I agree that chasing sells itself on opportunity savings for builders, a nice little bonus for employing a HX. At this point in time, i think its too early to completely write it off because FBR might still be able to make it work - but it could simply be a case of prioritisation that has limited the amount of focus on this aspect of the machine.
See my previous post specifically around chasing
hereSome reasons why i believe Chasing has moved down the priority list:
1. Laying speed has been prioritised over chasing
2. Diamond blade costs are high and their current chasing method method may only allows for a 100% cut channel with no chipping which leads to quicker blade fatigue
3. Alternate options in brick design that services to go down the wall
4. The need to get HX working & generating revenue
5. Chasing can still be rolled out in the next tried & proven model
In all honesty i see HX as a government model or a military model that will cover contracts in war ridden or 3rd world areas. The next model shortly after will be the refined public 1st world house churning beast.
One thing i noticed in a recent video is that they're reviewing a more efficient brick handling from pallet to boom. I think that in this exersise they will create 2 paths to the boom:
1. Via the saw
2. Direct to boom
My thoughs behind this theory strings from the idea that a consistent flow of bricks to the lay head will bottleneck at the cutting and chasing station.
Lets look at the below scenario:
- HX can lay 4 bricks a minute
- 1 in 4 bricks are cut or chased
- It takes 15 seconds to lay a brick
- it takes 1 minute to cut a brick
If every brick had to pass through the brick cutter to be picked up at the other end, 3 bricks will pass in 45 seconds and 1 brick will take a minute. Resulting in 4 blocks per 1m 45 sec
If there's 2 paths from pallet to boom, 3 blocks will pass while one is cut or chased - Resulting in 4 blocks per minute.
This will almost half the laying speed.
This may already be engineered into HX, but i think for the time being their focus has been on the laying head accuracy and calibration of the internal moving parts Instead of efficiency - Now we are onto efficiency.
As we are all aware, theyre all about their performance shres so im sure we will see 10 houses built this year 1 way or another. I just jope theyre built well, and they score a good contract whilst doing so.
I would love to put the chasing at rest now, and surely enough someone else will spark the debate once again next week, but for what its worth, its a small issue in the big picture and it is not a necessity - rather a good to have aspect of HX.
I think we all need to remind ourselves that FBR is more than a bricklaying mob, and that all the R&D going into HX is leading into a much larger technological footprint in the way Robotics will integrate into the real world.
(20min delay)
