc is just a matter of changing a value in a text field.

Nice! When you said 'Thingiverse' and 'customize', I was thinking you meant the Thingiverse Customizer, which runs on OpenSCAD, which is often highly unintuitive to people, LoL. :-) I've only played w/ OnShape at a very high level before - I've learned a lot just in the last 15 minutes playing around with a copy of your model. I'll definitely fiddle with the copy more this weekend - it should be a great learning experience! I'm not at all familiar with this type of snowboard accessory - I see that your model has a cant capability - is it common for this type of riser to also have a lift feature, or is it just cant? Also, what is the purpose of the twist between the top and bottom surface of the plate? I pretty quickly discovered the ability to alter the thickness, the cant and the amount of twist. It might be helpful to folks to spell out the various parameters that can be changed, and point out where to find them, as I'd imagine not everyone is familiar with CAD tools. (I realize this is early in the process, just food for thought once you sort of officially release this.) Great work on all of this - I'm impressed with the tool and your use of it, and I'm genuinely looking forward to learning more about the tool through this great example of its use! :-)

Let me know if you have any OpenSCAD problems - i've gotten fairly involved with it of late. Congrats on a good day out on your plates!! :-)

The other direction that Donek provides for arriving at that is here (can't recall who pointed me to it, but somebody on here) https://www.donek.com/width-calculator/ Based on my boot size and trying various angles, it shows a 64-65 degree rear angle to arrive at an 18cm width. Even my line-of-sight/Fuego approach results in a shallower angle than that - just under 60 deg. So, clearly, there's a little wiggle room in those various calcs. Seems that something in the neighborhood of 60 is probably about right, though.

BTW, that video isn't of me or my board - that's @SunSurfer's MK. I've unknowingly been a follower of the 'Fuego Box' method of binding setup - I eyeball the edge of the boot and board from overhead, and line them up. (Sounds like I could actually afford a little more overhang than this method provides...)

That sounds like the best idea I've heard all week, on multiple levels! :-) We anxiously await your report!!

Yes, the whole 3D printing thing opens up all kinds of new avenues, doesn't it?? Very glad to see another carving geek working on this stuff! :-) Its interesting - I've seen 2 different convincing studies that claim 2 different theories on layer height and its relation to the strength of the printed product. One showed that lower layer height yielded a stronger print, and another showed that lower layer heights yielded a weaker print. As you note, both of our applications are under compression - there are literal bolts holding our pieces in compression, so the likelihood of them coming apart is very low, but still, given that its something I'm entrusting my physical well-being to, I feel compelled to make it as strong as I reasonably can. :-) ABS is documented to have a compressive yield strength of 65 MPa (http://www.matweb.com/reference/compressivestrength.aspx), which converts to 6.6 kg/mm^2 (https://www.convertunits.com/from/MPa/to/kilogram-force/square+millimetre). At 50x55 mm for each of my shims (there are 2 shims under each boot - one under the toe, and one under the heel, but I'll assume worst case of someone landing with all force on just their toe or heel), that should be a prodigious amount of force bearing capacity when printed at 100%. Hollows form underneath the shims when the height of a piece exceeds 5mm, but even assuming a dire case where the printed ABS is somehow only 1/4 of the established ABS compressive yield, with the wall bases providing 1200mm^2 area, at 1.65kg/mm^2 (ie, 25% of rated compressive yield strength) that should still support over 2 tons per shim. My van test (4500lb van, 57% front axle weight distribution, 50x55mm shim under a single front tire) only loaded them to 1kg/mm^2 - I'm gonna need to find a bigger test van. :-) I've variously read that anything over 50% infill is largely pointless (apparently there's approx a 10% increase in strength between 50% and 75% infill), but for my relatively small cant shims, it seemed silly not to just print them effectively solid. (at 80% there are still a few areas where walls meet with fillets, where some infill is still produced) I've been printing mine at 265 deg extruder temp and 95 degree bed temp, also in an enclosure. Extrusion multiplier is 1.25. I joke that I like it hot, thick and sloppy... ;-) It makes for good inter-layer adhesion, though! Thanks for sharing - lets keep in touch. I'll let you know how the PETG goes, and I definitely want to find a way of imparting several times more kg/mm^2 to some finished prints, just to be sure they're living up to the expectation. I look forward to seeing your designs, when you get them all squared away and released!!

I'd love to compare notes between your soft boot risers and my lift/cant shims for F2 bindings, particularly in terms of how they hold up with time and use. (http://forums.bomberonline.com/topic/45886-3d-printing-binding-parts/ if anyone is interested) I've been printing mine in ABS, but am going to try PETG next, to see how they compare in terms of strength and durability. What kind of layer height and infill density are you using? For ABS, I've been using .1575mm layer height, and an 80% cubic infill, with vertical and horizontal shell thickness such that the walls of my shims end up solid (so, for 5mm walls, I'm using 6 shell layers, which result in solid 5mm walls). I've been wanting to try a .1mm layer height, to see if/how that affects the strength, but haven't yet devoted that print time to trying that out, nor to trying relative strength testing. (I have run over the shims repeatedly with a minivan, just as a gross level strength/durability test! :-) I've also been contemplating trying to bake the shims, to improve layer adhesion, but haven't gone there yet. Great work on these risers! Please share slicer details, if you're willing to do so, so that we can hopefully leverage each others results.

Your meaning being that the bias will necessarily increase the binding angle?

BTW, just found @Beckmann AG's binding config info (http://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/hardboot-binding-configuration), and it is filled with all kinds of educational nuggets (and which also support's @SunSurfer's suggestion that the rear inward cant isn't necessarily a good thing). I'm clearly going to have to do some experimentation with some of this stuff - as noted previously, sometimes happiness is just the result of ignorance. <:o)

For the sake of learning, @BlueB - what's your thinking/reasoning on this?

Yep, those were the one's I'd found, but I figured for the price (same as the F2's), plus shipping from Europe, that the F2's made more sense. (This was before it was pointed out to me that the F2's are in reality - especially for someone like little 'ole me - just about as stiff as something like the TD's. But, if the F2's end up being too stiff (in truth, having ridden on the Raceplates for so long, I'm not even sure I'd know what 'too stiff' means - I guess I'll know it if/when I feel it), it looks like 'downgrading' to these 'Carve Company' iterations of the Raceplate will be the next logical step. (Talk about venerable - first Burton, then Ibex, now Carve Company - clearly, the old design has withstood the test of time quite well!!) Part of the motivation to move on from the Burtons though (beyond just the fact that my Raceplates are nearly as old as the hills I ride on...) is the fact that to get my preferred lift/cant, I need to use the old Burton Unicant, which in addition to being old and brittle, takes up a fair bit of real estate on the board, and I was thinking that it might be affecting the board flex, based on a picture or two I saw of my board in mid-carve, though I've been reassured that any effect is likely minimal, at most.

Thanks, SunSurfer, but rail angle and sharp turns don't seem to be a problem on the MK - its pulling a super sharp turn when I ask it to, and rails to ridiculous angles, almost without regard to what the snow (or ice) surface is like - my problem (vis-a-vis the concussion) is that its very easy to let it have its way, and not quite complete the turns (but still feel rock solid stable), and before you know it, you're approaching Mach speed and Bad Things can happen fast. (In my case, someone cut in front of me - totally within their right to do so, as they were downhill), and I tried to do a hopping edge switch at about 40-45 mph, caught the toe edge when I came down - board wanted to suddenly do less than 45 mph, body didn't get the memo - and pile-drove my skull into the slope. But, yeah, I'm kinda torn between starting out with a replica of my current angles, lift, cant, etc (ie, on the new F2s), and see how the bindings themselves feel (ie, just one variable change), and then play with the various other variables, or just go for the gusto, and try what more experienced tweakers believe will be a better/smarter setup, and see how that feels. (In truth, at this point, I just want to get the head back into working order and get back out on the slopes - on *any* setup! :-)

Yeah, my first trip down the hill on the MK - and it was in pretty darned nice conditions, I first thought that I was somehow skidding my turns (even though it felt like I was on freaking rails), then I thought maybe I have some huge burr on my edges that I'd somehow missed, but that wasn't it - finally realized, it was just the board growling like a banshee. I love the sound now. :-) I'd definitely mention that to Sean as an MK v2 improvement - more authentic Madd sound! :-)