New AAD made in USA

[mcordell 2]

df8m1

So lets say that you really want to buy that widget but you think that it is too expensive because of what it cost to make it. You then have a couple of options: 1 buy it and enjoy it, 2 not buy it and do without it, 3 hope that no one buys it at that price and the price comes down, 4 make it yourself..

That's the thing though, I am not opposed to having an AAD but I don't see them as a necessity. I choose not to buy one and do without. If they were less expensive I would buy one.

To answer your other question, no I don't often start a sentence saying I don't know what I'm talking about, but I also don't profess things as fact if I don't know them to be so. Because of that, I wanted to make sure I was clear that I'm not an expert at this, however it does appear to me they do not cost that much to manufacture. I have a general idea when it comes to electronics. Am I wrong? Do they cost $800 to make and the $1200 price is just a reasonable markup? I'm still curious about my question though. You didn't answer it and I really am curious. Can these be made and sold for $500-600 with a profit margin still built in that would be sustainable for a business? If I could buy 3 new AADs that were at least as good as the current AADs on the market for $1500 I would buy them. I will not buy them for $3000 to $3600. I would rather buy another rig.

All I am saying, and I can only speak for myself here, is that they are too expensive. If the manufacturing cost really is that high then I will gladly change my mind. I'm not opposed to a manufacturer making a profit, but I personally won't buy $100 worth of materials for $1000-$1200. It's just not worth it to me. YMMV

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[df8m1 19]

You are correct in that there is some capitalism at play here. Keep in mind that the goal of business is to make more money not more parts, I do not want to make $1.00 on 1000 parts when i can make 1 part and sell it for $1000.00.

OK, Lets talk about the production costs since I think you are genuinely interested in the subject.

Never mind the R&D investment, the interest on that money, or any investor returns, lets just look at what goes in to an AAD from parts to shipment.

Parts that go into my AAD:

Controller enclosure
Interface enclosure
Special shielded cabling
Electronic components
Circuit Boards
Connectors
Cutter
Batteries
Software

The enclosures need to be machined and anodized, the circuit boards made and populated with all the parts. The boards go through an initial test after they have been populated. So you have the cost of the machined and anodized parts, the cost of the board assemblies, and some labor to test them at this point.

Then the battery contacts are installed in the Controller enclosure and the boards are installed and wired to the connectors, this is straight labor cost.

Once the Controller is assembled, the batteries are installed and a test interface is connected to initially test the controller operation and case leakage, and it is then sent to the next phase which is validation.

Then the interface has to be assembled, it has a circuit board, an LCD screen, and a cable. Once assembled, it is tested for operation and sent to the next phase which is validation.

At Validation, a Controller, Interface, and Cutter are all connected, and then they are put in a climate controlled vacuum chamber to be tested for proper operation at different altitudes and different temperatures. They are vibrated, heat soaked, checked, cold soaked, vibrated, checked, moved rapidly and rotated throughout a 7 day validation process to insure that each AAD is operating properly when it ships. This process requires special equipment, power, and personal monitoring tests and recording the results.

There is more than just the cost of the parts to consider, the labor from start to finish is quite intensive. The cutter alone is around $100.00. So considering the additional cost of overhead, return on investment, a $600.00 retail price would not provide a sustainable margin to keep the doors open, let alone provide funding for potential legal fees. Actually $1200.00 for a specialized, operationally critical device for a small market that is sue happy is really a good price IMOP.

Another thing to consider is the cost of money, as to mass produce anything you have to order and pay for inventory before you can sell it to the customer. Keep in mind that a company that is, by design, bankruptable at a moments notice, is asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars for inventory to produce an item for a market that involves falling from a plane. Loan sharks start to look very reasonable lol…

Does that answer your question at all?

[nigel99 143]

mcordell

***I'm almost tempted to start this as a new thread on "What would you like in your AAD?" But I'll keep it here.

Affordability. When you look at the manufacturing cost of the equipment and the components that are included, there is no reason for the price to be as high as it is. I think a manufacturer who could put out a reliable, competitive AAD at a much lower price would take over the AAD market almost entirely. That or it would change the AAD market and drive down the prices of the other AADs.

I disagree on costs. The material costs are irrelevant. The manufacturer needs to recover R&D costs that are going to be in the hundreds of thousands of $ and to do the job properly could easily be in excess of a million $. Then they need to keep viable and support the product over its life.

For such a small market I don't think what we pay is out of line. The only reservation I have is compulsory 4 yr service program followed by a forced retirement. If you are genuinely updating the unit every cycle there is no justification to force retirement.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[RiggerLee 61]

A couple of comments on price.

Price is an issue. If I had to start over today I couldn't. That's one of the reasons our sport is not growing. And it's not. It's not growing. It's becoming more and more unacceptable which is part of why the make up of our jumpers has changed. It used to have a significant blue collar component. Not any more. I bought my first rig, basically new the woman found out she was pregnant again before it arrived, for $2,000. And the Upper middle class is not growing in this country, it's shrinking. Money is tight. If we want our sport to grow we need to make it more accessible not less.

Speaking as some one who has built things. What it cost to make some thing, is a slightly different question from, what it cost to be worth making. One is only loosely connected to the other. There is a big difference between building some thing for a small market that is already by definition saturated and building some thing which you know there will be a long and continuing demand for. He already has his foot in the door of the only contract that matters and if that goes well will probable nab any others that come along. If they sold stock I would buy it. HAY YOU GUYS AREN'T GOING PUBLIC ARE YOU? IF YOU DO I WANT IN ON THE INITIAL OFFERING. GIVE ME A HEADS UP SO I CAN FREE UP SOME FUNDS. This is just a spin off and it's debatable whether it's worth it to do at all. A smart man might stay out of the sport market all together. I'm one of the people arguing that they should go forwards with it. Mainly because I do think that it's a better mouse trap. You see Cypress was worth doing. It was. The market was open. There were no AAD's in use to speak of. They faced an up hill battle but the up side was there. Astra made since but they failed to come up with a comparable unit. The others... I fail to grasp how they justified entering into the market. They basically tried to do it based on price point and operating cost. Vigil has done well but has had to fight for every foot of ground. The only real justification for doing this is the fact that it really is that much better. Better to the point that any one interested in owning an AAD should seriously consider buying one of these new rather then a used cypress. That's the battle ground. So much better that a student operation might seriously consider selling off their units to buy these. That's a huge investment but with multi mode units possible. The increased safety against a two out scenario is actually worth it. One incident like the one we had would pay to replace all of the units. Yes, it has the potential to be that much better. If this was on the market I would not have a cypress or a vigil in one single student or rental rig on the drop zone. I'm not bull shitting. If you haven't grasped what is happening here then you need to go back and reread the thread. It would increase the safety of the unit to the point that it would actually justify an operation changing to them. And to be clear. Yes, I know these guys. No, I'm not involved. I make no money from this in any way. And if they go public I will be buying their stock. This is my unbiased opinion based on what I know of the potential of the unit. By the way I know the guys from Vigil too and we're using their unit. But it's not that much better then the cypress. I honestly consider this unit to be better and I believe that they will gain market share based not on price point but on performance.

Safety. This is mostly directed towards the other poster. Impacts have gone down. Not since AAD's became mandatory but since they became common. Those events may have coincided for you but what your failing to grasp is the actual mechanism that has reduced the number of impacts. And AAD's have played a part in it but not the way you seem to think. Or if they have then there is some thing wrong with your jumpers. If you're having cypress fires every fucking weekend then that's a whole other problem that I don't even know how to address. Here's the truth. Impacts have gone down but it's because people's habits have changed. People pull higher then when I started. If you pulled, not opened but pulled, above 2,000 ft you must have been some kind of student. "Did you get a nose bleed opening that high?" People pull higher. Fear of their AAD is part of that. The nature of modern canopies is an even bigger part of that. AAD's didn't change skydiving but they did change skydivers.

More Safety. I could make a very solid argument that if you wanted to be safer, throw away your AAD and buy a larger size reserve. The newest AAD's are smaller and flatter then the first generation. But they still take up a certain amount of room in the reserve. You still lose some volume and it affects the way in which the canopy folds into the container. The way in which it takes up space has a disproportionately large affect, that extra half an inch matters. So if a question of safety I would say that your better off with one size larger reserve then with an AAD. If you really want to be safe let me size your rig. Get rid of all those stupid ass micro sized super tight containers and jump larger canopies. You really want to be safe? Implement a policy that the size and recommended weight be placarded on the out side of the container for both main and reserve. Not maximum but recommended. And then implement a policy of doing gear checks when people sign their wavers of weighing them to make sure they are not over. Do spot checks when they walk in from a jump. Keep a scale by the hanger door. This is why I think the optimum is the best thing to come along since sliced bread. End of rant.

Size. This is directer towards the Free Fall guy. I know your working with a lot of off the shelf mill spec parts but size does matter. In a sport version you are fighting against some very tight fucking rigs. It needs to be small. Like really small. Cram it into the housing I don't care. You don't have a lot of room like you have in a military rig. Seriously dude, Small. I'm not joking about people needing bigger reserves. If it comes down to a choice between a larger canopy and your unit I'd have to advise against buying your shit. Small.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[mcordell 2]

It really did answer my question and changed my understanding. There's a lot more cost in manufacturing than I thought so I appreciate your response. I still think the cypres is overpriced but at least I understand the profit margin better. I feel like the cypres price is right on point for the initial release but the r&d is paid for long ago at this point and it's my opinion that they keep that price because they think their name is worth it. To some it obviously is. To me it's not. At this point if I were to buy aads I'd go with the mars and now I don't see them as being as overpriced as I did.

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[3mpire 0]

Quote

LOL... Do you often make statements where in the beginning and mid way thorough the statement, you point out that you have no idea what you are talking about, but you are fairly confident that you are right? lol

Are you in sales?? LOL

[df8m1 19]

nigel99

The only reservation I have is compulsory 4 yr service program followed by a forced retirement. If you are genuinely updating the unit every cycle there is no justification to force retirement.

Lets see if I can address the issue if lifespan.

First and foremost, it is very important to remember that an AAD, any AAD, is enclosed in the reserve, and has the capability of opening the reserve container, there for I consider it to be a operationally critical item, as, if it screws up someone’s day gets a lot more exciting, and potentially not in a good way.

The issue is the estimation of how circuit boards and solder joints age, expanding when warm and contracting when cool, a shock here, a drop there… They all add up to take a toll. I work on older Mercedes and they are known to have problems with electronics intermittently, or total failure above a certain temperature. To the untrained eye looking at all the solder joints everything looks good, but under a microscope you can see micro cracks in the solder joints, and when the boards get warm they expand and pull the two halves of the crack apart and circuit is broken until the board cools and contracts back. The fix is to just reflow the solder at all the joints and you are good for another 30 years.

The circuit boards in AADs are the same way, only much more delicate as they are smaller. Many surface mount parts have the pads underneath them, so the joint is not visible to be inspected, unlike components with little arms, like a centipede, that are soldered to the pads on the board, those you can at least see.

The reflow process that is used to solder the components with the pads on the bottom is hard on the parts as it raises the temperature of the part in order to melt the solder bellow it. Also, some components will absorb moisture and come sealed in packages with desiccant bags and moisture indicator tags. Care has to be taken with these parts as if they are not installed with in so many hours from when the package was opened, they have to be baked for a period of time at a lower temperature to dry them out before they are put through a reflow cycle, if there is any moisture inside the part, and one attempts to relow it, it will go POP, and sometimes you can not hear it, but the tiny parts inside will be damaged, and it may even work for a little while too, but it is damaged and will eventually fail.

It is not uncommon for a component manufacturer to declare a lifespan for a component, depending on what that component is used for by some company, in order the limit the parts manufacturer’s liability. If I use a component that its manufacturer has set an end of life date on it, then if I do not honor that end of life date with my product, and there is a problem latter, then I am in a bad spot.

Sensors ususaly have a known drift rate… a % of full scale over X time. This is one of the reasons why it is important to see the units every so often, so we can track the drift and recalibrate if necessary, that is if you want to maintain the accuracy of a device that has the task of discerning how high you are when you are traveling at over 200ft/sec. At some point the drift can exceed the available recalibration tolerance, and at that point the sensor is junk.

Now I hear people saying, then why not just change the sensor? Well, remember that after say 12/16/20 years of use in a rig, in conditions that vary all over the world, the boards with their little delicate traces have seen a lot of abuse, these are not sitting on a pillow on a shelf somewhere lol.. The stresses that are put on the board in order to remove the old sensor, and the replace it would be risky, given what this thing does. If it were a radio, that would be a different argument. If you figure the total life, yearly cost of the unit, it usually is not much more than a repack these days. At that point in its life, it has done its job, its better to stop while you are ahead IMOP. Now if we were stuck on the island and the only way to get off of it was to replace the sensor, then by all means, but we are not on an island, we are above it! lol.

Also, depending on how the boards are assembled, stacked with soldered headers for example, the parts in the middle are not accessible, and it is very brutal process separating the boards when they are soldered together, one could use sockets, but I prefer the structural integrity of a soldered header joint over a spring socked. Each method has its plusses and minuses, but I prefer the solder joint, and as such replacement of parts between the boards would not be possible.

ESD diodes tend to decay over time and multiple zaps, so eventually they will fail to protect a circuit from static and there will be a problem. The pyro actuator usually has a life span as well. That is referenced to reaction time at temperature though, so as it ages the reaction slows down. We are talking milliseconds or fractions of a millisecond, but the point is there is a change taking place as it ages, and although it can be predicted, it can not be known until it is activated. The point of service intervals is to detect a budding problem and address it before it matures into a full blown problem.

I am sure that expired Cypers 1 units are still being jumped in other countries, and I have heard people reference that a time or two as a reason why they should not have the lifespan Airtec has assigned to them. Twin Otters have several parts in them that have a life span… they are only allowed to be used for so many cycles, then they have to be replaced, regardless of the detection of any problems. The AAD service life is based on the same principle. Remember, something will always fail at the worst time, and when you need it most.

I am curious if your thinking is the same now or if it you have a different opinion on life span? I am truly interested to know.

[mathrick 2]

Damn, this thread is moving faster than I can keep up with it, let alone reply. I will do my best to address the points raised, though it will sadly have to be more selective and less immediate than I'd like.

faulknerwn

And clearly people where you are must be having more money than a lot of people over here. I can think of 3-4 people over here who put together a complete rig (without AAD) for $500-$1000. Older rigs, F111 mains, not freefly friendly, but perfectly safe and it keeps people in the air who otherwise would not have been able to skydive. I wouldn't want to not have those people in the sport. I was just like them years ago when I started jumping. An AAD would have been the sport unaffordable.

Please read carefully what I wrote. A Cypres does not cost $1000. A new Cypres does. Which is why it's fair to compare it to a new rig, which can easily hit $10K if you want to go all out on it. I also addressed the issue of resell value and cost of ownership per annum, as well as financing and leasing. I'm putting together a rig at ~$2K including the AAD. It's not freefly friendly, but the canopy prices being what they are, I can't really do much better with this kind of budget assigned, and I don't really care because I want to spend a year doing FS. So it's not like I don't know about used rigs, and you simply cannot make the argument you made and ignore everything I wrote to address that specific issue.

As for the AAD accidents, I'm going to lump it together with a reply to mcordell.

"Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

[RiggerLee 61]

As to cost and what Faulkner said. Do you realize that if I started today the only rig I would be able to afford is a used Racer! Shit. Things are bad for a new student. Our sport is doomed. If you don't get this you don't know any thing about Faulkner.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[nigel99 143]

Sorry your post is too long to quote, but answering if you've changed my mind on lifetimes.

Firstly I'm an electronics engineer so I'm familiar with everything you mentioned and that is my point.

IF someone is claiming (Cypres) that every 4 yr service they check and update the hardware if necessary then I can't justify an enforced end of life. With the cost of PCBs and the level of integration I would be unhappy if they are reworking PCBs rather than simply swapping them out. So if you can swap out a board at 8 yrs you can do it at 12.

By the way I do advocate services and I am in the process of sending my Vigil back for a service at the moment. They are transparent with what they do (firmware version xx to yy) etc which I prefer. By the way I was surprised to see it is a free service, which is great but unexpected.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[df8m1 19]

nigel99

Firstly I'm an electronics engineer so I'm familiar with everything you mentioned and that is my point.

IF someone is claiming (Cypres) that every 4 yr service they check and update the hardware if necessary then I can't justify an enforced end of life. With the cost of PCBs and the level of integration I would be unhappy if they are reworking PCBs rather than simply swapping them out. So if you can swap out a board at 8 yrs you can do it at 12.

By the way I do advocate services and I am in the process of sending my Vigil back for a service at the moment. They are transparent with what they do (firmware version xx to yy) etc which I prefer. By the way I was surprised to see it is a free service, which is great but unexpected.

I have no idea what Airtec does during its service intervals as they never sent any information back when I had one. I have never had a Vigil, so I can not comment there.

I think every AAD should have a log book, just like a plane or a reserve has, and the test results as well as anything that was done to the unit should be logged. That sounds like what you are describing with Vigil, but again, I have not had one to know exactly what the provide after a service, or what they do to their AADs during a service.

These AADs would go through the same validation process as the new ones to be sure they are working properly in all conditions, not just the one they are mainly used in.

In regards to "repairing" an AAD, depending on what the problem was and were it was located, and the degree of confidence of the repair, I may be inclined to repair the problem, however, I would most likely replace the control unit board assembly as a whole. Should that happen, the end of life date would be set to zero, given it is a new board assembly.

I think you are saying that when any AAD hits is end of life date, that the manufacturer should be able to replace the controller board assembly for a lesser price than a new AAD assembly?

[df8m1 19]

I'm not seeing going public any time soon lol... but one never knows how the winds of fortune will blow.
There is an offset, cost, or compromise, that is difficult to avoid when making a change in the processing requirements that this AAD requires in order to work, and as such, the battery capacity will need to be higher than the AADs that do very little processing in comparison. Granted intergraded circuits can greatly increase power efficiency, but there are some trade offs that come with going that route.

Although power use is a major focus of effort with this AAD, the concept of a battery lasting 2, 3, 4, 10, 15 years is out the window. I just changed the configuration of the AAD housing a couple of days ago to reduce the height as much as I can, but the size of the batteries dictates how thin I can get. If we find that we can make a set of A-Cell batteries work then that will allow us to shave a little more off the top, but right now the C-Cell batteries will be used to start and see how the thing does in real life, one can do all the math they want, but the real world will dictate the results.

It may end up that this AAD will not fit in a tiny, tight reserve. We will have to wait until the design gets narrowed down after we get a better idea of power constraints, to know for sure if there will be any limitations for use due to its size. Lets get it working first lol…

[df8m1 19]

I am starting to agree that referring it to being "intelligent" causes people to go to far with the concept of AI, so perhaps "Smart" would be better? There are smart phones, so why not smart AADs?

There won't be any cool apps for it though lol...

[RiggerLee 61]

(Whiny Voice) I want apps. I want to down load data with graphs, with opening shock and g load data with the gyro, an optional GPS would be cool. I want it to down load and sink with my XL. I want it to store all the rigging enterris for the rig. I want it to be an electronic packing data card that stores the whole history of the container. I want it to be an electronic log book for my jumps. I want to be able to write enteries into it with my phone or tablet. Hell I might even start keeping a log book then. I WANT APPS! (insert tantrum)!

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[danielcroft 2]

Have it link to my phone and automatically post all my jumps to facebook.

The kids will love it.



(Really, I just want to subscribe to this thread, has been very interesting so far, thanks all.)

[df8m1 19]

danielcroft

Have it link to my phone and automatically post all my jumps to facebook.

The kids will love it.



(Really, I just want to subscribe to this thread, has been very interesting so far, thanks all.)

I also want to thank everyone as I have enjoyed the exchange very much as well. I know it is risky for a manufacturer to engage with the public, as we have all seen where that has gone bad fast lol...

Doesn't L&B have a data logger of some kind that will link up to a phone like you and Lee have described? I have always been surprised that they have not come out with an AAD... guess they are smarter than I am lol...

[lyosha 46]

df8m1

***Have it link to my phone and automatically post all my jumps to facebook.

The kids will love it.



(Really, I just want to subscribe to this thread, has been very interesting so far, thanks all.)

I also want to thank everyone as I have enjoyed the exchange very much as well. I know it is risky for a manufacturer to engage with the public, as we have all seen where that has gone bad fast lol...

Doesn't L&B have a data logger of some kind that will link up to a phone like you and Lee have described? I have always been surprised that they have not come out with an AAD... guess they are smarter than I am lol...

To be frank I'm much more interested in verifying the function of my AAD and identifying how it behaves based on my activities in the sky to check for potential pitfalls than about posting profiles of my jumps to facebook...

[3mpire 0]

"...and with the auto facebook post feature, your family will know exactly how hard you've femured in before you do! our handy algorithm will show you relevant ads for local recovery centers and physical therapists while first responders are still stabilizing your shattered legs."

[danielcroft 2]

3mpire

"...and with the auto facebook post feature, your family will know exactly how hard you've femured in before you do! our handy algorithm will show you relevant ads for local recovery centers and physical therapists while first responders are still stabilizing your shattered legs."

And tag SoFPiDaRF in all your injury posts!

[3mpire 0]

Quote

And tag SoFPiDaRF in all your injury posts! Laugh

Shoes stayed on, only 3G's at impact: no shirt.

[df8m1 19]

Probity should also in include Instagram and Twitter to? LOL

Snap Chat probably wouldn't work though...

[danielcroft 2]

df8m1

Probity should also in include Instagram and Twitter to? LOL

Snap Chat probably wouldn't work though...

Breaking a bone gives a whole new meaning to "Snap Chat". Sorry, I'm so sorry.

Seriously though, I'm about to buy a new AAD... I can has yours?

[df8m1 19]

danielcroft

Breaking a bone gives a whole new meaning to "Snap Chat". Sorry, I'm so sorry.

Seriously though, I'm about to buy a new AAD... I can has yours?

I guess that is enough silliness for now

It is going to be a while before these would be available to the public. There are quite a few differences between how the Military use gear and how we use it for sport jumping, so it will take a bit of time to validate the changes to the settings and tweaks for sport specific conditions.

The plan is to jump it and mature this version of the logic this summer, then, baring any problems, expand to a beta round. The development process for these things can not be rushed. Even though we have a solid platform from which to start with, it is a different application in reality, and no assumptions can me made as to any potential crossover conflicts.

I have been told that I have a tendency to nit pick something in an effort for perfection. I am fond of the quote, "in the pursuit of perfection, all was lost", and have emulated it from time to time lol...

Rest assured, that what ever AAD that you purchase as a stop gap will still have a resale value when we release this one,

[RiggerLee 61]

No it wont.

I don't jump a lot but I've got two rigs with out AAD's here. If you send me a couple of units I'll play with them. Set up some dummy test units with a USB port so we can down load the files after each jump and we'll start sending you some data. Spread a few around to interested parties and we'll start uploading real jump files to your server.

It would be nice to get a couple thousand jumps worth of data to tweak the algorithms. Get the first few iterations of the software out of the way before you start sending out live units. Don't feel like you have to do this in a void. Some of us will help you.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[df8m1 19]

I just had a thought pop in my head and if I do not write it down I will forget it my morning..

Just thinking out loud about all the "smart phone" type apps that could theoretically be created for this AAD and one situation came to mind that is both relevant and not too far out there.

From time to time jumpers go in off airport and sometimes they are not found right away. I recall a couple of wingsuiters that went in, in remote areas, and I am not sure if one was ever found.

What if there was a device that had GPS and a Cellular capability, and it could detect a significant impact consistent with a fatal result, after which, it would call/text a number and transmit the GPS location along with an announcement of the hard landing?

A feature like this could be incorporated into an AAD, I’m not saying I am doing that, but the concept came to mind and I thought it might be worth discussing. This could easily be a stand alone item, heck, I bet a high school kid could write an app for a smart phone to do that in an hour lol… Too bad the phones are so delicate lol..