Category: Gear and Skills

Adventure-ready gear, and the skills to use them properly.

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Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2017

I feel confident in saying that there is more to see at Outdoor Retailer (OR) Summer Market than one can see in the few short days allotted to the show.  Summer Market completely fills the Salt Palace Convention Center, two massive ‘pavilion’ tents, and the parking lots and lawns within walking distance.  From the big names in the outdoor industry with their massive booths that take up more space than my house to the start-up companies with the ink still drying on their business cards, many, many brands are at the show to show off their latest and greatest—and there isn’t enough time to see it all.

Adventure Travel is continuing to make an impact in the outdoor industry, and more and more brands are starting to offer gear that you would expect to see at Overland Expo.  Big names like Thule are starting to offer gear like awnings, and more and more folks are quick to nod in understanding at the mention of ‘overlanding’ or ‘adventure travel.’ There was a ton of awesome gear on display, so I won’t put any more words in your way.  Here’s a taste of Summer Market.

Knives & Tools

SureFire was at the show showing off their new DBR Guardian along with many of their other proven lighting products. The DBR Guardian is a dual-diode rechargeable light that can intelligently scale its light output depending on close the lens is to an object.

 

Benchmade had their new 535 Bugout knife at the show, which weighs in at all of 1.85 ounces.  The knife has a S30V blade and Benchmade’s AXIS opening system.

 

Benzomatic had a number of new torches on hand for show attendees to ‘test’ at the show.  According to Benzomatic, no less than four cameras had been accidentally melted by their new lighters and torches by folks who under estimated their heat output.

 

Leatherman has expanded their Tread line of wearable multi-tools with some great new options.  There are two watch options and a smaller Tread LT version now available in a stainless or Diamond Like Coating (DLC) finish. Look for an in-depth review here on American Adventurist in coming months.

 

Gerber had a number of new products on display at the show.  The Freescape Camp Saw packs a 12-inch blade and folds up smaller than a paper towel roll.  The Vital Big Game Folder is Gerber’s answer to the Havalon Prianta knife which is notorious for breaking blades.  And the Center Drive multi tool focuses on the things you use most in a multi tool, and accepts standard screw driver bits.

 

Camp Kitchen

Camp Chef was showing off their new Stryker Stove in addition to updates to many other products in their line.  The Stryker works off of propane or iso-butane fuel making it a flexible option for anyone who needs one stove for backpack and vehicle based camping.

 

MSR is expanding the Windburner ecosystem with new pots and burner options.  A revised throttle allows for even more simmer control on a stove we’re already impressed with.

 

OMeals use three to five ounces of liquid to heat up a food pouch that is ready to eat in about five minutes.  They weigh a few ounces more than freeze-dried or dehydrated meals, but do not require you to pack around a stove.  The company claims that ANY liquid is all you need to enjoy a hot meal anywhere.

 

Jetboil has updated their popular Flash cooking system with a redesigned burner and new insulating wraps.  They also introduced the digital gauge that will take the guesswork out of how much fuel is in a canister.

 

Coolers, Bottles, Cups, and more

Hydroflask continues to offer more options to build your perfect bottle; a new straw lid and bottle boots were just some of the options available to compliment their ever expanding line of well-loved bottles.  Hydroflask is also stepping into the soft cooler game.

 

Pelican’s booth was comprised of almost entirely new product:  Soft-sided coolers, hard sided coolers, bottles, cups, new AIR case sizes and colors (AIR cases are up to 40% lighter than original Pelican cases while still meeting all of the standards of the original cases) as well as Pelican’s new backpacks and duffels.

 

Mountainsmith is expanding their line of soft-sided coolers with the Cooloir series of coolers, which will be available in the three sizes.

 

Camp Furniture

Nemo had a new line of chairs on display that allow you to sit up straight (great for eating) and recline to take in the world above you.  These chairs pack down to a smaller size, than many other ‘full size’ chairs and look to be very well made.

 

Helinox had a line of hard-topped packable tables on display at the show to complement their extensive and popular line of packable chairs.

 

Shelter

Thule is getting into the awning market with this great looking unit that was the center point of their booth. Quality, fit and finish all looked great, and we’re excited to see how this unit performs in the field.

 

Rooftents. OR is also the place where brands meet with their textile and material suppliers.  I happened to run into an employee from a certain three-letter brand while I was poking around the RTT manufacturer’s booths.

 

James Baroud had a booth and a vehicle display at the show.  These folks from Portugal do some serious product testing, like the 70 mph wind tunnel test that each design has to pass before it can become a James Baroud product.

 

Tepui had a large presence at the show and has some cool new things in the works we can’t talk about just yet… stay tuned!

 

Yakima. Yakima has also entered the “overlandosphere” in a big way lately, and the center point of Yakima’s booth was their Tacoma sporting their roof top tent and awning.

 

Electronics

Goal Zero had a number of new products on display, including a redesigned Fuel gas generator, new revisions of the Lithium-Yetis that will work with a new App, and a system where you can hardwire your Yeti into your home’s panel to use your home’s wiring to power appliances and lights when the power goes out.  (No more having to pull the fridge out to plug it in.)

 

Powervision is a breaking into the scene with a remote control submarine that uses VR goggles to deliver a first person view,  and a couple of multirotor (drone) models that feature some unique designs.

 

RAM Mounts had a new GoPro clip to Ram Ball adapter as well as a number of new track systems that provide even more options for mounting things to other things.

 

Bags & Packs

Big Agnes had a ton of new products at the show, like their comprehensive line of bags.  With waterproof zippers, magnetic handles, and durable construction, these bags are well appointed and well made to handle the abuse of adventure travel.

 

Sea to Summit had a number of new product lines on display at the show.  Their new gaiters, ultra-sil daypack line, and cookwear line all looked great.

 

Western Mountaineering had a couple of new down bags designed for folks who count grams and every last cubic centimeter of space.  These two new bags use your pad and a wraparound design to create and ultra-packable ultralight sleeping bag that still performs like you would expect a western bag to.

 

Summer Market was the last Outdoor Retailer show that will be held in Utah for the forseeable future.  As a result of the Utah government’s handling of public lands, the show is moving to Denver, Colorado. (I’ll let you use Google to understand the details.)  American Adventurist will be at OR Winter Market, so please let us know what you want us to keep an eye out for at the next show in the comments!

 

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Meet the Maker

When I was a child, I often found myself wishing there was a tool that I could use to create the all of the random things that a child’s mind could conjure up.  One day I would find myself wishing for some LEGO piece that I didn’t have, and on another, I needed one more part for some project I was working on.  Yet, now that I’m an adult this tool that I’ve opined for since my youth exists, and it’s called a 3D printer.  Specifically, it’s called the TAZ 6, made by Loveland Colorado-based LulzBot.  With the TAZ 6, I can create nearly anything that I can dream up, and that capability allows me to solve a world of problems and improve countless experiences for myself and others.  This is the first part in of a series of articles that will teach you how to use a 3D Printer and how to create things that will be of value to you.  Let’s dig in.

The TAZ 6 is an amazing machine, and working with it is hands down the best 3D printing experience I’ve ever had.  In a few minutes, you can have the printer unboxed, setup, and working on your first print.  Bed leveling, filament profiles, and all of the other things that can take up so much time and scare away new users are all automatically handled by the printer.  The TAZ 6 also has a massive print volume (280mm x 280mm x 250mm) that allows you to print some truly impressive things.  Just type 3D printer into Google, and take a look at the print volumes of a few other printers on the market and you’ll get what I’m on about.  Not only is the feature list on the TAZ 6 impressive, but the underlying support for the printer is outstanding as well.

A self-leveling bed, and a nozzle wiper are just a few of the features that making printing with the TAZ 6, a great 3D printer experience.

A massive print volume lets you print a number of parts all in one go.  To see what these parts make, look below.

In a world where more and more products are made and supported overseas, LulzBot printers are designed, built, and supported in Colorado.  If you have a question, LulzBot has great tech support that is just a phone call or email away to answer any questions you may have.  I can’t emphasize just how valuable this support is.  In the time that I’ve had the TAZ 6, I’ve made numerous calls to LulzBot and challenged their tech support folks with questions where I pretended to be a clueless newbie, on up to advanced topics looking for that last fractional bit of performance in a perfectly dialed filament profile.  In case you guessed where this is going, every correspondence I had was a great and helpful experience.  Rest assured, that if you’re new to this, the folks at LulzBot will help you succeed.

If you’re the type of person who loves to experiment and tinker, a few clicks in Cura, the printer companion software, will open up all of the expert settings for the printer where you can tweak and experiment to your heart’s content.  The entire LulzBot ecosystem is open-sourced and LulzBot provides you all of the part files and software code for you to play with at will.  Speaking of printer parts, the only thing that I can find on the TAZ to complain about is the design of the filament roll holder—and this is a very minor nit-picking complaint.  The filament roll holder will loosen its self when you move it to the open position, and when you place your roll of filament on the holder, the holder will now slip down the printer frame.  It’s nothing that a quick snugging with an allen wrench can’t fix, but it’s one extra thing to keep tabs on.

The TAZ 6 is made from a number of 3D Printed parts.

How It Works:

The TAZ 6 is what’s called a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D Printer.  This type of printer extrudes a melted filament onto a build surface, and just like a skyscraper is built floor-by-floor, the printer extrudes the filament layer-by-layer to create your part.  The printing process is actually pretty easy; first you use computer design software to design your part or you can download a pre-designed file from a website like thingverse.com Once you have your part(s) designed or downloaded, you load your model(s) into the printer software, where the model is sliced—think of making a plan for each floor in the skyscraper.  From there you take the sliced print file and load it into the printer, and just as a skyscraper is built from the garage to the penthouse, the printer lays down the successive layers of filament to create your print.

This “Heart Gear” can be downloaded on thingverse.com!

Designing A Thing:

You can use any Computer Aided Design (CAD) program that can output a .STL file to design your things.  Some great, free, open-source options are Blender and FreeCAD.  Or you can use a purchased program like SolidWorks.  Whatever program you choose, there are a few things that you need to bear in mind when you’re designing a thing.  Since FFF printers build things layer-by-layer from the print bed up, any part of your print that has an overhang needs to be carefully considered.  The best practice is to print at angles that are 45 – 90 degrees from the print bed.  Yet, if you need to print something that has features that are less than 45 degrees from the print bed, the printer software can add in support material to support the overhanging features as they’re printed.

The same “T” printed with and without support material.  The “supported T” with part of the support material removed is shown below:

Just as scaffolding is used to support a structure that is being built, support material will hold up the overhanging elements of your print.  Another way that you can avoid overhangs is to change the orientation of the print on the print bed as shown below.  With proper orientation, you can avoid bridging gaps and overhangs that would otherwise create filament spaghetti.  As long as you consider how the model you’re designing or downloading is actually going to be printed, you can print just about anything.

The photo above shows how the printer will handles various overhangs.  Angles and radii will produce good results (as shown on the “O” and the “V”), but you’re gambling when you bridge a gap, (note the sagging, shown on the “H”) and you will make filament spaghetti if you start printing into thin air (like on the “T”).  The best way to print these parts would be to lay them down on the print bed as shown below:

A TAZ 6 changes how you see the world.  Where you would historically find yourself scratching your head to solve a problem, you’ll now go print the thing you need to solve your problem.  Here are few exmples of things that I’ve made with the TAZ 6 to solve problems and challenges out in the world and around the home.

Broken Oven Parts

A good buddy was repairing an old oven when he accidentally broke the parts that held on the door cover.  His first reaction was to google for replacement parts, but his oven is no longer made, and parts were not stocked anywhere.  With a handful of broken parts, he came to me and asked if I could reverse engineer a few new brackets for him.  With a pair of calipers and a few revisions to make sure I had the dimension exactly the same as the original, I was able to create a replacement part that worked out great.

Gamut Roller

Another case of parts no longer being made for a given product, I 3D printed a few of these chain rollers to replace the factory one when it broke.  In less than an hour, I had measured the broken part, drawn it in CAD and had the TAZ 6 working away on a couple of new rollers.

Phantom Angel Box

This is a great example of how awesome a large build volume is.  I use this tool to place my expensive drone batteries at a storage voltage, because drone batteries are very particular about what cell voltage they’re left at.  This tool uses delicate lightbulbs, and has a number of parts that have to go with it, so a box that organizes everything and protects the tool was an obvious thing to make.  Now I have one easy to transport box that protects my kit.

Nalgine Thread to Sea-To-Summit Adapter

Ever wanted to make one thing mate to another thing?  With a TAZ 6, you can easily whip up an adapter to mate your water filter to an awesome ultra light water bag from Sea-To-Summit.

3D printing is an amazing technology that is really only limited by your imagination in terms of the problems you can solve and the things you can print.  There are folks out there who use 3D Printing to make everything from wearable StormTrooper armor to prototype parts for vehicle restoration – the applications are quite limitless.  At the top of the pile of desktop printers is the TAZ 6 – its just that good of a printer, and I’ve never had a better experience with a 3D printer in the five plus years I’ve been using them.  Add in the support from the folks at LulzBot and the open source community, and the TAZ 6 becomes an even more valuable tool.

In the next article in this series, we’re going to be using the TAZ 6 to make few things for another American Adventurist member to show how the TAZ 6 3D printer is an invaluable tool for our community.

For more information on the TAZ 6, or the other printers that LulzBot makes, head over to lulzbot.com.  Not all filaments are created equal, and the reason the TAZ 6, is about as close to plug-and-play as you can get a 3D Printer to be is because LulzBot carefully chooses, tests, and then creates dialed filament profiles for the filaments they’ve found to work well.  Save yourself the hassle, wasted time and materials and use the filaments they recommend, which you can check out here.  We’ll talking more about filament choices in the next article.  For reference:  All BLACK filament appearing in this article is PolyLite PLA.  All RED and NEON GREEN filament in nGen.  All ORANGE filament is Inova-1800.  If you have questions on any of this stuff, get in touch with the folks at LulzBot, and they’ll help you out.

Stormtrooper image from Google.