February 2017
This year and late last year was dedicated to some new clients such as Gerard Lighting, Ecoboil Ltd, Rainworks, Miss Lolo furniture, Nick Walkley Engineering, AJ Hacket bungy jumping, Tower Cranes, Valore sinks, etc. etc.
Some of which I can't mention yet as their designs are still in patent pending mode.
AJ Hacket - Sentosa bungy park
A monster of a theme park being built on Sentosa island in Singapore. The towers are half way built already and the swimming pool below is looking almost done. I have spent a massive amount of time on this job but there is a hell of a lot in it including some head scratching stuff that I hadn't done before. Brian Sutton was my mentor on all of this. He has loads of history when it comes to bungy equipment and previous projects.Look at the image to the left - can you believe people would get pleasure out of being hauled up to the top of a tower on a steel cable - only to be let go and swing back at an alarming rate clearing the ground by only 6ft at the bottom of the stroke? Maybe I'm too old to appreciate the thrill of it all. There are bungy jumping stations at the top and a Vertical Sky Walkway where you get to run down the side of a tower with a steel cable clipped to your back. Live and let live I say but I am not going on any of these rides.
Sentosa bungy swing loading chariots
Sliding & latching handrails, rolling chariots on vee castors with stops and dampers and electric interlocks at either end. Take a look at the slings on the left side image. That's what the riders get strapped into - in a lying down position on top of the chariot. Then the chariot is pushed away leaving the riders dangling 6ft up from the ground until the winch on the top of the tower winds the rider up to the top - and lets go..It's pretty clever how the fences and gates and chariots etc are all connected to a controller through the 2 consoles behind the fence so that the winch can't let go until everything is in the right place.
The image on the right shows the winch cablepassing over a pulley block (in red) as it is
led over the roof to a winch. Another control console allows the tower operator to winch up and let go. All of the tower gates etc have limit switch interlocks - as you would expect.
LED street lights\
A design for a swivel head for LED street lighting for an Auckland lighting company. The swivel can be locked in position between -5 degrees to +15 degrees to allow for illuminating bank sides and situations where the subject is not directly below the lamp head. A 3D printed model was done in China and came back near perfect, (image below) Solidworks "Simulation Express" was a valuable tool when it came to doing FEA reports on the components.
Supermarket Hydroponics Gondola
A Realfoods project mid 2016. Hydroponically growing vegetables inside a supermarket.
The customers can pick out lettuce, herbs etc while they are still growing and pop them in their shopping trolley. Each plant has been grown on in a nursery and has a barcoded tag. Coloured lights can be used to improve the growth depending on which plant it is. The gondola shown in this image on the right is double sided.Realfoods blow moulded bottles (below)
What a wierd shape.. Again, it's what the customer wants by all accounts. Supposed to look like a melting tub of gooey syrup. Rendering on the right here simulating a box full of them on a supermarket shelf.
Fingermark Post Office Dropbox
A new concept in New Zealand - up and running now on Auckland's North Shore.
Designed for the customer to use a credit card or Eftpos card to pay for the parcel fee - then enter details and have a sticky label printed out there and then. Next - a hatch is electronically unlocked on the right side where the customer can open up and drop their parcel inside. The hatch is mounted on spring loaded hinges and an electronic solenoid re-locks it when it is left to close again. Every day someone will come and open the main door and empty the large bag inside and replace it with a new empty one. These units are in petrol stations, in The Warehouse Store, and in Countdown supermarket.
Once there is enough data on customer useage there will be more in other New Zealand locations. (image below)
An actual unit to the left here before all of the artwork and stickers were applied. There are 7 of these around North Shore Auckland so far.
Wintergardenz projects
Too many variations to show really. John's brother 'Pete' is keeping me busy with more and more designs for commercial greenhouses. Sometimes he comes in with 2 or 3 in the same day. John is keeping going with the regular sized greenhouses and some new accessories. Lots of orders for the Elite range of greenhouse with the stone or brick base. Sample commercial job shown below rendered with a realistic background. This one is 6 metres wide x 15 metres long.
Furniture for various companies & shops
Everyone wants realistic rendering these days. who knows where it will end. I am more able to do renderings this year because my PC blew up last year and I was forced to spend some cash and buy a new one. The sales guys in PB Technologies talked me into going for the latest CPU and motherboard and water cooling etc etc and the final bill was a bit staggering. It's really fast for rendered images though so I suppose I can go for another couple of years before I need to upgrade yet again. Some funiture designs & renderings below.
A bit of hands on welding and grinding has come back into my life again. I am welding Stainless rods into filter baskets for Mactrap, making welded steel gates for people, and I even built a wooden picket fence for a friends sister last year. I made a jig for curving ballustrade rods some years ago. It's a bit rusty but it's out again and up and running. Ineka's balcony project shown below.
