Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Should have said this on post one but to backtrack for the moment....A lot of what you read on this blog over the next few months will be ideas that don't show up right away or may never show up at all.
 I have a clear vision of what the Argonaut series of regulators is going to be but I am always looking for new and interesting ideas for it.  Just because I share it here does not mean I'm committed to it and it will magically appear on your doorstep. 

I had a couple of E-mails from this group wanting to know more about how things get done around here so here goes.

VDH as we know it now is still based out of my garage/workshop. Since we moved here three years ago a car has never parked in it :) I immediately installed a 8 bottle air station with NITROX blending and all that goes with it. I have my main workbench, and an area for packaging, shipping and a majority of the web stores inventory is stored here. These areas never change and I have a fixed process for service work no matter what regulator is sent here. 
Mixed in are several tables used as work stations for experiments, things I'm working on or things that I'm thinking about. There is usually something or other in a salt bath, regulators hooked up to cylinders or on the Quick Set machine.    and several boxes of parts that are either being tested or put in inventory to be sold.  There is another big box of regulators I have purchased that are waiting for me to decide if they get rebuilt, offered for sale or parted out. 
Like many of you I work 24/7. Without a smartphone and an internet connection I feel lost. I don't have set work hours or days but if I'm awake you can figure something is going on the two hose world.. 
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An idea I have been toying with for a while is to include a USB Flash drive with each Kraken. It would come loaded with a detail sheet for the particular regulator, i.e. date, serial number, configuration etc and some care and maintenance instructions in PDF form that could be printed if you wanted to. 
So far the cost of customized drives with logo are a little out of reach but it's something I'll continue to pursue. 




Luis and I have been revising the final yoke design a bit. As it is it's based on the Conshelf yoke which works great but I would prefer if it had it's own look to further personalize it. This is the rough drawing of it. 















2 comments:

  1. ...please just make sure that it is wide enough to fit over current DIN-valves with INT-inserts... also it would really be nice to be able to slap on some aftermarket DIN-conversion kit to have the regulator in DIN.
    I guess even in the US the INT is gradually being phased out and anyway, it is just good industry sense to built a reg that can be converted to DIN if wished.

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  2. You can use a Conshelf XIV DIN adaptor. I do not have them or have access to them but you can ask you Aqua-Lung dealer to order one for you. I think the DIN adaptor ruins the look of the Argonaut just as it does the Phoenix.

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