Wanted to take a moment to introduce a new jack stand for our cars...

Hello 996 Forum members, I'd like to first take a moment to briefly introduce myself. My name is Frank Ceravolo, I'm the CEO of RennStand Inc., and I recently became a site sponsor, but I�ve been a member of Rennlist since 2009, around the time when I acquired my 993. It was through the knowledge shared here on Rennlist that I learned how to maintain my car, and in doing so I came up with the idea for a new type of jack stand. It's been a few years in development, with durability testing of the design done by an engineer from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, and we have been granted multiple utility patents. At the moment we are working very hard to manufacture a production version of the stands and make them available to everyone who has expressed interest. Back in June of this year I shared the concept with the 993 forum, and so many members responded positively that we now have a website up www.rennstand.com and are building a list of customers through the "join our list" section of our site, after many had asked us to do so. Here�s the link to the original thread in the 993 forum: https://rennlist.com/forums/993-forum...-new-idea.html And a video demo of one of our prototypes: Thanks for taking the time to check out the stands, and I hope you will visit our website www.rennstand.com and join our list, as well as provide any thoughts or questions you're willing to share with us. It's been largely the interest of forum members that has inspired us to drive the project forward, and that support is greatly appreciated! Sincerely, Frank Ceravolo, CEO RennStand Inc. www.rennstand.com [email removed]

Nice idea and looks like it would be very handy. One thing a suggest you could post is the travel height or length. From what height to what height.

I understand this product is under development and not yet in production, but do you have an estimated price point as of yet?

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Hi Device2, thank you for the compliment and also bringing to my attention that I completely forgot to mention the height range. Sorry about that. The height range of the prototype in the video is 11"-15", but there have been several requests to raise the maximum, so that's what we are intending to do in the production model. We're not at the point yet to issue an exact figure, but we intend to have those numbers soon. Thank you! Frank

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At the moment that's one of the things we're trying to determine with various manufacturers we've been working with. As a small company, the more requests we recieve for the stands, the more we will produce which brings our cost per unit down. I really wish I had those numbers now for you, but we're close. Thank you! Frank

G-falcon: Thanks. Very interesting concept and I like the multi-car application. Please keep us updated on progress.

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Will do! Thank you!

Interesting jack stand and so simple to use. Thanks for the video clip.

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Much appreciated!

Subscribing to this as I would like to have some jack stands for my car that would not take up a lot of space when not in use. Need any Beta testers

I would pony up for some of these. However, if it becomes popular, I dare you to read this: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-s...retailer-says/

a Group Buy DISCOUNT will surely help with the launch of this stand

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Brilliant commentary! I suggest the first 20 posters on this thread get them half price. Jus' sayin'.

These look sweet. With our cars it's more a matter of a set of four rather than pairs. I've got a combination of needs from a 997 to a CUV to an F250. Have you thought about different leg sets to accommodate a wide range of heights?

Just curious; (haven't checked your website, so I apologize if it's addressed there....) It appears that the weight of each "leg" is held by a single relatively thin pin. Any concern about those pins shearing with a human underneath? Personally, I'd like to see something more on the order of 5/16" or greater. Then again, this may just be a prototype.... Otherwise, I think they're a great idea and will be interested in them when released. edit: Or perhaps include two pins for each leg - backup/redundancy

Very cool concept. Would you be selling them singly or as a set of two?

That's a work of genius. Why didn't I think of it.

Also interested in a group buy. Subscribed

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Thank you lomax! I'll keep you in mind

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Much appreciated! Wow, thanks for the heads up too! They can pull that off even through Amazon...crazy!

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That's a great idea, and I think we can work something out for you guys Much appreciated!

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Thank you! Yes, we are considering that option along with the possibility of a second taller/heavier duty version as well

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That kind of product requires a breaking load test for sure. They need to cover their *** against pursuit...

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Thank you very much! I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the pins as well, as we've had some concerns expressed to us about how weak they appear to be. Those current pins are 1/4" steel and each is in double sheer and capable of sustaining up to 19Kn (1.9 metric tons of force per pin). Each pin will only need to bear half the weight of whatever each stand is supporting, so you would have to load 4 metric tons on EACH stand before you approach pin failure. Considering that the stands are rated to 2 tons/pair, that gives you a safety factor of 4 for each pin. Still, we want the stands to appear every bit as strong as they are, so we will most likely go with larger diameter pins in the production model. Thanks again!

Nice idea, does it suite 996's with side skirts? I struggle with that

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Thank you! Great question too! Almost all of the requests have been for pairs or sets of four, so our plan has been to package them in pairs to suit those requests. But at the moment I can't think of a good reason why we couldn't sell them individually as well, so that's definitely a possibility.

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Thank you!

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Great! Thank you!

Subscribed

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Thank you! That's a great question too. We tested the stands on a 996 Turbo a while back, and I vaguely remember it having the aero kit. The center component of our stands is only about 2.25" tall, but even with a low profile jack it may still not clear the skirt. The method we used to overcome that very low clearance was to lift with only the jack at first, place a 2" thick pad under the lifted tire, lower, and then lift again except this time with the center component of our stand on the jack saddle. It only added about a minute to the process, but gave us the extra clearance we needed in that situation.

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Much appreciated!

In as one of the first 20 so I qualify for the group buy 50% discount. Thanks! (BTW, are you sure you're a 993 guy? In the video you don't look all that old.)

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Lol thank you!!! I'm in my 40's though; do I qualify?

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It looks like you have some mech engineering talent doing your design verification. Would suggest you do some actual tests under both static and dynamic(drop test) with the rig. I also suggest you test until failure and see how the product fails. Some times things break in ways we never considered like the windows blowing out of the Comet pressurized aircraft back in the 50s. (BTW, the 'n' is for Newton in SI and should be cap; '19KN')

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I'm not a mechanical engineer nor a physicist, but I do know that when something is "dropped" from a distance, the increase in load is not linear. Folks *are* going to drop their cars onto these stands, regardless of what you state in your instructions. Even from 3-4", I'm thinking that the load will be greater than 8,000 lbs. Not bashing your design. Just need to really pound the snot of them during development to ensure that you've addressed folks' subconscious concerns.

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Not even close. Are you sure it's a 993 you own? You seem pretty friendly and reasonable. Here in the 996 forum, we envision that most of the lawnmower engined/"It's not a real 911 if it's watercooled" owners are more like this: You Tube BTW, I concur with the redundant pin comment. All that weight being held up by one pin manufactured who knows where with me laying underneath the car? Makes me a little nervous, especially if I'm using them to work on a much heavier vehicle.

subscribed! Could have used this many times in the past.

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Thank you for your suggestion, and I agree with you. For the production version, we have been planning to actually destroy several before releasing them to the public, not only so that we know where they might fail, but also to ensure consistency in the manufacturing process. As a sidenote regarding just the prototype, during testing a professional mechanic accidentally let the jack slip and dropped a Ford F350 (the heavy end) with the stand in place, and we were expecting it to flatten. Incredibly the protoype held without any visual signs of failure. Needless to say we disccarded that prototype anyway just to be safe, but rest assured the actual production model will be tested thoroughly and rated appropriately. Thanks again!

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No worries at all! I appreciate your concern! Agreed completely, and though we've both deliberately, and accidentally tested the prototypes as mentioned just above, the production version will be run through the rigors with our intent do destroy several of them to test their true limits and to ensure consistency in manufacturing quality. We're pretty obsessive over here which is probably evident in our design, with safety being the utmost concern, and we want to be able to sleep at night knowing we've engineered a solid margin of safety into the stands. Just another thing I wanted to mention, we also tested the design on uneven surfaces under load, and though that is outside of recommended use for any jack stand, we felt it necessary to engineer a large safety margin in that respect as well. Again, the production version will be tested to even greater extremes. You're going to receive one of the most thoroughly tested jackstands on the planet. Thanks again!

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Much appreciated!

Designing by committee is guaranteed to double your costs and push your ship date back at least 3 years. Looking forward to seeing this product for sale. Once it's for sale and I acquire a pair (of jackstands, Gnat), I'll try very hard not to drop my 911 on it from a height exceeding 4 inches, even though I've never dropped a car onto a jack stand in the 30+ years I've been old enough to work on cars with jack stands.

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Hahahaha, reminds me of a cars and coffee I attended once. Well, in 30 or so years I'll be right there with the guys in the video, so maybe my 993 puts me ahead of the curve. Keep this here in the watercooled forums, but I'm actually thinking about adding a 996 or 997 to the fold in the future. Sacrilege!!! Noted regarding the pins, and thanks to you as well for sharing that concern. That will be remedied in the production version.

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It just might! Don't know if we can do another 3 years of designing and testing these things with over 3 under our belts already lol. Much appreciated, and I'm looking forward to finally getting them out there!

For those with lowered suspensions such as H&R springs, the use of a low profile jack will be required and even then, it could be that a pre-wheel jacking as you described above, might still be required. Certainly not a show-stopper, but a hindrance! Great idea by the way!

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That's true, there's only so much space we can work with to clear both the stand and the jack with very lowered vehicles. Mine clears just fine, but it's closer to the upper end of RS height for the 993. In any case I hope, as you said, that it's not a show-stopper as they still get the full benefit of the stands by using that extra step. One another thing that you can do that will give you just that bit of extra clearance when it's close, is to remove the rubber pad on your jack saddle and drop the stand's center piece in the pad's place. It's designed to do that. Thanks so much for the feedback and the compliment!

Great idea for a product!

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Thank you!

Very cool idea. I always cringe jacking up my E30 M3 on the rear diff and crushing the rubber mounts. One thing to consider is a bottom crossmember to prevent the feet from bending outward. Maybe something that attaches with pins. Will only add a few more seconds to the process.

Thats pretty creative. I am interested in a pair

Nothing really to add. A lot of great comments and suggestions already but truthfully, even what you have so far, assuming you test the cxxp out of them, exceeds anything else I have seen for any car that uses fixed jack points. I showed the video to my wife and she responded immediately with "where can I get those for you"? -- Great wife.

Looks like a great product to have in the garage. curious to see the height range would work with all our vehicles, a lowered 996 and a lifted 4Runner, perhaps an option for a longer elbow piece? Great work

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Much appreciated! I had much the same feeling when having to lift my 993. There are divided camps as to whether or not its ok to lift by the crankcase, and I knew which one I belonged in, those engine mounts being one of the concerns. Funny you mention that crossbeam because that was one of the elements we had wanted to incorporate before we built the first prototypes as we felt we were probably going to end up needing it. There was a hinge and hook type attachment, and alternatively a simple drop-in version, but once we started testing we realized there wasn't a need for it. We ended up with solid aluminum upper legs and also both hollow and solid steel upper legs, and incredibly none spread in practical testing, and in the design simulations we confirmed this even under far heavier loads and with near zero friction between the feet and the floor. We really nerded out on these things lol. Thanks again for the compliment and the feedback!

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Very much appreciated Jeremy! If you haven't already, please check out our site www.rennstand.com and sign up on the "join our list" section for updates as we get closer to making this happen. Thanks!

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Thank you very much! Great wife indeed, and I appreciate you sharing that!

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Apologies in advance, but I'm not a joiner, signer-upper kind of person. I don't much care for spam, and folks selling my PI for profit(of course, NO ONE ever does that...) so I'm not going to do the sign up thing. Suggest you just publish when they are avail, where I can put my hands on them, what they will cost, and of course - my 50% discount for being one of the post-beta folks.

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Much appreciated! We've been getting a lot of requests from 4x4 owners which really surprised us, so we've been looking at increasing the height range even further than we had initially intended, and one of the options on the table is those longer upper legs/elbow pieces. We have to do a lot of testing at the new height settings before we dtermine the best option, but its in the works. Thanks again

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Lol, we'll see what we can do for you "post-beta" guys No worries at all, I hear you. Having received a horrible amount of spam myself over the years, I understand your concern completely, and it goes against every fiber of my being to share your info with anyone outside of those involved with the stands, so that won't happen. If you place your order at some point, you'll probably be sharing information with us, so I hope you'll trust us then, as your info will be in good hands. We will eventually be publishing when and how the stands will be available, but as they are probably going to first trickle out in batches rather than go in to full mass production, we owe it to those on the list to reach out to them directly and keep them posted first

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No - actually I won't be sharing. Oh there may be an 'email' address in my order, and there might even be a 'phone number' in there. Go ahead. Call me, email me. Let me know how that works for you.

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Sweet! Maybe you can give us a P.O. Box to ship to so we don't hunt you down My joking aside, I really do respect your position, and I appreciate your interest in the stands

The pin, as previously mentioned is a concern. Any thoughts of adding a tether and lock for each pin. Good idea.

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Much appreciated! Yes, we're considering detent pins with tethers. The detents have worked great so far and eliminate the need for addition steps during assembly. The detent is there just to further secure the pins before the stand comes under load. Once under load, nothing budges.

Remember, think of absolutely everything that can go wrong. Assume someone will be using a mallet, and on the back swing, hit a pin. Assume these will be stored in an environment that encourages rust/corrosion.

I need them yesterday! :-)

Just wondering, what type of safety certification is required for you to go to market and what is your insurance company requiring, you would have to be ready for a catastrophic claim for any mfg defect?

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Thank you, we're considering several scenarios, including the corrosion issue. You share our same view which is to be as thorough as possible and to take safety very seriously. Much appreciated!

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Thank you!

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Excellent question about certification. Unless things have changed in the past year or so, and after having spoken with several government and private certifying bodies, surprisingly there is no requirment for actual certification of jack stands, but they must be legitimately tested to meet the load ratings per standards such as those put forth by ANSI. Regarding the insurance companies, each one has different requirments, but the testing and also who is doing the manufacturing are at or near the top. Thanks!

A great collateral feature of your design is the fact that they should store easily on a garage wall hook. Registered at your website!

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Greatly appreciated!

Very cool! Will there be both aluminum, and steel versions? Post-beta discount, count me in

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Thank you! Right now it looks like we're going to end up with a steel/aluminum hybrid.

Just posting for the 110% discount.

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Lol thanks!

Do you have an estimate to the price?

Subscribed!

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Not quite yet, but we're getting close. Thanks for your interest!

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Much appreciated!

After watching the demo video, I'm sold.

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Thank you!

If you can get a pair to Australia and they suit a car with aero sides skirts im in! ​​​​

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Much appreciated!

Count me in too!!

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Thank you!

Subscribed!

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Thank you!

Wow! I want/need 4. Shear pins are extremely strong. 5/16" shear pins are used on landing gear of 60 ton+ aircraft. I never really feel confident under cast stands with ratchet stops, but these I would.

Very interested. Glad to see more options out there.

Very cool and very clever design... I would like to buy a set as well in a 996 "group-buy" :-) Cheers,

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Very much appreciated!

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Thank you!

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I appreciate that! We'll see what we can work out for you guys

I have followed this from the beginning and think it is a wonderful idea. Please let me know when these available for sale. Or if you need a beta tester in Colorado ar

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Thank you lomax! Will do!

Great Design, just joined your list..

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Thank you!

So, how about an update? What's going on with the development, sourcing, etc? As in, what's your updated projection for "when"?

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I appreciate you raising these questions because there are quite a few people wanting to know as well, and I wish I had something more concrete to share with you at this point. We've had a few frustrating delays the past few months, and right now we're shooting for Spring. Still pushing hard to keep them made here in the States which has been the primary challenge, but the growing list has helped us increase the projected batch size which is starting to bring the cost down. We're working things out as fast as we can, and are hoping to share a release date in the near future. Thank you for following up with me, and for your continued patience with us as we work it out

Give us at least a SWAG on the price We won't hold you to it

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We're working to be able to offer them at or below the 200/pair mark while keeping them completely manufactured here in the US

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Close enough for rock and roll

Have been subscribed since the beginning, but just joined the list for good measure. Good luck!

Just signed up on your site. I need a set of these. If you don't get them to market soon I'm going to make my own set!

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Yea, go ahead and steal someone elses idea

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Don't be a jerk! I'm not going to make them and sell them (that would be unethical and I imagine he has a patent on it) , it would be for my own use. Just giving him a little incentive to push his progress along. Besides, if I did make a set for my own use I'd be doing what car guys as well as manufacturers have done for years. You see something someone has done, be it a race car, hot rod or what ever and adapt that idea. Do you have a problem with guys that build their own race ramps using 2 x 10's? How about guys that do their own maintenance? And what if this product never comes to market due to a verity of possible reasons (lack of funding, can't get testing certified, insurance, failure to find production at reasonable costs, etc)? How long do we wait for it? I think it is a great product and would buy a set today if they were available. I, and I imagine many others, have an immediate need for them. He is hoping for early spring product release which is not too far away so I'll wait but they are not available by mid-year I will most likely build something similar for myself.

Just got my RennStand on July 13th. Quality and workmanship are outstanding. I haven't tried it yet (too darn hot out).

Pictures. Price. Details.

....are the Jackstands on the market? are this the same Stands? https://safejacks.com/collections/compact-jack-stands/products/the-rennstand-by-safe-jack