Design for Manufacture - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: wigman27
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 07:25:29 am
content: Hi all,Having never designed for manufacture or been involved in anything like it, I have a very newbie question. How does one go about purchasing housings or having them made? Something like the attached image?I am after something similar.If someone could give me a rough start that would be awesome!ThanksLee

author: rx8pilot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 07:43:16 am
content: Are you planning to design it or hire someone to design it?I spend most of my days in industrial design and mechanical engineering [EE is my new adventure]. A device like that is not great as a first project. Injected molded plastic that must hold a PCB, display, and keys while being form-able and assemble-able. It involves line voltage and so must be able to pass CE or UL safety tests. You can fiddle around with SolidWorks and 3D printing, but that will be a LONG way from being manufacturable.For someone with no experience, that is kind of drinking from a fire hose. A lot to learn. Maybe you can find a general purpose enclosure and design around that?

author: wigman27
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 07:52:09 am
content: Haha,I really like your analogy :-)That is true, I don't even really need to design it from scratch, one the same would be fine.It's not the first electrical project, just the first one I have considered doing more than 1 :-)Thanks mate.

author: Paul Moir
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2014, 08:04:01 am
content: Unless you expect to produce a lot, you're *much* better off finding a generic case that would be good enough. Next step is probably to have a customized generic case. Hammond does this sort of thing.For custom medium volume stuff, check out protomold:http://www.protomold.comI have no connection with them but they have some useful design rules up, which will give you a very good idea of what's important. From what I gather they make a basic aluminium injection mold for you for not much money. High volume molds are made of steel for durability and sometimes have very specific thermal controls for high speed molding. This is not stuff you'll pick up in a couple hours reading; you'll want to talk with someone who does it every day.Part of my day job involves manufacturing blister pack type packaging in very high volumes. It's far simpler than injection molding, but it took me at least 3 years to become half way competent with it.

author: mjkuwp
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 06, 2014, 06:43:27 pm
content: Polycase makes plug pack cases that are a little bit like that one pictured.http://www.polycase.com/ps-seriesA case like first pictured is injection-molded and these tools are $$$ even in China which of course is where most people go these days. I guess you'd want to look for tooling houses in your local area. Many of the tool houses in the US have found China-based partners so that they can offer lower prices. One would typically prototype these cases in 3D printing and this is something you can pretty easily do. Keep in mind that 3D printed materials are not rated for fire or electrical safety.btw, I did a mains power meter project with those functions but use a web page for displaying the information to avoid all the work making the display - my design is totally closed case.http://themzlab.tumblr.com/wattmeter

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2014, 07:47:49 pm
content: question is ... why you need to know how much power your tv or computer use ... are you going to throw away the damn thing if it use more than expected

author: hamdi.tn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2014, 07:50:04 pm
content: anyway am sure i saw some encloser like the one you posted in OKW catalogue , check there website, i used one of their product once , a bit expensive but good

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2014, 08:05:15 pm
content: Another good question to ask: How many do you plan on making? That will change your options prey drastically!

author: Alexei.Polkhanov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2014, 09:00:42 pm
content: Quote from: Paul Moir on December 04, 2014, 08:04:01 amI am curious what software do you use? SolidWorks? Inventor?As I would expect there are plenty of YouTube videos on subject of any level of detail. Here is a what looks like a full course on subject: What do you think about this one for example :https://www.youtube.com/user/traininteractive/videos?

author: itdontgo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 08, 2014, 12:33:42 pm
content: If you're serious about it then you would get someone else to do it; someone who does this day in day out.If it's just curiosity then I'm sure you can find videos on YouTube about injection moulding and button moulding. It sounds a bit negative that doesn't it but it takes years to master something and unless you plan on doing it for your job then it's not worth doing something half-arsed I reckon.

author: Dave Turner
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 08, 2014, 09:23:08 pm
content: Definitely not my area of expertise.What is interesting, though, is how does one work out where the breakpoints are between 1 offs, say 100-1000 offs and sky's the limit?Clearly 1 off is down to one's own interest.Umpteen means commercial manufacturing.In between the two extremes is the value judgement where the entrepreneurs make money.

author: IconicPCB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 08, 2014, 09:37:08 pm
content: Packaging is one of the most troublesome parts of product development.For small volumes and acceptable end cost often times the designer needs to design around the commercially available enclosures.In Your case a German source OKW is the one to go with. IMHO Hammonds of this world need to look to OKW offering in terms of design and quality of build.You will find OKW in Sydney where they have just recently established their company presence athttp://www.rolec-okw.com.au/en

author: kaindub
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2014, 04:28:37 pm
content: Wigman32How much money do you have?I see your from Oz.This is my experience with a similar product.Design - $50kCheck designs - $10kAl dies ( can make up to 50000 pieces) $70kUnit cost (does not include amortisation of initial cost) $10It's only viable to have a custom made enclosure if you are going to make tens of thousands of units.I am faced with the dilemma you have as I am Aldo in Oz. The solution is really to use existing enclosures from the myriad of plastics manufacturers around.It's not optimum, and sometimes a product has to be canned because a suitable and affordable enclosure can't be found

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2014, 07:46:18 am
content: Housing like that is cheapest to rip from the ready product if your volumes are less than tens of thousands.Or maybe you could try to make a deal with the chinese manufacturer to just buy the cases.