My friend is a chiropractor and he recently started his own practice. After getting a new chiropractic bed for a few thousand dollars (instead of ten thousand dollars), he realized that the headrest / pillow adjustment is not spring loaded or dampened.
Not the exact design, but you get the idea.
It is by a mechanism that uses a hole in a spring loaded metal plate and a shaft going through that hole at an angle to hold the headrest at the right height. The headrest is connected to the shaft, and the metal plate with hole is connected a lever and to the bed itself.
When adjusting the height of the headrest, if the chiropractor doesn't lift the headrest before lifting the lever, the headrest will free fall and slam to the bottom. Doing that to a patient in pain would be a very bad idea. If he or she isn't hurt by this drop, will at least think that the chiropractor is inexperienced or rough on patients.
I was looking at this with my friend and think that an easy way to work around this problem is to add a spring to the shaft. Wrapping a coil spring along the shaft like a coil over strut would give enough support that the headrest will at least not crash into the bottom, and if getting the spring rate correct it could even make it feel luxurious to the patients.
I've measured the dimension needed, but do not know where to buy a few springs to try. I'd imagine an industrial parts supplier would be ideal, but without spec like how thick the coil needs to be and how many "loops", etc, I am not sure what to do next.
Any recommendation?
Not the exact design, but you get the idea.
It is by a mechanism that uses a hole in a spring loaded metal plate and a shaft going through that hole at an angle to hold the headrest at the right height. The headrest is connected to the shaft, and the metal plate with hole is connected a lever and to the bed itself.
When adjusting the height of the headrest, if the chiropractor doesn't lift the headrest before lifting the lever, the headrest will free fall and slam to the bottom. Doing that to a patient in pain would be a very bad idea. If he or she isn't hurt by this drop, will at least think that the chiropractor is inexperienced or rough on patients.
I was looking at this with my friend and think that an easy way to work around this problem is to add a spring to the shaft. Wrapping a coil spring along the shaft like a coil over strut would give enough support that the headrest will at least not crash into the bottom, and if getting the spring rate correct it could even make it feel luxurious to the patients.
I've measured the dimension needed, but do not know where to buy a few springs to try. I'd imagine an industrial parts supplier would be ideal, but without spec like how thick the coil needs to be and how many "loops", etc, I am not sure what to do next.
Any recommendation?
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