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'Power Station' - Has the world gone mad? (Read 27186 times)

webbo

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Feel compelled to defend this thing a little.  Consider the brief: design a freestanding product that'll fit in an average room in a house, feasible for the practically totally incompetent to erect, easy to ship, affordable for anyone on a decent salary, at minimal cost to the planet....   Well, it appears to tick all those boxes so, to echo gme, good luck to them and good on them for having a go.  Good on highlander too if he gets some cash out of endorsing something harmless like this.   
Rumour has that even you managed to build a board in Guys spare bedroom. :o
I have even managed to put a finger board that moved less than than the Highlanders and when it comes to DIY I've never get further than looking at tools.

tim palmer

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I am not sure the prices are defensible, especially those of the additional training equipment, the materials are relatively cheap and the idea not particularly novel; 1000 pounds for a piece of ply with t nuts, you could buy the raw materials at retail for £50 if you didn't shop around.  £120 for a fingerboard which is an inferior version something rodma made me for £10 (rodma's rails jugged in at the centre so better for one arm hangs). 

I am not sure the eco argument holds up either (stay with me here), because if these are made for people who can't/ won't do it themselves, then surely all they are doing is cutting down some trees (and using a load of glue and petrol etc) which would otherwise been left undisturbed.

webbo

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Also is seems Scott Muir is the man behind this and if my memory is right hasn't he apparently always been trying to make a fast buck out of climbing.

Steve R

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All valid points well made.  I suppose there's just no getting around the fact that it's clearly a total rip-off. Consider my flimsy defense rescinded.   :slap:

Moo

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I declare this nonsense

JohnM

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I guess if he sells some and makes a bit of profit he won't care what a bunch of people on a forum bitching about his product think! I guess you guys are not his target market, people with their own lathes or their mate Dave who'll build them one for a tenner! The price may be so high because he expects a low turn over so needs to command a price to justify the effort of making them.

Quote
Also is seems Scott Muir is the man behind this and if my memory is right hasn't he apparently always been trying to make a fast buck out of climbing.

There are much easier ways to make a quick buck than out of climbing. "Real" climbers are some of the tightest people going!

He might to well down in the South East/London market. People there generally rent so they can't attach finger boards etc and tend not to have the space or tools to build their own training facilities. Also the cost would be less prohibitive to people on a decent London wage.

abarro81

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Man I'm glad I live in Sheffield

moose

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I guess if he sells some and makes a bit of profit he won't care what a bunch of people on a forum bitching about his product think! I guess you guys are not his target market, people with their own lathes or their mate Dave who'll build them one for a tenner! The price may be so high because he expects a low turn over so needs to command a price to justify the effort of making them.

I agree.  I am personally not too surprised by the cost of the full set-up, with the woodie.  There are probably a lot of sunk costs for the design and prototyping.  To comply with liability insurance, there might be safety tests / certifications that have to be passed.  It that is the case, it would have to be able to be dismantled and rebuilt without qualified supervision, with no risk of collapse afterwards, even with foreseeable misuse.  That would require the design being more idiot-proof and over-engineered than an equivalent at a wall, which would be maintained and supervised by professionals, or one self-built / more informally commissioned as a one-off, where I imagine there is less of a duty of care on the vendor (as the buyer would have had a role in the design).   

That there is not already an equivalent "ready-made" product on the market suggests that getting one out there is not trivial.  And, as John said, reasonably well paid professionals in flats probably would not be too bothered by the price - just a nice treat paid for from an Xmas bonus in the £10,000s.  . 

Although it is small by comparrison, it is the cost of the fingerboard that seems most unjustifiable, as there are already more complex, and presumably more expensive to manufacture, equivalents on the market that cost far less.

Durbs

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He might to well down in the South East/London market. People there generally rent so they can't attach finger boards etc and tend not to have the space or tools to build their own training facilities. Also the cost would be less prohibitive to people on a decent London wage.

As someone who lives in the South-East, spitting distance from London (and it deserves being spat at...), on a moderately ok income, I can confirm I find the price insane.

For... £500 (?) I think it would be more tempting, though those with the skills and tools could build a moonboard (sans holds) for less.

Nutty

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He might to well down in the South East/London market. People there generally rent so they can't attach finger boards etc and tend not to have the space or tools to build their own training facilities. Also the cost would be less prohibitive to people on a decent London wage.

As someone who lives in the South-East, spitting distance from London (and it deserves being spat at...), on a moderately ok income, I can confirm I find the price insane.


As another South-East, former London dweller I can echo this!

You could have membership to a wall for 3+ years for the base cost of a power station. Also, I would never have had the floor space for this in a London flat.

JohnM

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I used to live in London. I would never have bought this.  :lol:

nik at work

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Clearly no one on here is part of the target market. I don't even know if the target market exists at this stage (it probably will at some point if climbing popularity continues to increase...).

I can't see why anyone would pay several hundred pounds for the new, slightly different to the old, i-phone (or whatever) and yet people still queue for hours to get these things. Each to there own :shrug:

Good luck to them.

Muenchener

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Well you've seen my homemade version Nik - on the one hand it cost a lot less, on the other hand as mentioned above I certainly wouldn't accept any kind of liability for anybody but me hanging from it.

Also perhaps to the point though - on the front of my bit of wood I have a beastmaker and on the back I have two campus rungs. The two campus rungs see considerably more traffic.

abarro81

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Personally I hate rungs without pockets for training 1 and 2 finger combos - I find them all tweaky on my knuckles. Despite what Dave M and Ben 'Wolfgang didn't need pockets' Moon say to justify not having them...

Nutty

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Personally I hate rungs without pockets for training 1 and 2 finger combos - I find them all tweaky on my knuckles. Despite what Dave M and Ben 'Wolfgang didn't need pockets' Moon say to justify not having them...

Interestingly, the original campus board has two finger pockets (see photo half way down): https://rockclimberstrainingmanual.com/2015/01/14/the-original-campus-board/

ducko

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I was ogling this contraption the other day and I have to agree that for the cost it is shite, you'd have to be one mad bastard to part with your coin for this basic training tool that is so simple to build.
For comparison I built my shed especially to put my board in along with kitting it out I spent about 1200 bucks and it's a big biffer too.

moose

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The comparisson should not be with self-builds though.  That would never be an option for some (including me). 

If you are irredeemably bad at woodwork, own no suitable tools, and lack the space / facilities to build anything beyond an Ikea bookshelf, then the time, materials, equipment, and botched attempts it would take to build your own board would likely outweigh even the cost of that monstrosity.  And, whilst if you gave it a go, the work might be satisfying, the result would probably be shit... and then collapse and kill the cat. 

For those people, buying ready-made is possibly the only option (and if you can earn enough doing extra hours at your regular work it would likely be more economic anyway).

petejh

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Moose sorry but come on - if you're someone who's shit at diy/woodwork then you could spend far less than the price of this power-bollocks by purchasing the wood and just asking somebody to build a board for you for a small fee.

So the target market is someone who's shit at diy; knows literally nobody; lives by themself on an island; has zero social skills; doesn't own a screwdiriver; and is minted from their job as island custodian/head rat catcher.


moose

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Moose sorry but come on - if you're someone who's shit at diy/woodwork then you could spend far less than the price of this power-bollocks by purchasing the wood and just asking somebody to build a board for you for a small fee.

Possibly true... maybe I'm trying too hard to be nice (over-compensating for feeling that I am innately "a hater").   

But, my reasoning is this.  Last year, I realised I had room for a (very) small woodie and had a big Christmas bonus to spend.  My solution to DIY ineptitute, on PaulB's advice, was to approach Probes.  A few emails later and he built me something not disimilar to the powerstation - a very narrow (1.5m), 40 degree, freestanding board (close enough that I wonder if Mr Mcleod has been facebook stalking Probes).  The cost was a fraction of the power station and Probes came over and assembled it, gave me a decent discount from his standard prices on a starter set of holds, and has been obliging with the odd freebie and "special" since.  Absolutely no regrets - apart from using it so much that I  lost half the route season to getting massively pumped after 6 moves.   It is still a source of total joy (well, not for the last month due to a nasty back problem).

But, if I had been in the same circumstances a year later.... I cannot rule out the possibility I would have been tempted by something a bit more "manufactured" and glossy looking (albeit far more limited); with no hassle / partial responsibility for design; and, that can be dismantled more easily (my woodie is free standing but would probably take 2 men half a day to put away).    When I commissioned my woodie, an additional couple of thousand would not have made a massive difference to my agreeing to it (a bonus, no mortgage, and a bit depressed and a bit desperate to cheer myself up with a big purchase - it was either a woodie or something daft like a luxury watch).  That said, I imagine that people with that attitude are rare enough that you would not build a business plan on them!

ducko

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For the record MrMoose I borrowed the tools, had never built a shed before, luckily I have the internet to show me how to do things although it did take me longer than someone who has more talent than me

Alex Smurthwaite

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I built my board and a free standing fingerboard frame for way under half the price of the basic Power station. You could quite easily get hold of the basic tools needed and you'd still be way under the price of this thing. I personally reckon its way more rewarding using something you've built from scratch than something you've bought, irrespective of price.

webbo

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I have had my board built 3 times. I bought the boards with the frame and frame plus a hundred holds for £200 and spent about 30 quid on extra timber to make it steeper. The paid my brother in law for a days labour to build it.
I'm sure you could get a joiner anywhere to build you one for between 100 to 200 quid.

Fultonius

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Fairly hefty price drop announced. Back down to the "ouch" rather than the "fuck me" territory.

IS2

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Makes me feel much better about what I spent building my wall!

Same here - I got Paul-Crusher to build and install me a similarly tiny wall, which I have at great expense festooned with ready-made wood holds.  Despite loving the result I have always felt slightly ashamed of my laziness and prodigality.  If I was a "real" climber, I would have made my own board, and whittled holds from timber found on scrap heaps or during wholesome woodland rambles.  I now feel like a model of industrious frugality.
Totally slack but forgiven as you are a busy lad, hope the back is mending.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2017, 11:37:50 am by IS2 »

lagerstarfish

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well, that's another potential sponsor who won't be advertising on UKB

 

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