Negative comments from prospectors anywhere in the world (no matter how trivial or individual) will always provide “food for thought” to improve current FissureMan product design. While FissureMan products are the best on the market for the money – there is always room for product improvement.
 
 
ACCELERATED STRESS TESTING
 
Stress testing is a method of reliability testing used by consumer industry and Military DOD entities to verify a product’s reliability with regard to construction, material, operation and longevity. It can also be referred to as a “Life” test.
The testing and results described below are considered to be more of a stress test than a life test although both identified methods are somewhat interchangeable.
 
Accelerated stress tests can be up to or as long as six months or more and are validated empirical test methods to simulate usable life expectancy of a given item or construction within a compressed window of time. Actual life expectancy limits are applied to various products or components according to the expected use and/or operation they will encounter based on this type of test.
 
The testing written about here addresses FissureMan swing check valve design and is a test performed to generate a valve flapper cycle life expectancy.
 
One cycle is the opening and subsequent closing of the valve flap form zero to full open condition. This action verifies the component construction regarding the physical operation, materials, design, and the adhesion mechanism and/or adhesive materials used to join the *subcomponents of the device together.
(* flap material and construction design along with the flap hinge connection to the valve throat)
 
The stress testing performed on the valve was initially conducted for a total duration of 72 hours yielding a calculated 1,296,000 full cycles of the check valve flap.
 
The stated cycle count is based on 5 mechanical cycles per second of the valve flap. It should be known the cycle count could have been as high as 10 per second as there was not a stroboscopic timing device available to gain an accurate count of the cycle rate. As a result of this, the cps established is based on the lowest visual estimate of the number of cycles generated per second.
 
To generate a visual cycle count using the valve flap movement (as seen in the upcoming video documentation) is near impossible to obtain accurately. However, if one counts from 1 to 5, it takes one second. Doing this while watching the actuator arm during rotation of the main drive gear on the test fixture one can obtain an estimate of 5 to 8 cycles per second.
 
The test described was applied to the current valve design that is now well over six months old.  (last design update - 12/15/09)  Change made - The backing screen is now physically and permanently fused to the valve throat and is no longer attached using an adhesive material.
 
So what does this all mean? It’s pretty simple really - the swing check valve flapper and hinge connection has been verified to be very robust, durable and will far exceed the cycle duration requirements of standard commercial design specifications.
 
FissureMan check valves will not and do not fail or have shown signs of wear on the flapper hinge connection point for well over 1 million full cycles. These test conditions operationally exceed industrial swing check valve reliability requirements.
 
This is significant if you figure the average cycle time for one pump on a SANDMAN or RINGKING to be around 3 to 5 seconds! Doing some quick math FissureMan swing check valves can be expected to last a very long time.  
 
The above testing is being continued from this point to achieve the total number of cycles needed to obtain catastrophic failure of the flapper components.
 
An update to this post will be added when catastrophic failure does finally occur along with a short video for review of the test in progress and end results.
 
So stay tuned and check back often!
 
 
As my luck would have it I was adding the latest cycle count update for 9/26/10 and the original post and all the accumulated data got deleted. Some days I just can’t win! :{(
 
So to pick it up again (unfortunately without the benefit of the previous postings) I will post the latest cycle count tally as follows:
 

Truncated progress update – 9/26/10

A total of 16,848,000 cycles have been performed. The previously identified deformation of the flap material is still evident, It has not gotten worse nor has it affected the flap operation in any significant manner.
 
 

                                                                         TO SLIP OR NOT TO SLIP CONNECT
                                                                   That is the question!
 
There is one particularly vociferous competitor out there that likes to ping on all the other manufacturers of hand dredges (oh yes! – it’s the same one that has been after FissureMan products since day one). He always seems to have some sort of negative comment or attitude to convey on his listings and/or e-store “blog” about other hand dredge manufacturers.
One of these (many) comments is that “friction fit” or slip connectors on hand dredges are real bad for some reason. To paraphrase his statement:
 

“The PSP uses a friction fit nozzle. This type of nozzle is used to keep cost down, as using threaded fittings more than double the cost of the nozzles. Nozzles that rely on friction alone to hold them on can and do come off at the most inconvenient time. Plus if sand or grit gets trapped between the mating surfaces, then friction fit type of nozzles can be a bear to take off.”
 

This is directed at the nozzle connections used on the FissureMan PickerStick Plus hand dredge.
 

Firstly – to be clear – the slip fittings used on the PickerStick nozzles cost (with tax) - $.95 each. The larger 1” male threaded fitting that could be used will cost (with tax) $.75 each.  I really don’t see how the cost could be “double” for a threaded nozzle fitting in this case.                       

UPDATE 6/30/10: - The fittings for the PickerStick plus are 1 1/4″ diameter slip to 1/2″ / 3/4″ & 1″ slip. These fittings cost more than any narrow 1″ threaded connections as used on the  (sic) “original” gold sucker. 

 I may not get the lowest price on all my raw products and parts.  I rather prefer to provide the best quality product for my customer base. As such my component costs may be somewhat higher since I use the best parts available rather than the cheapest. With FissureMan Online, product quality is more important than product profit.

What this writer finds duplicitous with the competitor’s statement is not whether a threaded connection is better or less costly but rather the misdirecting information about “friction fit” nozzles. All the while he provides this “opinion” the following is included with his two hand dredge package deal:
 

                                             A 2”  “Super Sucker” “friction fit” nozzle adapter….   

It seems that product construction that’s good for the goose should not be good for the gander…

 

As to a product that will get sand stuck inside and cause mechanical binding –
 The following exerpt is not this writers words but rather paraphrased from another prospecting site relating to first hand knowledge and the experience of a prospector who actually owns and commented on an “original” gold sucker  as provided by this same competitor:
 

“The smaller 1 ¼-inch model is not for large volume use….  It can tend to get some fine sand between the housing and the pump shaft, causing binding/scraping. “ 
 
 To sum up this blog entry with some technical information - if you don’t want something to bind with sand  - wipe or rinse both mating surfaces off before you put them back together. Using just this simple common sense approach you will get away from 99% of all the concern.
       

Maybe not - but FissureMan does!

FissureMan Online products are consistantly produced with the highest attention to detail - no matter how small.  One of the biggest concerns is to never provide any schlok products for sale as can be found elswhere on the Internet, EBay or even with some home brewed equipment. While not naming names or singling out any one manufacturer, the following are but three catagories of “quality” that lacks detail orientation:

- Barcodes and price tags left on the product

- Rough cut “so called quality” workmanship

- Ink pipe markings left on constructed product

The following are example images of these, less than quality oriented, attributes. You will have to pardon the somewhat blurry look of the images as they are expanded crops of the original picture. However, even being slightly blurry they will convey the concern effectively.

Many of these examples are readily seen without any alteration of the picture, however, if you need to, take any of the original posted pictures and zoom in for a close review - they are readily seen. Some may be harder to distinguish than others as the position of the product is set up such that the marking or tags are placed either almost out of site or completely hidden from view with only a clean side showing.

These picture “oversights” may be explained away by a manufacturer as something found only on the picture descriptions but never sent to a customer. However, it seems quite apparent to this writer that if the manufacturer can’t or won’t remove tags and markings for even the a simple picture used to advertise then what would make one think that they would be removed from the final product that is purchased.

These few examples may seem trivial and completely acceptable by some purchasers but they still shown a lack of true concern to provide the absolute best quality workmanship for the buck spent by you.