Prototipagem de Design de Produto: Um Estudo de Caso da Indústria Automotiva

Product Design Prototyping: An Automotive Industry Case Study

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We live in a time where new products or modifications hit the market every minute. How should the manufacturer keep up with this pace? Competition is setting new records in product development cycles. Take Apple, for example. Just a few years ago, they produced one phone model per year. Today, as we know, there are three or even four. What does that mean? First, they need to develop a new model at least three times faster. This also means they have less time to test it.

Due to the development of 3D modeling technologies, many smaller companies are moving away from the prototype phase of product design and using visualization methods. While this saves time during development, you waste even more time when errors occur. And rest assured, it will happen. But well, any kind of idea can be expressed much better with an example. Let me illustrate my point using a case study from the automotive industry.

What is this case about?

I decided to build a redundant car voltmeter to fit over the cigarette lighter. Newer models have it, but many older models don't. It is a useful device for monitoring the performance of car circuits. It's especially good for determining if you should do anything with your generator. It's useful in some cases, but it's not necessary all the time, so making it redundant is a good choice.

Modeling and design

All of the car's lighter doors are standard, as is a small area around them. So I used Solidworks to model a representation of a car's front panel with all the correct dimensions. The display and electronic parts as well as the connector – I decided to buy the first prototype. Then, using the 3D modeling tools, I added the purchased parts to the panel and created a rough sketch of the chassis.

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Refine and visualize

The final design of the voltmeter should look minimalist and elegant. I decided I didn't want anything with glue or screws, so I made some brackets that fit into the holes in the different parts of the cabinet. Well, after a bit of trial and error, I got the shape I wanted. A red and black, elegant and minimalist one-button design.

I came to the conclusion that the consumer could very well forget about the cigarette lighter device. And it would be extremely bad if it wasted battery charge when it was designed to prevent situations where the battery runs out. Therefore the voltmeter only works when the button is pressed.

After completing the project, I rendered the model using the Solidworks visualization package. Everything seems to fit together perfectly.

A turning point in development

Once the design was complete I had a few options.

Firstly, I was able to simply trust my skills and have the injection molds made. If you're not familiar with injection molding, let me help you. It is a plastic molding process in which molten plastic is injected into a steel mold under high pressure. Because the mold is very precise, has a good surface finish and is made of durable steel, you can produce a large quantity of identical, high-quality parts very quickly.

However, it's not a good idea to make design changes at this stage. In the worst case scenario, you will have to redo the mold. For your information: Press molds are generally made of high-quality steel. The part pattern is machined on a CNC milling center to very tight tolerances and a very fine surface finish (the final operation usually includes polishing). For this reason, press molds cost at least $800 each. There are many prototyping workshops where you can do these things quickly and properly.

This decision comes down to this: if you've done everything right, that's it, you're ready to sell. If you make a mistake, you will lose several thousand and a lot of time.

A safe way

The second way is to make a prototype. There are several prototyping methods.

You can request the part for processing. Modern machine tools can be programmed to produce new parts quite quickly. The precision and surface quality are excellent, but the method is more expensive because programming ultimately requires trained professionals.

You can make your device using 3D printing. This is currently a very popular method for plastic prototypes. In 3D printing or additive manufacturing processes, the part model is divided into cross sections, one above the other. The molten plastic is then applied layer by layer according to the current cross-section of the part and cured. This allows you to get a high-quality part of any complexity in the shortest possible time. And the best part: you don't need complex tools or professional production engineers. The process is mostly automatic.

So I might invest a little more time and print out a version or two of my device to see if it fits in the actual car slot. This way I can be sure everything is working. So I will definitely lose some money making prototypes and I will still have to order the injection molds. But I will only lose a few hundred, not a few thousand.

Develop prototype

So I decided to print my part after all. The plastic I chose was ABS, which is the most common material on the market and quite cheap to produce parts. There are many 3D printing processes, but I chose the simplest: Fused Deposition Modeling. The plastic is applied in the form of a thread and placed in the shape of the corresponding cross section.

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Allow errors

So after a few days I received my prototype. Turns out I made the right choice because the device didn't fit in the door. Well, it basically fit, but there was a device on the back that got in the way. I also deformed the piece by 5mm at one point so it wouldn't fit into the panel.

Well, if I hadn't decided to make the injection molds I would have lost a lot of money, but fortunately that didn't happen. I managed to correct my mistakes and get the final working prototype. If I hadn't done this, I wouldn't have been able to finish the product correctly. This is why prototyping is so useful in product design.

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At Wayken, we have many years of experience developing new and innovative products using prototyping and manufacturing technologies that can significantly reduce production time from concept to production. We also have our own prototype engineers and project managers with extensive knowledge in the area of ​​prototyping for industrial design. Therefore, helping you produce high-quality product design prototypes on time is not a dream.

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