We are trying to make the most user-friendly JT tube door…

[Jerhemi]

The vertical bars (red arrows) look weird to me. Maybe run a horizontal bar instead? Or two shorter vertical bars that tie in to the existing horizontal bar? Also the front horizontal bar (green arrow) should be level IMO.

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[Exceed Fabrication]

The vertical bars (red arrows) look weird to me. Maybe run a horizontal bar instead? Or two shorter vertical bars that tie in to the existing horizontal bar? Also the front horizontal bar (green arrow) should be level IMO.

Thank you for your honest opinion.
Horizontal or vertical, everyone has their own preferences. We considered a horizontal design, but by doing so we would be too similar to the design of a big brand, and there are already enough horizontal designs on the market, which is not what we want.
Our aim is to provide a comfortable grip while maintaining our style.
This door provides passengers with three gripping points. As shown in my picture.
The outer tube is used to protect the passenger's legs and arms, and if you want to extend your hand outside the door, you can grab the red part.
The inner tube will be horizontal, allowing passengers to grab and support their elbows. This 3D sample is a little droopy because we fixed it with tape.
Please refer to our renderings, we are working hard to realize it, the current difficulty is the weight and cost, because it uses more materials than most tube doors on the market.
Please note that this does not represent the final form of SD1, which is subject to the actual product (we are expected to confirm this month).

 

[Lunentucker]

Thank you for your honest opinion.
Horizontal or vertical, everyone has their own preferences. We considered a horizontal design, but by doing so we would be too similar to the design of a big brand, and there are already enough horizontal designs on the market, which is not what we want.
Our aim is to provide a comfortable grip while maintaining our style.
This door provides passengers with three gripping points. As shown in my picture.
The outer tube is used to protect the passenger's legs and arms, and if you want to extend your hand outside the door, you can grab the red part.
The inner tube will be horizontal, allowing passengers to grab and support their elbows. This 3D sample is a little droopy because we fixed it with tape.
Please refer to our renderings, we are working hard to realize it, the current difficulty is the weight and cost, because it uses more materials than most tube doors on the market.
Please note that this does not represent the final form of SD1, which is subject to the actual product (we are expected to confirm this month).

Sued into oblivion because a child or a dog got their head stuck in that V notch in the rear door.
Honestly and frankly, it looks like you're just trying to make something that doesn't look like all of the other tubes of tried and tested effective design, and it's not working for exactly those reasons.

 

[jav_eee]

and it's not working for exactly those reasons

How is it not working?

 

[Lunentucker]

How is it not working?

What I am saying is that tube doors have been around for long enough that the smart and effective designs have settled themselves into the market.
Making a door with a V notch at the bottom, where a small child or a family pet can get themselves stuck and die, probably didn't make it past the liability lawyers. For reasons.

 

[Higher_Ground]

Just about every door can pinch the entire hand off a small child, yet they still exist. I don't think the shape of the bars is particularly dangerous and any child in a moving vehicle should be in a car seat.

For what it's worth, while I like the MOPAR horizontal design better, this is a close second. I really like the 2" pipe. I like that the door more or less outlines the entire frame. I like that you are not planning on trying to undercut the cheap market - nobody really wants that.

What I dislike about most tube doors is the garish logo placement. If you can avoid the temptation to broadcast "EF" everywhere, it will instantly make it more appealing than just about every other non-MOPAR tube door.

I appreciate the candor and enthusiasm. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

[Exceed Fabrication]

Sued into oblivion because a child or a dog got their head stuck in that V notch in the rear door.
Honestly and frankly, it looks like you're just trying to make something that doesn't look like all of the other tube tubes of tried and tested effective design, and it's not working for exactly those reasons.

Thank you for your suggestion, we will try it with children and dogs to see how they react to this shape.

 

[Exceed Fabrication]

Just about every door can pinch the entire hand off a small child, yet they still exist. I don't think the shape of the bars is particularly dangerous and any child in a moving vehicle should be in a car seat.

For what it's worth, while I like the MOPAR horizontal design better, this is a close second. I really like the 2" pipe. I like that the door more or less outlines the entire frame. I like that you are not planning on trying to undercut the cheap market - nobody really wants that.

What I dislike about most tube doors is the garish logo placement. If you can avoid the temptation to broadcast "EF" everywhere, it will instantly make it more appealing than just about every other non-MOPAR tube door.

I appreciate the candor and enthusiasm. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

To be honest, the points Lunen mentioned are what we have been worried about, and we will try to find as many children and dogs as possible to test.
I like the feeling of communicating with members. Many people have ideas that we have not considered. I am very grateful that so many people care about what we are doing.
I will not judge whether other people’s tube doors have safety hazards, but I think our products can respond to members’ requests as much as possible, so I will read everyone’s opinions carefully.
In fact, the biggest problem with the current design is that after communicating with the factory, we found that it is too heavy. The weight of a front door is close to 48 pounds (an ordinary tube door weighs about 15 pounds...) , we are worried that this will make it difficult for many elderly people or women to install.
And the total length of the weld was 275 inches...a huge cost in time and labor.
Even if we make it regardless of cost, the internal electrophoresis is difficult to handle and it is difficult to ensure that there will be no rust inside, so I think we have to overturn all the designs and start thinking again... Yeah... We paid the price for our inexperience...
To be honest, it is really difficult to make a product that is different and easy to use, because many of our ideas have never been thought of by others, or in other words, no one has actually mass-produced such a product.
Maybe we can make a normal distribution diagram of the tube doors on the market and find their most concentrated functional points, but I believe that if we do this, we will eventually make a set of tube doors for $300-400. According to Amazon's sales data, the 1.5-inch tube should be the one we choose... Throw it into a lot of tube doors and you won't see any difference...
Perhaps it is precisely because of such cost and cumbersomeness that some people will directly choose to add some "national flag", "five-pointed star", "special forces" and other patterns to the existing design.
Instead of trying to break through any of the problems everyone has been complaining about...
I'm not saying that we are noble, we also want to make a fortune, it's just that we are a bunch of fools trying to create something different...
I don’t think that hard work will definitely lead to success. The market wants valuable things, and spending hard work may also create garbage...
As for the logo issue, don’t worry, I’ve read stories about a certain brand and I’ve seen their approach annoy many buyers.
My guess is that their marketing department wanted their brand to get more exposure, so they changed the promised design before the product was released.
We believe that SD1 is special enough that we don’t need to tell the world which brand it is from. Even though this is our first product, our logo will be placed in a hidden position on the inside.
Just as Jeep believes that the front of their JL/JT is unique enough, so they chose to put the logo on the side.

 

[Jerhemi]

I really think the design needs a change. Sorry for the crappy "paint" edit. Here are three quick examples.

Example A: Three bars so it differs from competitors. Two would prob look better.

"B"and "C": Vertical bars. Not sure what looks better for attachment point.

 

[Jerhemi]

Just read your post about weight. What about making them out of Aluminum?

 

[Maximusdafarmer]

Overall, I really like what you are doing here with your open design feedback process. In regards to your last post about the weight and length of weld, have you considered just eliminating the protruding bar? I know when you started that you viewed it as a central part of your design but I am not sure how important that actually is to most people. It is definitely not to me. You are fundamentally lowering protection when you remove doors. If you are that concerned, are you really the target market?

I think you already have a winning formula with the thickness of your tubing, the thought you appear to be putting into the ruggedness and solid latching properties of your handle and the ergonomics on the arm rest. Visually, the door looks solid and the lines and the flow well with the lines of the vehicle. So many doors and bumpers just have all kinds of wild angles and planes that simply don't look right on the JT/JL. My .02

My only suggestion would be to potentially add a third piece of sheet metal at the bottom of the door. My wife's biggest problem with doors off is her purse and things flying out the door when we take a turn. Ask me how I know haha. But honestly if adding that third piece made the design clunky I would live without it.

 

[Exceed Fabrication]

I really think the design needs a change. Sorry for the crappy "paint" edit. Here are three quick examples.

Example A: Three bars so it differs from competitors. Two would prob look better.

"B"and "C": Vertical bars. Not sure what looks better for attachment point.

I got it. We are revising the design and will release it when it is ready. Thank you Jer.

 

[Exceed Fabrication]

Just read your post about weight. What about making them out of Aluminum?

I will ask the factory about the cost of aluminum alloy.
As far as I know, there is only one brand on the market that uses aluminum alloy to make tube doors, but the price of the front door is already higher than our four doors.
But I really like their quality and rigorous attitude towards products, and their lift kit is very popular here.Everyone who has used it rave about it

 

[Exceed Fabrication]

Overall, I really like what you are doing here with your open design feedback process. In regards to your last post about the weight and length of weld, have you considered just eliminating the protruding bar? I know when you started that you viewed it as a central part of your design but I am not sure how important that actually is to most people. It is definitely not to me. You are fundamentally lowering protection when you remove doors. If you are that concerned, are you really the target market?

I think you already have a winning formula with the thickness of your tubing, the thought you appear to be putting into the ruggedness and solid latching properties of your handle and the ergonomics on the arm rest. Visually, the door looks solid and the lines and the flow well with the lines of the vehicle. So many doors and bumpers just have all kinds of wild angles and planes that simply don't look right on the JT/JL. My .02

My only suggestion would be to potentially add a third piece of sheet metal at the bottom of the door. My wife's biggest problem with doors off is her purse and things flying out the door when we take a turn. Ask me how I know haha. But honestly if adding that third piece made the design clunky I would live without it.

Hi Max, we plan to remove the 'V' shaped tube and replace it with the horizontal tube that everyone wants. We will release new renderings when we are finished.
Thank you for your recognition of our ideas. After we started communicating with the factory, we found that the 2-inch pipe brought so much trouble...cost, weight, welding difficulty, and long grinding time...
Anyway...we like others to point out our ill-conceived ideas and criticize us. We can change the design that people don't like, but we will stick to what people want.
I'm trying to talk to the textile factory to see if we can make some covers to fill the holes in the tube doors so that things don't fall out so easily, which would be lighter than welded steel plates and could be removed at any time, if we were going to use this , the cover will be a standard feature.
But in any case, I still recommend that you put valuables in places like the center console and glovebox before using tube doors for off-roading. Even if the tube doors are closed, things may fall out through the gaps.
We do this every time we test tube doors because we don’t want to be searching for our wallets and phones after dark with a flashlight on the beach...

 

[Exceed Fabrication]

Even a limit strap needs to be tested repeatedly, because we never know what overlooked details may go wrong...
We need to confirm whether the hole is too big/too small, and whether the door opening is too wide. We sewed three holes so that there are three opening angles.
It feels pretty good. It's easy to hang up or take off, but it's not so loose that people worry about falling off the hook.
We stapled a few times in the middle, so there are some little holes.

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