Chronicles of the Happy Fun Plate at the Bomber Factory

[fin]

I have always kept how we test and proto-type things here at Bomber out of the eye of the public for the most part. Honestly, my thought was that it was not that interesting and the end product was all that most cared about. However, I always receive a lot of questions and interest on how we actually make these things. Is it done with small underpaid elves with little hammers and files? Nope, we make and test most of our items here in our shop in Summit County, Colorado. And seeing as most of us are done riding and it is slow on the forum, good time for this.

So I was getting ready to start testing of a new device for the carving world and thought to myself, "I am hungry, I want a ham sandwich". Which has nothing to do with this, but after that sandwich I then thought "hey, this is the perfect opportunity to share how we go about this". So what I have started is a thread so that you guys can watch how we make a device from conception to production to testing/using it.

So what we are going to be making is a concept proto-type of our own sub-plate system. If you are not familiar with these they are "systems" that go between your board and existing bindings. What is their point? Hmmm, it is debatable what they actually do. Here is my conclusion of what the current subplates do:

• They add mass: This is a cheap and simple way to dampen something, just make it heavier
  
• They add height: This gives you more leverage to get the board on edge
  
• They protect the top sheet of the board and distribute the loads over a larger area
  

The last one is something I don't think you see or need as much. This came about from the original generation of boards that had the metal top sheets and they where prone to point loads that could fail them. Most manufacturers now put a protective top sheet on top of the metal to stop this.

Below is a picture of the two current popular systems of sub-plates currently used in the world cup: the Hangle (left) and the Vist (right).

I am not here to bag on these current systems as they are currently available and being used with great success. However, I think the concept has a lot of room for improvement. These two current systems are based from adapted ski systems and thus have a lot of extra "stuff' top make them work on a snowboard. I believe we can make a system that starts from scratch to work with a snowboard and thus a cleaner set-up.

OK, I lied, I am going to nit-pick on some of the things I am not a fan of on these current sub-plates:

- Heavy: the Hangle weighs in at 5.30 Lbs and the Vist is at 5.1 lbs for the entire systems. Consider your typical 180cm-ish race deck weighs around 8-9 lbs, you have significantly increased the weight of the entire system. Or think of it this way, my TD3 binding comes in around 5 lbs for the set, so you would have an entire EXTRA set of binding bolted to your board. So what is the big deal? This is a down hill sport so who cares? Well, I have three issues with a heavy set-up.

• Slow responding board: One reason you don't see many of these plates in a womens slalom race where fast turn transition is king. Do you like fast turn transistions on your free ride board?
  
• Fatigue: As long as you have energy and the power to move the board you are fine. As soon as you get tired they become very cumbersome. Might also be the difference for a racer who is doing their 16th run of the day at a dual elimination format.
  
• Freaking hurts your leg on the chair! I swear I was 1" taller on my front leg after holding one of these up on the chair all day. Ouch.
  

- Tall: this is completely debatable. However, I still think a system that is as low as it can be would be beneficial as the end user can then determine how tall they want to be. It is easy to add height but very difficult to remove height. Right now you better like being an extra inch up as you have no choice. Once again not saying height is bad, just not having the ability to choose the height is.

- Active suspension: I define "active" as a suspension system that has direct purpose and effect as far as isolating the rider from the board. The current systems are what I would call having "passive" suspension systems. They use mass and on the Vist, it uses some aspects of friction (rubbing) to induce dampening. As I tell people to do when they think their binding has "active" suspension, follow the path of the forces. If there is no break in the path via a dampening component (i.e. spring, elastomer, pivot/lever arm system, etc) then that binding does not have active suspension. Think of how an engine mount works on a car. It is essentially two plates of steel with some crazy strong rubber/urethane sandwiched in-between. The path of the forces is broken and thus movement is allowed resulting in a dampening effect.

- Need a proprietary hole pattern in board: Technically only the Hangle needs custom holes to be mounted. You can mount the Vist with-out using the custom holes in the middle of the board. Which is actually how most racers seem to be running it these days.

- You need a spare afternoon to Install: I have the pleasure of watching several people remove and install many of these systems and I'll be nice here and say it was "an exercise in patience". On one system there are lots of little parts that all have various sized wrench and drivers needed to install. And the order you install is important, if you go out of order, you have to pull it all off and start again. One of the system actually has 32 total ski-type screws you have to install just to mount the system. If you don't have an electric impact driver, your wrists will hurt for days. The best part is both of these system come with absolutely no instructions. But I guess if you are the type who would like a multi-hundred dollar Rubik's Cube, then you will love this.

One thing I should also mention is both of these systems do a good job of allowing the board to flex. In other words they minimize the flat spot they might impose on the board if they did not have a form of float to allow the board to flex. The Hangle and the Vist do this is very different ways but the result is the same, very little killing of the flex of the board under these systems. This is always important.

So knowing these pros and cons of the currently available systems what is Bomber going to make? Here is my list of goals on our system:

• Lighter: or at least lighter then the current ones. But no way around it, it will add mass to the system
  
• Low Height: as low as we can get and then give the ability of the user to raise if wanted
  
• Minimize board "dead-spot" under system
  
• Active Suspension
  
• Ease of removal and install
  
• Uses current standard 4 hole patterned snowboards
  
• Option for integration with our current TD3 binding as well as woking with any 4 hole plate binding
  
• Tunable in multiple ways to fit the riders needs (more on this later)
  
• Blinking lights and extra-shinny bits
  

So with that list we are going to make a test system that I have dubbed "The Bomber Happy Fun Plate" or "Bomber HFP". Not the official or final name but I find you have to give projects like this a name so it has a life and a point. My parents did not name me until I was 7 and I found it very tramatic.

FYI: if you have any questions or comments on any of this, please ask away. It will be my pleasure to give some vauge and non-conclusive answer that will not even come close to what you asked ;)

[fin]

Here is a picture of the solid model I have come up with for our first iteration of the HFP. If you are not familiar with solid modeling it is a god send for any who wants to make something that is even mildly mechanically involved. To be honest, most of my work on this has been more hours then I care to recall working on this model you are looking at. But the good news is when we go out in the shop to cut all these parts, we should nail it first time. Not saying the concept will be sound, that only comes with actually using it, but at least we know all the parts will fit and there are no interferences. Also, I can use these models to program the cnc mill with ease.

I could probably write another book and how the HFP works. If you look carefully at the pictures you will see essentially what we are going to be doing. However, I am going to wait until we get near the end to explain. I want to concentrate on the making of the parts first.

I plan to make these parts using some basic hand tools that anyone can find in their garage:

1) a screw driver

2) a wrench

3) a Fadal CNC Machining Center with optional 4th axis and high speed rigid tapping

Here is a shot of all the raw materials I have collected to make this. For making a single unit like we are going to do it is super wasteful on materials (think making a tooth pick out of a log) but that gets better with production versions. For now, get ready for a pile of aluminum chips.

[fin]

The first part we are going to make is the "Main Plate".

We will start with a blank piece of 3/8" thick aluminum.

[WinterGold]

I think you are following an interesting concept and a lot of the things you say sound good - easier installation, lighter, active suspension - all this sounds really promising!

But I have one question -

´Slow responding board: One reason you don't see many of these plates in a slalom race where fast turn transition is king. Do you like fast trun transistions on your free ride board?´

Why do you say so? The top riders in the PSL Worldcup - Sigi Grabner and Benjamin Karl - and I guess 90% of the other Worldcup racers all use plates also in the PSL discipline ...

I found that some of the girls do not use them - Is it a question of strength?

[fin]

WinterGold: Good catch, I made more of a typo on that. I meant to make the statement as "for women in a PSL". Fixed.

You are 100% correct, most men still use in PSL but very few women use them. My guess is the strength issue. They are so heavy and tall right now the line where they become a burden is easier to cross with the women racers. However, I have gotten a lot of feedback from the male racers that they want to see it lighter just for the fact of easier to use in SL. So that is still the goal.

Matt Morrison on the Candian team uses the F2 S-Flex in SL for (I believe, need to confirm) this reason.

Also, I realized I forgot to mention the "S-Flex" plate by F2. It is also a sub-plate system. It actually has some cool absorption characteristics as it is built like the previously mentioned "engine mount" analogy.

Yes, more blinking lights always good.

[crazyTKDsquirrel]

Happy Fun Plate...I love it.

[WinterGold]

Ok, that is exactly what I thought ...

By the way, there is also another plate system besides the Hangl, Vist and F2. The Flex-Plate by Apex (http://www.apex-snowboards.com). And no other than the womens overall champion is using it ...

Apex also focuses on easy installation and light weight. But I don´t know much about this system.

[Bordy]

You have the hangle mounted so it will bind the rear should look like the frount. There are no center screws for the vist..... Plus there is some sort of a kite sticker on the vist? Oh yea and there is no moon rock anywhere in the HFP. ( see I am already shorting the name and stuff!)

BB

[fin]

Here is a screen shot from the computer where I run the CAM software (computer aided manufacturing). What you are looking at are the tool paths that are needed to do Op1 (operation 1) of this part.

Then I download the code the CAM software generated to the actual Mill computer. Seen here:

When I make a part it comes down to how many Ops it take to make it, or how many times do I have to clamp it down cut it, unclamp, reclamp, then cut again. Each movement on the vise is an operation. My goal is always to do a part in as few Ops as possible. In high production this is VERY important as more Ops means more time and money. Also, every time a human touches a part there is chance for error. That is why I hire dogs.

This part is a two Op part. Here you can see the blank in the vise ready for Op1

I only need two tools for this Op, a 1/4" drill and (my favorite) a 3 flute solid carbide 5/8" End Mill (EM).

Some people asked me the difference between a drill and an end mill. A drill is used to drill only in the "down" direction (a hole), or in-line with the axis of the spindle. An end mill can drill a hole (not very well) but it will travel to the side (left and right) and remove material (a slot).

I have also been asked at what point a knife becomes a sword. I have no idea.

Here is the first tool pass with the drill

This is made so when we go to Op2 I can find the center of the part again by locating off this hole

Here is the 5/8" EM making its pass along the side of the blank. Hard to see but I thought I would try a shot

And here is the final part after Op1 is complete

Now to do Op2 I need to make some custom vice jaws. In this picture you can just see where I have cut some radiuses in the jaws to position and hold the part based from the cuts we just made in Op1.

Here is the part in these jaws

Here are the tools I will need for this Op, a 5.5mm drill, an M6 forming tap, the 5/8" EM, and a 1/8" Radius Corner EM. The radius EM makes corners rounded for that nice smooth look.

Shot of part after drill and tapping

Shot of part after all the EM work is done. Left the chips on it for this pic for a change

And a little cleaning and deburring and here is the final Main Plate

What is always interesting is to see how close in weight the final part is to what my computer solid model predicts it will be. In this case the computer predicted it would weigh 1.06 Lbs and the part on my digital scale came out at 1.09 lbs. Difference of .03lbs, pretty damn close.

[Guest shrederjen]

Mechanical pics like that make me drool.........

Bola asked me yesterday, why I didn't run some kind of plates on the K-board to dampen it. I said, the weight!

Make us something that is light, and that will make a difference in how the board responds....

Can I test it tomorrow? :D

[fin]

I hear you Jen. Actually what I just did is make a "extra light" version of this Main Plate. It has quite a bit more material removed but I suspect a huge racer guy might bend it, but a lighter weight rider might be fine with it. Testing will see.

As I mentioned before, the system will always add weight, no way around this folks. But to me it is always a metter of the return on that extra weight. Is it worth the performance gained? In mountain bikes we now have fully suspended bikes with hydraulic disc brakes. Yes, the bikes gained weight, but in return we got easy and fun to ride bikes. Worth it in my opinion.

[bigdyno]

Fin,

Maybe you could see if any of the GM staff that are getting cut have any experience with active suspension as described in this cutting edge video:

I bet you could probably find some of these systems on e-bay, put them in that fancy machine of yours and end mill them until they fit. I hope that saves you some development time. You can thank me later.

[bjvircks]

Man oh man...I can hear the whirring and smell the coolant! For years my office was right outside of one of our small fabrication shops. Being a mech engr and designing machined parts, I am always getting stuff programmed and machined. Watching a concept become real never gets old.

Do you need a good engineer, well versed in design of lightweight structures, MCAD, structural simulations, FEA, ANSYS, holds 3 patents? If you want... I can swear I'm a german shepherd.

[bobdea]

I have not ridden a Vist but have ridden a hangl and a Sflex, I feel that weight reduction is good. the sflex is alright but doesn't work as well I think due to you're being less isolated from the board. that said, if I could get Sflex weight in a hangl I'd actually ride a plate full time on my boards.

looks like the right direction.

hangl assembly is TORTURE, also, they screw holes where the bindings mount strip. boardmaster Bruce fixed his up with snowboard inserts sunk into the plate.

what I'd like to see is a real plate for BX, probably be a more punishing undertaking but the palmer risers blow compared to what could be built.

I played with a sflex and catek softboot bindings but it was lacking in the same areas as the sflex is with plates. however, if the slfex were wider and could acomodate other bindings it would be a game changer, my biggest gripe was that even the cateks alone are a lot of binding.

even a jumbo version of the lower plate of the td2/3 what could except a 4x4 binding would be amazing in the softboot realm.

[Miltie]

Fin,

You are my hero!! Totally cool stuff. Thanks for sharing the info on the process and the photos of the proto parts. Wish things could move this fast in my line of work!!

Check your email - I sent you a link you might want to check out.

Between you and Sean Martin, I can see where my gear budget for next year is going. :)

Thanks for all your hard work making cool gear for us addicts!

Take care, Tom

[LeeW]

Wow. Being neighbors with Fin is god-send.

Im gonna bug you guys real soon when I swing in the shop. Of course, that's if I get thru the Rott and Michelle to yer office, Fin. :)

[*Ace*]

I think I saw the mock up of this when I stopped by with Stan.

Looks like an awesome idea.

Can't wait to see to come together.

[nekdut]

Fin, you are giving me another awesome reason to spend more money next season. Not that I have a problem with that. :)

The only plate system that I have experience with is Tinkler. How does the HFP differ? The Tinkler plate made a huge difference in feel from my experience. It really felt like a magic carpet ride as far as isolation and dampening. Is the goal for the HFP to provide a similar ride and system to all boards?

[Willow 15]

This is looking good. One thing you have not mentioned Fin is product availability. To aquire a Vist plate is quite hard unless you know of Rabanser and where Hangl's are bought I have know idea. Also do you have any idea of cost yet. I think you are onto a winner and a big seller. Keep up the good work and reserve me one.

[Transistor Rhythm]

So the new HFP's are tested on the new race Doneks? ;)

[carvedog]

Fin - this is so cool. I have never really seen anything like that TR on the milling machine. I am in love.

With the machine that is. Not that we don't all love you too Fin.

So you have a single unit weight of approx 1 lbs. Any idea what the weight of the other components you are adding or is that still being done?

Looking for an approx. weight of the whole system to compare. Not that I am ever going to be cutting edge enough to use one of these.

Maybe you could see if any of the GM staff that are getting cut have any experience with active suspension as described in this cutting edge video:

I bet you could probably find some of these systems on e-bay, put them in that fancy machine of yours and end mill them until they fit. I hope that saves you some development time. You can thank me later.

I actually had a similar idea ( hydraulically modified ride height) but more in the realm of handling cornering forces and pitch and roll. Not an engineer, just one of those crazy ideas you have when you almost flip an SUV.

Thought the vid was great at explaingin, but he did say under the seat is a "digital computer" which I thought was hysterical for some reason.

Do you need a good engineer, well versed in design of lightweight structures, MCAD, structural simulations, FEA, ANSYS, holds 3 patents? If you want... I can swear I'm a german shepherd.

Apparently marriage has not dampened your sense of humor. This is good.

[bjvircks]

Thought the vid was great at explaingin, but he did say under the seat is a "digital computer" which I thought was hysterical for some reason.

just FYI... not all computers are electronic or digital. For a long time mathamaticians were creating mechnical computers for tedious calulations.... automatic transmisions (before electronic controls) were analog hydraulic computers making simple decisions on shift points based on analog inputs from vacuum, rpm, fluid pressures, torques.

Did you hear at the end of the Lotus video the few words that 'dated' the video? This clip is 20 yrs old. That long ago a IBM PC AT was hot stuff!

Nope, neither marriage nor a doper-deadbeat stepson have killed off my sense of humor. However, one thing is always striving to kill off a healthy state of mind. In the workplace nothing is worse than what I have characterized as 'Institutionalized Resistance to Improvement'. An simplified example would be like doing the right thing but having it count against a group's evaluation. Case in point: A customer needs a lightweight product. My designer spends a bit too long working to get weight out and gets penalized in his review. The ultimate message? It is 'better' to put out crap on time than high quality products.

And so... Fin. I hope you don't have any anal-retentive bean counters putting a strangle hold on creativity! By the way... did I miss an explanation somewhere? What is the function of the link between the front and rear plates? looks like a piston damper to me. Have you considered viscous shear plates? OOPS... I meant bark, barkbarkbark, barkbark, grrrrrouf, bark

[Jack M]

Can we get a youtube of the End Mill in action?

Can that main plate double as a flat-screen tv wall mount?

[Jack M]

In the workplace nothing is worse than what I have characterized as 'Institutionalized Resistance to Improvement'. An simplified example would be like doing the right thing but having it count against a group's evaluation. Case in point: A customer needs a lightweight product. My designer spends a bit too long working to get weight out and gets penalized in his review. The ultimate message? It is 'better' to put out crap on time than high quality products.

"You can have it good, fast, cheap. Pick two."

[fin]

Here is one more shot of the four Main Plates I made last night. If you look carefully you can see small differences in each one. I want to see how each change effects the performance/strength. Once again, I'll get into the concept of how all this works as we move forward.

Oh, I think I might have mentioned making one set? Actually I plan to make two full sets for testing. Then look for them on E-Bay.