[From Graham Butler April 9, 2010]
We have changed the geometry to be as close to the new design as possible (as close as possible without having to rebuild the whole fixture. The results are awesome. We got the fixture lifting 250 - 130 lbs with out changing the shocks. The adjustment is fairly quick (30 seconds or less) The morphing action is smooth, and relatively easy. I have a couple of comments on it:
Initiating an upwards morph is not at seamless as it was in morph 2. I think the reason is that you are now down lower than you were in morph 2, so it takes more to get the morph started. This said, it doesn't take much, and it feels great.
Morphing down is awesome. It feels smooth, and natural both for the heavy guy (josey) and me. The shocks that we used were 250 lb shocks.
I have attached pictures of the test including the new geometry, I have also taken some video which I will upload to the FTP site over the weekend for you to check out.
In other news.... I talked with easy lift this afternoon, and they indicated that they could get the locking gas shocks to us faster than their usual lead time of 5 weeks. I explained the problem of not being able to test the product and they said that we should be able to get a single pair fairly quickly to test.
I will send an email tomorrow as soon as I have had a change to get the videos off of the camera onto the FTP site