marka

Howdy, The home machine doesn't have any ability to automatically adjust the ring height. AFAIK (which could be wrong), the pro machine is the same. It makes sense that they can detect that a cross grind ring is installed and modify the travel speed of the carriage / whatever. But I don't understand how they could increase the pressure. Mark

Howdy, How do they apply more pressure? Are they larger diameter? Mark

Howdy, So do you know what they're doing under the covers? Mark

Howdy, I did a Weekend Warrior adult camp in Pittsburgh last year. Thursday evening to Sunday afternoon, IIRC. As I remember, single ice slots on Thursday & Sunday, with 2 a day on Friday/Saturday. Also lots of classroom / video / whatever sessions. I had a great time. I didn't get any magical overnight improvements, but I did learn about some things that I still think about today. For this old guy it was a bit like turning back the clock and being in sports in Highschool or whatever, where all i cared about for a few days was hockey. The camp is pitched to all levels, but I would say that the majority of folks there were on the "started playing hockey as an adult" spectrum. I don't recall anyone that struggled to skate at all, but there weren't guys out there 5 years removed from playing AA travel hockey either. I will say that your body needs to be able to handle that much ice time. They're super understanding and will work with people, but I know that I'd feel like I was letting myself down if I had to miss significant portions of the on ice stuff. You probably don't want to take the camp if the idea of two games in a weekend is too much for you, for instance. For me personally, I'll do it again if the stars schedule-wise align correctly. I didn't do one this year because of shoulder surgery. I am worried about how my body will hold up as I get older. Cost isn't cheap (particularly if you're travelling), but I figure I'm at least partly paying to just be able to put the rest of the world on pause and pretend to be a full time hockey guy for a weekend. My version of a fantasy camp. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I'd seen something about this on an automated skate sharpening FB group. https://conicity.com/edgehone Has anyone played with / examined one of these yet? I'd be really curious to see what the inside looks like / see how they're actually doing the honing. Mark

Howdy, Ah hell man, that doesn't sound good. Hopefully the biopsies come back better than you're expecting and he just tells you to lay off the flaming hot cheetos? Mark

Howdy, Pretty much has to be this. Mark

Howdy, Its that "move the needle" bit there that matters. For an existing owner, I don't think there's any reason to buy a new machine. Maybe portability, if you're a gen 1 user. But otherwise... Not much that I can see. So the question is, at what point does Sparx need to start selling upgrades to current owners, vs. new people? I have no idea when that point is. Presumably they've got marketing folks / data that's talking to them, telling them to continue to make minor refinements to the current setup vs. major advances in capability. But still, to me as a gen 1 owner on a forum talking about shit, I'm curious how the machine could realistically be better _for me_. Mark

Howdy, I dunno if the average person would notice or not... I hear from a lot of people that the sharpen they get from a Sparx isn't as good as "their guy" or whatever. How much of that is crap and how much is reality... Dunno? Remember that I'm a Sparx owner here. Obviously I like the thing. I'm just curious how it could be better. So how would you implement automatic calibration for grinding ring height and centering on the blade? Mark

Howdy, So... Gen3 is kinda a disappointment to me. Gen 2 made sense as a refinement, but I expected gen3 to introduce some new capabilities. So... What _should_ gen 3 have been? 🙂 To me, the biggest downside of the Sparx is that you can't get the same blade finish / edge as what you can get with a really good manual sharpening. I think that likely comes down the grit size on the wheel, but possibly also its the pressure used / pass speed? Unsure. My understanding is that on a manual machine, you lubricate the steel & use less pressure on your final pass. To change the grit size, you'd have to swap rings. And any ring swap is going to introduce some edge height error since the center of each ring isn't guaranteed to be identical (though they're obviously damn close). Plus you have to take the skate out to swap the wheel. And you've now literally got 2x the cost for a given radius / hollow. The advantage is that there's nothing that would fundamentally have to change to enable this. If a grit size change isn't required but rather a finishing lube would work, that would be pretty easy to apply manually. Might not even have to unclamp the skate. Heck, its not totally inconceivable that it could be automatically applied. To change the pressure, you'd need a modified carriage that would allow you to remove some of the spring pressure without changing the ring height. Likely that means a re-design to have two springs, one of which could be locked out with a button / lever / ?? To me, none of that seems inconceivable. I would think that some capabilities like this could be added for incremental cost vs. wholesale redesign. The next step would be support for profiling. That would seem to be as straightforward as to adding a motor that controls the height of the grinding ring, or more likely, a grinding ring assembly that still contains a spring loaded height setup. You'd also need the ability to know where the grinding ring is along the X axis (I doubt that is possible with the current hardware, but perhaps its as simple as adding an encoder). Might also need the skate clamp to have a way to precisely locate the skate blade fore/aft as well as pitch, but perhaps not as well... Perhaps that's actually measured once the skate is placed in the machine. After that, everything should be software... Shouldn't be any need for actual physical templates, CNC has been around for a long time. I think that's likely a decent bit more $$... Adding a motor plus encoders on both axis anyway. Maybe some type of sensor as well to be able to measure where the blade actually is. All of this may even ignore the simplest change, which would be support for a cross grinding ring. Seems like all you need for that is to beef up the ability of the machine to handle larger / hotter swarf. That can't be too far off already, since the gen 1 pro versions already have it. Anyway, what type of reasonable (or maybe not so reasonable) design changes would you all have liked to see? Mark

Howdy, Good luck man. Hope its as routine as this type of procedure gets! Mark

Howdy, That's because lace locks are awesome. Mark

Howdy, Not sure if you mean: https://prostockhockeysticks.com/ or https://www.prostockhockey.com/ but both are reputable I believe. Certainly PSH is. I've never bought anything from prostockhockeysticks.com, but IIRC lots of others here have. Mark

Howdy, I'm on the Sparx FB group. I haven't done a scientific poll or anything, but it feels like half the posts asking for advice are some version of "my skate edges aren't level, what do I do?" I think the new edge checker w/app does a good job of helping people with that / making it more idiot proof. In terms of new stuff that I might care about as a gen 1 sparx owner... Pretty much there's nothing on gen 3 I care about. Like you, I'm fine with the display. It might be kinda nice to be able to program in 8 passes directly vs. 6+2 (etc), but that's hardly a pressing issue for me. Comparing Gen 1 to Gen 3, the gen 3 is more portable and the access to the grinding rings is a little better. But both of those were true for gen 1 to gen 2 as well. The OTA updates is one of those "double edged sword" types of things. Its great if they ever actually deliver an update that increases functionality (for instance... Does the new unit have a brain that can vary wheel or carriage speed and will they at some point modify that, perhaps with a new ring grit, to get better finishing passes?) Its not great if the OTA update breaks a feature / gets used to disable your machine in some manner. It looks to me like the vast majority of their focus was on making the Sparx even easier to use, vs adding capability. I already found it easy to use, so mostly that doesn't help me. Mark

Howdy, Everyone says this, but I still don't know if its actually accurate. Interestingly, its something VT could test pretty trivially. My butt says that "fits well" is WAY more about comfort than it is about differences in protection. A loose helmet, for instance, is just going to have a bit extra time between when the surface hits the helmet and when the impact hits the head. Same mass involved, same foam thickness / type, etc. etc. But it would be cool to know for sure. Mark (edit: This is not to say that I don't think there can be some actual differences... Like if the helmet isn't sitting on your head so that the foams are where they're supposed to be or the helmet can twist in an impact and cut you or whatever... But I'm not sure how much difference it would make to the test itself where its measuring how much acceleration gets imparted to the head or whatever the hell)

Howdy, So I can't actually find it anywhere... How much does one of these cost? Mark

Howdy, This is definitely going to be a struggle. I dunno the price point on this thing but I'm guessing its high. And even though I'm pretty invested in keeping my head safe, comfort, have enough disposable income, etc. etc. etc. "Just trust us you'll like it" probably isn't going to do it. There really needs to either be a generous return / "we'll make it right" policy or I'm going to need a good bit of real world experience from folks taking the leap and reporting back that the helmets are great. Mark

Howdy, Definitely interesting. And yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing results on VT as well. For the scanning process... Is that done by touch or by 'sight'? I'm just wondering how you all deal with hair, basically. Mark

Howdy, How repairable it is is going to be down to how far down / what's actually cracked... I think you need to talk to True's customer service folks to try and get to someone that could really answer that. If the crack is just in the presumably superficial clear coat, probably the right answer is to not do anything at all? But if the crack is in the actual fiberglass structure, then I would assume the only way you could repair it would be to sand down / scuff up both sides and apply a fiberglass patch. But I would also assume that this isn't just "fiberglass" since the shell is heat moldable, etc. etc. Sorry this is happening. Hopefully True can respond and at least give you some information even if its not a warranty type thing. Mark

Howdy, The technology here is pretty neat. Fast/scalable (I assume?) 3d printing of helmet foam definitely seems like a great idea / 'the future'. Of course, the hard part here is how we judge the most important part of a helmet, which is how much it protects your head in an impact along with how much the weight affects your head in a whiplash situation. My struggle is how I would ever be able to evaluate that as a consumer. Its easy for me to judge comfort & looks, but comfort is very much a 2nd criteria for me and looks pretty much doesn't matter at all. During 3d printing, are you adjusting the type / make up of the foam to get stiffer / less stiff foams as you go? In the motorsports helmet world, it seems like there are two very distinct types of foam... Impact foams and then comfort foams/liners inside that. I'm not sure that hockey helmet design is doing similar stuff though. Also, I assume there are only a couple standard shell sizes, and then you're 3d printing foam to end up more or less thick to adjust for different head dimensions? When you're printing the foam, are you doing it 'flat' and then performing some process to bend that foam to install it in the helmet? Or is the 3d printed foam literally 3d and you could pop it on someone's head as is (for instance, not that you'd actually do that). Mark

Howdy, In my case its because I'm an idiot and get bored easily. So... "Hey, that's a great deal, I should buy that" or "I want to try a new pattern / flex" or "I tried this new pattern and liked it ok, so now I need a backup stick and a dryland stick" etc. Mark

Howdy, Its definitely annoying that whatever True is using for a grip coating turns so sticky / gummy. I've got a number of 5-ish year old sticks that will need to have the coating stripped off before you'd want to play with them. Mark

Howdy, Have fun with it! You definitely need the right personality for the whole thing, but I find reffing to be pretty rewarding overall. And no, I'm not speaking financially, thought it doesn't hurt to be paid to skate. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I don't really agree. And I own and use a Sparx. When you're comparing the entire process, its totally valid to include things in one process that the other process doesn't allow for. That's kinda the point of comparing the processes. Having said that, that 'article' is obviously a bit of a hit piece. They completely ignore blade profile changes over time, they ignore skill of the operator, and they don't even spell 'Sparx' correctly. If they really measured anything vs. just doctoring up a pretty picture, it would be interesting to see if using the Wissota Speed Skate after the Sparx helped the edge. My guess is probably not (vs. just polishing the steel) but ?? Mark

Howdy, I tried the Curex in my TF7's because I was getting pain on the bottom of my foot and thought maybe the stock insole was breaking down. They're ok, but I don't think they're wide enough or something. The edges of insole dig into my feet a bit, particular from the midfoot or so back. I went back to a new pair of the stock retail TF insoles. Mark