Finally having "Fun" - fitting, ideas, rants

So if you were watching the for sale forum I had been trying to get a Neosteel Fun for a few months and finally obtained one. I just had to do some adjustment and make my own rear cable and I ended up using the waistband that came with it rather than the one I had. Both waistbands fit higher than the one I had with my original Neosteel and I find that a slightly higher tighter fit works better for me. Now the waistband sits right where the top of my pants would be rather than slightly below.

I have just one comfort issue that I may make a separate post about but feel free to chime in here if you have ideas. The rear cable tends to dig into my tail bone depending on how I am sitting. I have tried many different lengths of cable from too tight to too lose, I've also tried making the cable different thicknesses and neither really resolves the issue. I am somewhat curious to try an Ergo rear module just to have an alternative configuration I can swap out for a while. I have an idea how to make my own that I am slowly working on. The issue isn't causing any permanent irritation so far as I can tell and I can usually adjust how I am sitting enough to address it.

The sport belt I have fits pretty well but I found some issues with it so annoying I don't really want to wear it except for short periods. It has nothing to do with comfort of the belt, but particularly when urinating if things aren't perfectly lined up inside the tube urine would not only spray everywhere but also backwash out of the entrance of the tube all over. It was gross, cleanup was a pain. Going number 2 was no different than any other cable belt it was just number 1 that was problematic. Because of the additional hardware like the shield it also made hygiene more difficult in the shower.

As many wearers know the Fun is pretty easy to deal with for hygiene so its no problem to leave it on for a shower. While I've only had the belt a few days I've easily been able to wear it for 24+ hours but I haven't tried going longer yet because I want to make sure I am not getting a sore that I don't notice and then it becomes too late.

One thing I wanted to mention, while I think the Fun is Neosteels best offering there is still room for improvement. I think the Cocoon design picks up on 2 items that could improve comfort. The first is the space between the top of the tube and the flat metal piece that extends up to the waist band. There is some advantage to leaving this "open" on the Neosteel design because it allows more range of adjustment, once you get the adjustment right I find that it needs to be filled with material. If I don't put something there, my skin tends to roll over the top of the tube and that causes irritation. So what I did was wedge some thermoplastic in there and shape it to make a natural shape. I'm including a picture of how I did this below. Also I have tried quite a few brands of thermoplastic and the "performance" is quite varied on each, some tend to shrink a lot when they cool, some tend to form sharp edges when they cool. This particular product from a brand named "Sukh" is the best I've tried so far: https://a.co/d/6lHNwHK

The other thing I think could be better from the Cocoon is that the entrance to the tube is closer to a 45 degree angle rather than a right angle. I don't know for sure it just seems like it could be better. Reason being is that depending on how I have the tube adjusted that 90 degree entrance can push too far into my pelvis and be uncomfortable where an angled entrance might give more range of adjustability.

The other thing I wanted to mention is a bit of a rant. We all know Neosteel's have problems with fitting. I get the basic problem that they are trying to fit a rigid steel belt to flesh and bone and it really needs to be form fitting. However the measuring instructions don't clarify much and I know on my first Neosteel the rear cable was way too short, this seems to be one of the most common fitting problems people have. I also found my original waistband was too large and ended up getting a better one second hand for that belt. To this day I don't understand how I got the instructions so wrong.

Perhaps another idea for design improvement is if they could make the rear cable removable by using screws instead of rivets. This would allow the cable to be swapped for a different length or even add an adjustment length in the back. Once adjusted you can cover it in thermoplastic or lock it down with rivets/tamper resistant screws. I really feel there's zero security risk for me using screws over rivets, its simply not an ideal way to attack the belt. Additionally this might allow them to sell an Ergo rear module allowing one to swap between Cable and Ergo. I might be in the minority who would want that but its an idea.

Hopefully under new ownership they will get things together and not just continue production but also refining the process and product offerings. If they invested some effort into providing detailed information on how to measure for a correct fit....maybe a few videos or just really detailed instructions I think it could go a long way. I had a PDF that Dr Mende sent me which showed where to measure and it really still wasn't helpful. I measured probably 30 times and verified the measurements were basically the same each time, so obviously I was doing something wrong and could not see it.

The other thing that I am glad to no longer have to deal with is a rant on Neosteels customer service. Now I know it wasn't much (if at all) better under the old ownership in terms of responsiveness, but just answer an email for crying out loud. I was ready to make an order for over 2 months but apparently they couldn't be bothered to answer my questions in a timely manner. There's much more I can say about how frustrating that was but I'll leave it at that. If this practice continues I have no doubt they won't be around much longer.