This was my first control handle project, a heavy die cast aluminum handle covered with a soft plastisol, dipped coating. The goal was to add a third momentary rocker switch on the front of the handle for the index finger to operate. The switch activated the left/ right tilt function of the cutting deck of a combine.
This would have been pretty simple in 1998 with 3D cad, but in 1994 with only the first 3D program from AutoDesk, and inadequate PCs ("386"), it was slow. The customer provided the largest print I have ever seen - a non-standard F size about 6 feet long. Every 1/8 inch they had a pantograph line of a cross section of the handle. I digitized the cross sections on a tablet and then lofted them into a useful 3D model. It worked, the customer liked it a lot, and I became the go to guy for control handles. |