I have been wanting a silent partner for a long time. I have got my hands on a used, opened one, with one spring lost (still very expensive). The centrifugal clutch is actually a very interesting system for stopping the rotation of the drum. I am an engineer so I find that kind of stuff fascinating.
I have been researching the costs to have one made. It is very expensive due to the solid works modeling, cnc programming, creating press guides to bend the housing consistently, cost of materials, testing and testing equipment... The only way to make it affordable is by spreading the cost of all this out by making several devices at the same time.
To produce these for anyone else there would be additional costs to incorporate, insurance, independent testing by an accredited lab to both EN 15151-1 and UIAA 129 standards (in Europe)...
There would have to be a decent amount of interest to justify all that. So I have set up a survey to gauge that interest. Based on the prices the used silent partner's are going for on ebay there could possibly be that much interest. Based on the low volume that rock exotica said they sold previously the minimum these could be produced for is $750 USD.
Let me know what you think.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BGQG7NL
