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We've Solved the Design Mystery of the Air Force's $1,220 Hi-Tech Coffee Mugs: The Handles are Upside Down
Bad design, or bad assembly? Highly profitable either way.
A lot of media outlets are talking about how the Air Force has been buying easily-breakable coffee mugs for $1,200. But no one is talking about a visually obvious error that should be glaring to any Core77 reader.
First off, here's the mug in question. It contains a heating element, hence the prongs at left--it plugs into an outlet on the KC-10 Extender, a jet refueling aircraft that dates back to 1981 yet is still in service. Once plugged in, it keeps the coffee hot.
Enter a caption (optional)What's led to the news reports is that crew members will occasionally drop the mugs, which is understandable. And when they drop them, that right angle on the bottom of the handle hits the ground and the handle breaks. The manufacturer--who is, frustratingly, unnamed--does not offer replacement handles. The mug is no good without the handle so the Air Force is Air Forced to buy an entirely new mug, price $1,220, each time one breaks.
Enter a caption (optional)Folks, take a close look at the object and something will become obvious: The handles have been attached upside down.
Enter a caption (optional)Not only that, it appears these were attached upside down on purpose. Below, I've added some letters to explain.
Enter a caption (optional)Up top, "B," we see a black knob attached to a hinged lever. Pressing down on that knob presumably releases the seal on the lid, allowing you to open it. By looking at point "C" on the knob, and the location of pivot point "D," it's possible that if the handle was located with the right angle up top, point "C" would contact point "A", preventing it from opening.
If that is true, it would indicate that the manufacturer is working with off-the-shelf parts and could not, or would not, go to the trouble/expense of manufacturing a custom handle. So they simply inverted it.
If working with off-the-shelf parts, you'd think this item would be a lot cheaper than $1,220 a pop. Especially since they cost $693 just two years ago, according to Military.com:
According to Air Mobility Command officials, the 60th Aerial Port Squadron purchased 10 hot cups for $9,630 in 2016. The price for each cup surged from $693 to $1,220 in 2018, resulting in a cost of $32,000 for 25 cups -- a price jump of $527 per cup, the release said.
In any case, thankfully the problem has been solved, or at least ameliorated, by a 3D printer. The folks at Travis Air Force Base's Phoenix Spark program, a rapid innovation initiative with access to digital manufacturing equipment, have designed and 3D printed a replacement handle for the mugs.
"Our office was asked to see if we could produce a 3D-designed handle that is stronger than the current one," [said Capt. Ryan McGuire, 60th Air Mobility Wing Phoenix Spark chief and a KC-10 Extender pilot with the 9th Air Refueling Squadron].
[Nicholas Wright, a volunteer 3D designer and printer with the Phoenix Spark office] compared the 3D-printed handle to a tree, layered through many rings to give it strength. "The new handle has stacked layers with a solid piece around it so it's similar to the layers of a tree," he said.
Each 3D-printed handle will cost roughly 50 cents.
…Wright said it took about a week to develop a solution for the hot cup handle "from learning the software to figuring how to physically print it."
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Comments
People love to lament about items like this but don't realize the myriad of requirements the military imposes on vendors that drive sky-high costs like this. Non-standard parts (that connector is not from Home Depot), custom materials, extensive testing (an electrical heating element in in the crew compartment of a flying gas tank, imagine the arm-length test roster) small production runs (just try to find a manufacturer who will make 25 units of a product designed nearly 40 years ago) And what Air Force bozo decided an electric coffee mug was necessary in the first place? A Thermos bottle would work just as well and not be an ignition hazard.
The shit design and fragility of the product means a $50.00 mug can be inflated to $1,200 so the remaining $1,150 goes into the pockets of the vendor OR that $1150 gets shared with the vendor and the remaining goes into secret projects, black projects, unacknowledged projects.
Although it looks like the handle and Pivot share some sheet metal, surely the most straightforward solution, originally, would have been to offset the Handle so it wasn't under the pivot? Offset counterclockwise by 20-30deg it would put Point C in a more natural position to be thumb operated? (Apologies to the LH'ers)
Hopefully the 3D printed handles are round at both ends.
This is what happens when tax dollars go to the massive military budget without enough scrutiny. I'm not shocked in the least.
Nice article. Not surprised about the cost though. Here is an article from the early 80's. Not much has changed since then...