phoenix2013

The two pictures are actually two totally different design projects. Top one is an electrical project, bottom is a mechanical project. 10 casters total two swivels and two solid like you see and and six 3 inch solid

What the hell is he up to now?

There is a new updated and expanded version of the Jackalopee operations and installation manual. Available via email.

It all shall pass with this one and the next one. The PT is dealing with two things, the knee is healing from the operation and is pissed off about that "disturbance", the second issue is that you were probably not using your knees, legs and the rest of your posture properly, because the "knees hurt". You are bringing back many muscles that haven't worked right for a long time. As far as nothing hurting when you pushed that clutch, it was "never going to hurt". The instance the surgeon cut out the stuff that was bad and turned that into a medical bio-trash, the link to your brain from what hurt was severed and there is no link from the "new stuff" (not, unless you are a Borg). I kept alternating from left to right as mine were getting worse and worse the last few months. The reason I did both at the same time, they were so useless that the PT would not have been effective (doing one and using the gimpy one for PT)

I asked my surgeon if he ever had to "go back to fix things because the comformis failed"? He said once. The guy had a bad fall. Ever since then, I've been careful not to fall. I've heard of of infections also being a bad ju-ju.

Good point, I have one gold crown installed in the 1960'a, it was the material of choice then, my dentists still marvel over it in the days of plastic. I should make point of it in my family trust so that my kids can retrieve it and sell it.

My wife has metal hip, I have two knees, We had a "discussion" with "the folks" about what will happen after cremation. They actually have a service where a person shows up and "retrieves the spare parts".

It was interesting to find out that these are supposed to withstand twice the design load, now the real and "expensive" test

I have two cousins, in Port St. Lucie, one has a mobile home and is worried, will be staying in my house, I have good shutters on the house which they are securing. House is relatively new build to modern hurricane standards. I'll be staying in New Hampshire until it's over, before we return.

Yippee, the third day convince me to do the other knee. Did they make a pair of knees for you, or just one? Nothing like conformis, the other part of the procedure is that they do minimal cutting to get to the bones, basically just the skin to get to them, things heal real quick.

Since ETs went to a new manufacturer to continue onward and forward, I have more time, "again", to do engineering work and folks that want to engage me in said tasks, and ideas of my own than needed more "free time". No, none of these require getting "acquainted" with a pig. Ramps are just ramps, you guys have seen these before, the other thing has to do with Dodge trucks.. Ford does it too, Chevy's still in diapers, haven't made it to potty yet. This is just the first step, sizable effort will follow.. So you have a task for me?

I found that getting it from 10-15 degrees "permanent bend" (it wanted to stay there) back to 0 degree was more difficult and painful part of PT than getting it to 100 degrees the other way

Now, now, we are just anticipating the look in the future, you have to admit that it's an uncanny likeness, glasses included.

You'd figure old goat would start chasing does or "nannies", after all retirement number 4 provided ample nannie chasing time, but NO! he's got other interests now.

Sounds, like you are on day 2, that one is a bitch. Are you on, every 4 hour pain regimen. I was getting IV shot every 4 hours. You have to keep it up for about 36 hours, day and night. First knee they didn't wake me up every 4 hours to keep the dose going, "I was sleeping like a baby", they said. My response was, " you've got a really pissed off baby, that is hurting like a son-of-bitch". By the third day I was fine. Are they draining your swelling and do you have a compression legging on?

A day after surgery is the worst, but if they give you the dope in timely intervals (every 4 hours in my instance) it's more than manageable. From the third day on it's Hallelujah times. Rocky, you want those conformis knees, stick with the peterbilts. I wrote an article after my episode, conformis people and my surgeon had a belly laugh. Engineers, Doctors and Borgs. I’m in a celebratory mood, brought upon by a change in venue. The trio of physicians, who have been ministering to this old carcass I’ve been carrying around for 74 years, came to a conclusion that the condition that postponed the February surgery has been sufficiently beaten down to try again on June 14th (knee # 1) and June 17th (knee # 2). Whenever I’m in celebratory mood I feel a need for literary output in the language of William Shakespeare and Ernest Hemmingway which I learned in my late youth. So here it goes. I always thought that doctors were like engineers. Obstetricians are like manufacturing engineers making sure the “product” leaves the “factory” on time and meets the essential quality standards. Primary doctors are like product engineers keeping track of the product in use and in the field, informing the clients on the latest tweaks, pointing out things that could cause the product to fail because of misuse or abuse. Emergency room doctors are like service engineers sent out to make the product work again after abuse and failure. Surgeons are like the “super techs” usually involved when everything else fails and without their help the product will have to be junked. The equivalent of the design engineers would be the transplant guys, microsurgery guys, drug designers etc. When I see 3D, I know that the essential work and repairs on the product at hand will be done well, accurately and with forethought. The product at hand is a pair of diseased knees which reduced their owner to resort to this alternative form of locomotion instead of walking. As some of you may know the owner of the aforementioned diseased clunkers is big into computer generated 3D design work, therefore, when he saw this he knew he was in the good hands. Why, because the trial and error, fitting and futzing, etc., would be done virtually and on a computer screen and not on the said diseased pair while their owner was in a la la land and in the hands of “another engineer”, this one capable of “turning off” and then cranking over 74 year old carcass laying dormant for an hour or so. So why am I so excited? The following is a perfect symbiotic example of medicine and engineering in perfect harmony. First your truly was subjected to an MRI-like x-rays from hips to toes, that info was sent to Massachusetts to create a 3D model of the existing skeletal model from hip to toes. Why hip to toes? The plan is not only to install new knees but to also realign things away from the old bowlegged cowboy look to the more youthful and straighter self. Once those parameters are set the computer goes to work again. It figures out how much stuff has gone missing and needs to be added to achieve straightness and full J curve motion from straight knee to bent knee (0 to 90 degrees). Current techniques only take into considerations those two extremes and one in five patients is not too happy with what happens in between those angles. The computer then figures out the shape and size of the actual implant for each side. The next step is truly revolutionary and pure engineering. The computer is connected to a 3D printer to manufacture plastic templates to be used in surgery to precisely cut, bore and shape the bone to accommodate the new prosthesis. Once the bones are exposed the templates are placed in succession to drill (through holes) or cut (through slots) to shape the bone for the implant. Once all that is done the surgeon reaches into the same kit to retrieve a pair of beautiful and new “spare parts”. Let the making of the new Borg begin. All kits are patient specific, clearly identified (the 3D printer makes kits for several patients on each run) and come pre-sterilized to the surgeon. A pair of mine has been patiently sitting in his office for a couple of months now. Although the article was meant to “entertain”, it also meant to inform as I am sure there are many “candidates” for this surgery in our neighborhood. What I found surprising was that this advanced medical procedure is available right here in our Port St. Lucie community. Dr. Edward Rosario from Coastal Orthopedic has been doing this procedure for a number of years and has been training other surgeons in its use. He performs the operations at Port St. Lucie Medical Center and the facility that has the proprietary software to generate the initial 3D images of the knees is located in St. Lucie West at iCARE Radiology. Edit (and progress report): After hospital stay and rehab at Health South standing and walking on “straight” legs at home on July 2nd 2016 (15 days after the second knee was done). Full disclosure here, I was still using walker at this stage, which the PT people "strongly recommended", but for the purpose of the picture (hero complex) walker was placed outside of the picture frame. The first “look and see” with Dr. Rosario’s office was on July 14th. X-rays were taken to help with the “look and see”. Seeing the pictures on the computer screen (and being an engineer) I just had to have them. And I was no longer bowlegged, which was the condition from my teenage days. Cautionary tale there, I had to see a foot doctor, after about a year the ankles were getting screwed up, turned out I had to "re-train" my ankles how to work with straight legs and walk right. Note that the knee cap is preserved; it is modified on its backside to glide smoothly over the prosthesis. Also note the distinct difference between the left and the right prosthesis, again the “beauty” of the conformis system which designs the new knees not only for each patient but also for each knee. Comparison of the “originals” to the healed new pair (Sept 7th). Original were full of fluid, the surgeon said, "no, we are not going to fool around and drain them, they'll drain when I start working on them". Fully functioning, able to work almost full days on one’s feet in the shop. Atrophied muscles and strength also coming back.

Hmm, Jack? A picture would be worth a thousand words🤔

As long as are not including, "I used to have a better bladder control, but not anymore", you're OK

Just like in all professions there is a "range". Wife and I went through a dozen or so PT therapists (me for the knees, she for her back). Most were good, couple brilliant ones and couple useless.

It's not unusual for lots of muscles to go into dormancy when ONE AS A GIMP favors these because the knees hurt. So even normal use is too much for these in the beginning after the knees get back to normal (no pain). I remember when one of my knees got to 100 degrees I reached "its limit". The PT gal said "we need to get to 110 degrees". She had my knee bent close to 100 degrees, she's massaging my leg getting me relaxed. HOLLY MOTHER OF JESUS, HOLLY TRINITY, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She smiled and said, "see, you can do it, your knee actually went past the 110 degrees". She told me that some patients are so bad between atrophied muscles and scar tissue from the surgery, in order to get them into PT, they have to put them under anesthesia and just bend things where they need to go. She said no one want to be in the room when they do it, because of all the snapping and popping.

Lance, little trick I learned from PT people (some of these folks are phenomenal in their knowledge of our musculature), tendon pain or tendinitis is usually the final straw in the physical abuse of your muscles. If you abuse your muscles, they complain but not so much that you "have to stop". "Yeh, what's a little strain, got to push is through". Then the muscle has a discussion with all the muscles around, "Hey guys, how are doing"? "Yeh, he's pushing us but it's not to bad, how about you"? "He's pushing me too much, I give him hints but the moron keeps ignoring it". The other muscles say, "Hey Muscle Joe, send this idiot a real message down that tendon you are attached to". Tendon pain is a symptom, you have to find the muscle the tendon is attached to, probably in the butt or lower hip area for that one. You should find a "trigger point" in that muscle (a hard spot that hurts like hell if you press on it or touch it), you need to loosen it. Don't go right at it, it's already pissed at you to high heaven. Start the massage around away from it, then as things loosen start getting closer to it until it let you work on it. Trigger points don't go away quickly it might take several days, that's why tendinitis often requires immobilization of "pissed off muscle" before it gets better.

Congratulations Dave for riding that Peterbilt of knee replacement. Just want to know if it feels more like straight nose 357, or the more aerodynamic 579. Looked at that Nano Knee Replacement Institute ads and video. Left me a little puzzled, on one end, they seem to utilize the same approach as Conformis to determine what you need for a prosthesis, what puzzles me is how they got around numerous Conformis patents on patient specific implants, manufacturing processes, instruments, software, etc. The cheerful video of patients within days enjoying the freedoms of activities and scaling rock piles smells of Hollywood production piece devoid of reality.

Wow, that's worn

OK, now that the cat fight is over I'm ready to play. Brian, this is quite an ambitious project and I see two very positive things, you research things and ask questions and you are not afraid to expose your thinking to others who may know more (or less). This forum is a perfect place to expose one's ideas to "scrutiny", I do it all the time. Yes folks here have "opinions", but more importantly folks here have experience, having actually done things rather than "theorizing" about getting things done. One number I would like you focus on 13' 6", typical height of a semi roof. Good to have it embedded in your brain while reading bridge height markers, that's 162 inches. Just like you I had an idea at one time. For me it was a hitch service and installation shop. For other clients I built it for, it was a motorcycle lift and a garage. Let's go back to 13' 6" or 162". The top of your semi frame is at 40 inches, your deck thickness (to clear the tires with deflated suspension) has to be at least 5 inches high, that's 45 inches total subtract the two (162-45=117). How high is hood of the Jeep, I'm guessing maybe 40 inches, that's 77 inches left. Around six feet. So the first indication is that you have enough height for a motorcycle, certainly without a windscreen they are not six feet tall. But there are other things to consider, note that I had a nice sloped roof coming down to the door frame and that the door frame was 5" structural tubing with the corresponding tubing frame on the drivers side. Between that roof height, the support beam and the hoist mechanism that had to hang below the door frame to come out and lift things, that six feet of space shrunk down considerably. But the nice rounded roof could be flat and the beam could be at the top, but don't forget you would have to have some sort of deck above the hood of the Jeep to set the bike on and secure it. If I was doing what you try to do, I wouldn't screw around with this approach, the most effective solution is a lifting platform. I've never seen the truck Jack and Mark did, but I believe that's what they did. I did talk to Mark and Jack about it so I do know that the technical challenges they were "fussing about" are the same ones I encountered. The most critical one is the structural integrity. You have a 1,000 lb motorcycle sitting 5 feet up off the deck and you are going 60 miles an hour, you put the hammers down, that motorcycle has all the kinetic energy of 1,000 pounds going at 60 mph and wants to keep going (through the cab and give you short haircut). F=ma old Isaac's formula Force = mass x acceleration (or deceleration). So, how you design and anchor the main structural cage or a frame to the deck is critical. If you look carefully at the preliminary sketch I did note that the four corners on the "bridge sections" sit on top of structural beams running across the frame rails, these are not tubing, or C-channels, these are H beams with center web and two flanges on both sides. On the above photo look at the bottoms of those bridge tubings, note the massive mounting plates used to attach the structure through the deck into those H beams. The rest of the structure was put together with only thin wall tubing, 1" square and once welded together formed a very stiff and substantial torque cage, which became even more stronger once skinned with sheet metal However, from the very beginning we made sure first that our two "bridge section" would work and attach properly to the truck, they were the key to everything. That's enough for today, I'll have bunch of things to share for you later.

I was going to offer some thought, maybe on weight and balance, asking where the motorcycle was going to be placed, point out the handling issues with long overhangs, etc., etc. I think I'll wait until this gets settled.