P3D Message to RBT boss: Make things better

[abram klooswyk <abram.klooswyk@xxxxxx>]

The Philips electronic company has as slogan:
"Make things better", and living in the Netherlands,
where Philips was founded, we have plenty of opportunities
to repeat it, whenever one of their products brakes down,
which happens all the time, as some people pretend.

George Themelis wrote (PHOTO-3D Digest 3470):
>RBT cameras are very
>expensive for most people's standards.  And in terms of
>reliability, the result of this custom work is necessarily
>LESS reliable than each commercially produced camera.
>Because they pay A LOT OF MONEY, some people expect
>PERFECTION in performance and reliability.
>This is not going to happen.

And on the RBT X4 (PHOTO-3D Digest 3471):
>It seems that the
>camera body can take a lot of abuse (but I'd be afraid of the
>thin mechanical links of the lenses).

Bill C Walton wrote on "What to ask or say to the maker of
the RBT camera" (PHOTO-3D Digest 3470).

I would say to RBT: why don't you use the van Slooten-Pennings
modification?
I have told this story before (P3d 3089).
The RBT SLR camera's have thin mechanical links (or braces),
which link focus, diaphragm setting and zoom, and are rather
vulnerable, and I have seen people making fun of RBT-owners
by threatening to hurt there braces....

At the request of Wim van Slooten (who got the idea),
Mr Pennings, a gifted instrument maker, has replaced
the links on van Slooten's RBT by heavy gear wheels
around the lenses, with smaller wheels to carry out the
transfers. A very robust design.
Pennings made a thick, strong axis parallel to the lenses,
at the place of the nose, if the lenses are eyes.
Three small gears on this axis couple three large gears
placed around both zoom lenses.
(This is only a rough description, Pennings design has
several clever details.)
The robust appearance of van Slooten's RBT is impressive.
I hope he can show it again in Lindau at the ISU Congress.

Since Pennings doesn't want to protect his design, there
seems no reason IMHO why Oemichen shouldn't adopt it.

Another remark, a good thing of the Internet is that it
doesn't stop at the American borders! So you Americans
can _also_ visit the _original_ site of the RBT!

It is in German, but you will understand much of it,
and see the images: http://www.rbt-3d.de/
(Ordering in North America is through Jon Golden,
 http://www.stereoscopy.com/3d-concepts/)

Abram Klooswyk