Blueprint contest

[afish]

I was thinking since it seems we have a few members here that have some engineering experience it would be nice to have a blueprint section where members could go and print off some prints for different projects along with part numbers at (Surplus center of course) for different things like grapples,grapple buckets,road graders,FEL cement mixers and whatever else. Instead of doing a searc and reading through 100 of posts. I was thinking something like a contest style maybe a new one every month. Members could vote on which items they would like designs for. There are alot of details to work out like what the winner would receive (maybe a gift certificate to surplus center) or cash. As well as where the funds would come from maybe small donation from members and that area would only be accessible to those members that donated. Just a thought

 

[firefighter9208]

I would pay a small membership fee ($10-$15 a year) to be able to access this type information. Sounds good to me.

Chris

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Never happen. Thanks to the lawyers. Could you imagine Muhammad being served with a copyright infringement lawsuit?

 

[afish]

I wasnt suggesting you go and draw up blueprints off of something someone else built. It would have to be an original design or something that would be different that would improve upon a current design. For instance I was thinking of building a BB/grader combo Would basically be a box blade with a removable rear blade that would pin to a road grader so you could use the scarifiers from the BB to loosen up the hard stuff and the blades on the grader part to smooth and flatten everything out and if you wanted just the BB you would pull a couple of pins and off you go. I'm no lawyer but it seems like that would be fine. Only problem I see is if someone took one of the designs off here and tried to mass produce it. O'well it was just a thought

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Hey, I wasn't trying to down you or anything. I like fresh new ideas. I actually like the idea of it. But all it takes is someone to by purpose or not make something remotely similar to something else out there and here come the lawyers.

I was on a racecar site a while back. I used to print out useful posts and categorize them in a notebook so I had them for reference. Saves a lot of time searching.

 

[afish]

I didn't take it negatively. I didn't mean for my post to be either.

 

[Luremaker]

I think this could work. Simply publish all plans under one of the "openuse", or "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License" and everyone is free to use and or modify the plans without any fear of copyright infringement etc. Under these licenses the plans would come without any warranty or liability for the creator.

 

[Blagadan]

Good idea but I wonder how much time people would be willing to invest in drawing up accurate dimensional drawings to be made available for free sharing?
I know Most of the stuff I make is off the cuff. Kind of evolves as it is being made. I'm lucky I suppose, like a lot of the other guys here, I can do quite a bit with a photograph of an implement. I'm not sure about taking a set of blue prints and building something verbatim like you'd do with a 'new yankee workshop' set of plans? Anyone that does offer up plans better make sure they print off a clear disclaimer... We all know how bad the legal world is getting these days.

 

[Luremaker]

Good idea but I wonder how much time people would be willing to invest in drawing up accurate dimensional drawings to be made available for free sharing?.

It's already happening in wood working circles and software. Just look around at all of the amazing opensource software available.Today there is little need to purchase commercial software anymore. I can see the day when these open type licenses will be on many types of documents. Not everyone is after a buck on everything they do. Even Universities are publishing books with open licenses. My son in high school gets some of his text books in pdf format with an open share a-like type license. If I could ever figure out how to use a cad program and learn to make my own attachments I would gladly give the plans away.

 

[MReeb]

Never happen. Thanks to the lawyers. Could you imagine Muhammad being served with a copyright infringement lawsuit?

The other legality of it would be engineering approval. There would have to be an indepth disclaimer stating that the individual who developed the plans and this website are not responsible for the item built from the plans.
Say someone built something like a FEL from plans submitted to the site and there was an injury due to some sort of mechanical, hydraulic, weld or electrical failure you wouldn't want the injured party to be able to file a lawsuit.
That being said, I would mind seeing some plans for the toys afish listed.

 

[POC]

I love this idea! I was a drafter for 10 years or so. That was my first life. Now I'm almost done with school for nursing.
I have AutoCAD 2000 on one of my old computers at home. I'll have to fire it up and work on some things.

 

[Bill_C]

The other legality of it would be engineering approval. There would have to be an indepth disclaimer stating that the individual who developed the plans and this website are not responsible for the item built from the plans.
Say someone built something like a FEL from plans submitted to the site and there was an injury due to some sort of mechanical, hydraulic, weld or electrical failure you wouldn't want the injured party to be able to file a lawsuit.
That being said, I would mind seeing some plans for the toys afish listed.

Unfortunately. that's a real problem. I'm a registered professional engineer, and if I publish a blueprint, even with disclaimers, there's legal ramifications...One idiot could bankrupt me and ruin the rest of my life. So sadly, I can't participate freely as I would like.

 

[srjones]

If I were a professional, I'd probably be worried, but I'm not (so I'm not)

Count me in. I love the idea. I don't see how this would be any different for the many designs, ideas and drawings already posted here. Anybody been sued yet?

This is all inherently dangerous stuff and IMHO it is a very good idea to put ideas out in drawn form for others to comment on.

Even if it wasn't a contest, maybe just a promotion to a 'special' forum. I can think of at least a half-dozen or so different TBN designed things that should start things out

 

[mjncad]

In my past life I was a CADD Dweeb for 24-years. I keep my AutoCAD current and I wouldn't mind making a few bucks selling plans. I've posted a thread about that in the past and got a lot of good feedback.

Most was about our litigious society could make my life miserable. A few said go for it, because if we all cower in the corner from the lawyers, then nothing gets accomplished.

I still haven't made up my yet on whether to offer plans for sale with all sorts of disclaimers.