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Author Topic: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.  (Read 1451 times)

NEW2elec

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Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« on: March 06, 2021, 07:54:58 PM »

Here is Damon's CTO and co-founder Dom Kwong showing how they are trying to improve on the rider comfort and ergonomics with their own custom designs and 3D printing to make improvements or add new features much faster than older conventional methods.


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Crissa

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2021, 12:41:38 AM »

Neat, but won't that raise the price alot?

I hope it comes together ^-^ It looks nice.

-Crissa
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2014 Zero S ZF8.5

NEW2elec

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2021, 01:38:21 AM »

I think it's just for the R&D testing.  Later they will be just molded plastic parts based on those designs.
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NervEasy

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2021, 01:54:08 AM »

As a mechanical engineer, this flow (design sketch - 3D model - Rapid proto (iterate) - molding) is bog standard for about a decade now.
Nothing really special about it. Every company that produces hardware uses this process. The only thing special here is that Damon is designing it's own switchgear instead of using of the shelf 3th party switch gear like Zero and Energica do. When executed perfect it brings a higher level of finish to the bike, but these things cost a whole lot and will not have the proven track record of of the shelf parts. This is a time and money sink that can have some return but can also have nasty blowback when a newly designed part fails in an unforeseen way.

But they seem to know that as the bike in the video has the exact same Briton electric/capacitive throttle assembly (of the shelf) that Zero and Energica use. With the same problem of placing the buttons on the throttle side really far away from your thumb so the whole design spiel about designing a perfect button assembly is moot for me.
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2019 Zero S 11kw - 2020 SR/S

NEW2elec

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2021, 03:36:57 AM »

Well as Mr. Kwong's  team page shows he has the following experience:
23 years in hardware engineering
Head of Engineering, Recon Instruments
Engineering Program Manager, Intel.

Pretty smart cookie.
He is credited with coming up with the Damon "Shift" feature which adjusts the rider position.  One of the things they talked about was being able to use "Shift" while riding which makes that button or lever a new item that wouldn't have been on any off-the-shelf controls. 

I don't know how long you've followed the Forum or Zero but people had begged for fairings for 10 years before they made them for the SRS, so not everyone can make changes so fast.

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NervEasy

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2021, 09:13:18 AM »

Facepalm

I can assure you, the reason Zero waited 10 years for a faired bike has nothing to do with their RnD speed. Tooling for such large parts is astronomically expensive. The design process not so much and certainly in the realm of a company that designs their own motor, and frame.

But i have the feeling discussing this with you here is a bit useless. The video is a good marketing technique. That’s it.
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2019 Zero S 11kw - 2020 SR/S

NEW2elec

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2021, 06:08:32 PM »

You know how the magic is done but most people don't.  Of course, they mostly don't care, they just want the finished product to work.

Private people have 3D printers of different sizes and qualities so in that respect it isn't unique.  No one said it was.
If you thought that was what they (or myself) were pointing out it wasn't.

It does show they aren't like one of these little China electric bikes with a metal gas tank and fuel cap lid like some have.

The point is they are making what they feel is the best bike for the money that they can.

NervEasy have you signed up for a test ride?
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princec

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2021, 07:44:37 PM »

The tooling is so astronomically expensive that the Chinese can knock out a high quality pattern fairing for a bike with decals and paint inside a year of it being released to a standard that is almost indistinguishable from OEM parts. So I wonder how they manage that.

Cas :)
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Fran K

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2021, 08:41:22 PM »

A few freeze frames from the video in post 1.

I think the sketch is  mirror or inverted compared to the prototype.

Missing is the test machine operating the devices hundreds of thousands of times.  This is supposed to be government approved and deliveries starting in some 10 months?

No I have not signed up for a test ride, I already have a bike with a 5 1/2 inch wide rear rim and am not sure I want to eliminate the heat it produces, or really use such a device much.

It does look like that brake lever is not designed for the offset of what is discussed above about the throtle rheostat or whatever it is more precicely called.  I seem to recall the Harley pan heads had the throtle cable pulled by a device inside the handlebar.
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NervEasy

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2021, 08:57:40 PM »

The tooling is so astronomically expensive that the Chinese can knock out a high quality pattern fairing for a bike with decals and paint inside a year of it being released to a standard that is almost indistinguishable from OEM parts. So I wonder how they manage that.

Cas :)

Have you been to a molding factory in the far east? I can only tell you that the way they can churn out parts that fast and cheap has a cost. The people that work there are paying the price. But yes you can have parts made in the far east, and as a non native company, what you save in money you pay double in time until the samples iterations are finally up to quality/what you asked for. And most of the time you can start that process over on the second order run when they "forgot" all of the above and let the quality slip. Native companies can bypass all that and have the speed and the low price.
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2019 Zero S 11kw - 2020 SR/S

NEW2elec

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2021, 10:10:49 PM »

Fran K you can see at the 4:27 mark there is a left and right side controls so not inverted just the other side.
Also I'm sure they will do any needed testing on the finished production version.

I don't understand what else your talking about with a 5.5 inch rim and heat and all.  I guess you mean you have a big gas bike and it's good enough for you.  That's too bad.

I did notice the word Shift on the left side yellow (Damon Gold) lever.
Now I'm wondering what the right side will do?

NervEasy, I was going to point out how cheap you can get plastic parts from China but I felt it went without saying.
A quick Google search for the minimum wage in China shows that there is no way for any nation to compete with their labor costs.
 
So, sadly, any more comments like that and I will be forced to Facepalm you as well.  I'm not sure you can live with that level of shame.  LOL
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princec

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Re: Quick Instagram video about Damon's approach to design.
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2021, 11:01:47 PM »

Nearly all the things we all covet come from the Far East, so we can't exactly get snooty over fairings.

Cas :)
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