Oregon Inventor of Safe Tie-Downs Leverages QVC Successes Reaches Sales Milestone

Oct 1, 2023 | Books, Business

Innovative, Patented LoopRope® Tie-Down System Safer Than Bungee Cords While Providing Superior Cargo Integrity and Organization Capabilities

Orange Looprope

Orange Looprope

MEDFORD, Ore. – Sept. 29, 2023 – PRLog — LoopRope®, LLC founder and CEO Jeff Dahl today revealed a Sunday, October 1st return appearance on popular shopping channel QVC. Scheduled from 10 p.m. – 12 Midnight Eastern Time, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. Pacific time, this will be Dahl and LoopRope’s 40th appearance on the shopping show over eight years. Quite the milestone. Their mutual story is a great example of a small-town inventor and entrepreneur with a good product finding sales success via digital outreach.

It all started over thirteen years ago on a trip to the dump when Oregon inventor, Jeff Dahl, got frustrated tying knots and using bungee cords to secure his stuff. He knew there had to be something better, something safer and easier to use – but he couldn’t find what he needed on any shelves or in any catalogs. He envisioned a single rope with loops in it enabling users to clip loops together to create tension. So driven by concerns around personal safety and cargo integrity he designed a new tie-down system, LoopRope®, that met his needs, and was safer, more effective and easier to use than standard tie-downs including bungee cords.

LoopRope® is manufactured from one continuous piece of shock cord fastened together to create permanent loops. Each patented LoopRope® comes with two, dual-sided, stainless steel carabiners. One 5-foot tie-down gives users 10 custom tie-down lengths and over 18 attachment points. Additionally, multiple LoopRopes can be linked together so users can create a cargo net of any size, whenever and wherever they like.

“We’ve worked for years to build the relationship with QVC necessary to make this happen,” said Jeff Dahl, founder and creator of the original LoopRope® tie-down product line. “The company successfully competed in QVC’s “Sprouts” company competition and we were invited back after being voted the ‘most wished for’ product by QVC viewers. Since that time, we’ve been on the show forty times. Last year we sold 70,000 products via the channel, and this year QVC has ordered 110,000. Surpassing the 100k mark, crushing it really, is a remarkable sales milestone. We’re on track to hit the half million mark of combined sales sometime this year.”

QVC Sprouts® was initiated in March of 2012 by QVC and the United Inventors Association (UIA), and allows new products to compete with each other for a chance to be featured on the QVC website and ultimately, QVC TV.

For Dahl, a small-town inventor and now manufacturer, and for the LoopRope® product line, QVC and Dahl’s subsequent relationship with Amazon have made all the difference in terms of sustainable sales. That has enabled the company to enter a variety of profitable vertical niche markets with high demand for tie-down systems. Vertical markets like: camping and outdoor recreation; hunting and fishing; RVing and road travel; transportation and trucking; watercraft and boating; and even landscaping and building contractors with gear and materials to tie down.

“It’s no wonder LoopRope® is so popular,” said Dahl. “Consumers keep finding new and unique ways to use the clever and safe tie-down system, like the father who loaded up his daughter’s room for the trip to college, then left her the LoopRope® to tie-down and haul her college sports gear around campus.”

About LoopRope®, LLC
Founded in 2009 by Jeff Dahl in Medford, Oregon, LoopRope®, LLC was conceived out of frustration and need. A regular guy with lots of “guy gear,” Dahl was not inclined to tie knots, and bungee cords are simply too messy, unreliable and dangerous to use. After much research and about fifty prototypes, Dahl invented the LoopRope® tie-down system; made of one continuous piece of shock cord fastened together to create  permanent loops. Now patented, LoopRope® comes in a variety of lengths and colors including its traditional orange and black, and new camo and all black versions.

Visit the website  http://www.looprope.com for more details

Inventor at Bistabledome.com Suggests Bistable Domes Can be Used to Print Shape in Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) to Reduce Auto Weight, Global Warming

Apr 29, 2022 | Business

 Climate change is pushing the auto industry to transition to thinner, stronger, and more environmentally friendly steel and inventor Paul Ericson thinks arrays of very shallow overlapping bistable domes, or OBDs, might help.

Ericson was granted two patents for using rows of flex actuated OBDs to create contact shape digitizing sensors and pumps that pump when bent. He explains and illustrates the concept at Bistabledome.com.

In a video, Ericson demonstrates how rows and closely packed arrays of OBDs turn tough flat .006” and .03” 302 stainless steel into stiffer adjustable structures that are only a few times thicker in profile than the original sheet material.

He suggests they might help address the springback problems common in forming strong thin metals, as well as reduce tooling and prototyping costs.

The inventor also demonstrates that a row of OBDs formed in .03” thick steel is significantly more resistant to deformation and collapse than the original flat material the same size while being only twice as thick in profile.

Ericson stamps OBDs from both sides to give them two stable states. He explains that OBDs can be equally bistable or have a bias for one side. The inventor demonstrates in the video how biased OBDs can give metal a predisposition for particular curvatures.

Ericson explains OBD arrays can be stamped with low pressure if they are formed incrementally starting at an edge. “For the sensor and the pump the rows of OBDs were stamped in bands of metal about as wide as the dome diameter. The edge would buckle slightly near the overlap, functionally shortening the edge relative to the metal through the middle of the dome row, which wants to occupy a larger radius,” says Ericson. He explains that with arrays of closely packed OBDs the material deformation is incorporated in neighboring OBDs, which can also switch sides to compensate.

According to the inventor, adjacent equally bistable overlapping domes alternate orientation when flattened, one side or the other. When bent they are forced to the outside of the curvature in numbers proportional to curvature, stabilizing the new shape. “The same generic OBD array structure can stabilize in multiple curvatures of different radii along different axes,” says Ericson.

“Managing OBD characteristics such as bistability bias, dome shape and diameter relative to material thickness, degree of overlap, etc., can be used to create desired curvature in flat material. If all OBDs have a strong bias for one side they want to curl into a tube but more complex curvature is possible. Bistability can allow the part to be formed and stored flat until needed.”

The inventor suggests a single machine that can form OBDs with different characteristics, like an impact printer for domes instead of letters, could ‘print’ a wide range of shape. “That might help reduce prototyping and tooling costs,” says Ericson. “And because of the low pressure required, printing tools for forming thin metal OBDs could be made with common 3D printing materials. Same with rollers that might be used for large scale production.”

“OBD structures may be combined with other metal forming technologies,” says Ericson. “They may be ideal for the large radius curvature common in auto, boat, train, and aerospace related engineering. They may also be useful for storage and containment structures.”

Ericson believes two or more OBD array layers welded or laminated together could reduce the need for framing and bracing. “OBD arrays of different shape, size, and bistability could be overlapped in layers to produce more complicated curvature,” says Ericson. He suggests flexibility and deformation resistance of OBD structures could be controlled with coatings or glues that manage the ability of domes to switch sides.

Bistabledome.com

Paul Ericson

505-699-5016

www.bistabledome.com

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