Finishing touches

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So my viva presentation is tommorow and I have been working to get everything finalised for my presentation, including my board designs and most importantly, this damn prototype… So I have printed all the parts now and painted them too! I’m just sincerely hoping all goes well for my viva presentation! Oh and this happened to my beloved desk at home, due to a miscalculation with super glue, the glass bed of my 3D printer and the glass panel on my desk: Fun!

A wall mounted bike you say?

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So this weekend I have been sorting everything to mount my bike on the wall to allow me to display the devices mounted to the bike, for both the viva and degree show. Overall it wasn’t quite as difficult as I had originally thought it might be. I was able to use some spare plaster screws from the show to ensure the bike mount was securely held to the wall and with the help of Rhianwen and Adam D., I was able to get it positioned correctly. Thanks again for your help guys!

Manufacturable?

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So the past we days, I have been considering how my product could be manufactured, especially due to the fact that it has only been 3D printed thus far. To ensure it could be mass manufactured, I have been considering which manufacturing methods would be plausible for creating the forms. I have decided that Aluminium Die Casting would be suitable, as aluminium would be perfect as a material, due to it’s corrosion resistance and strength! I have slightly tweaked the design to be able to be created via die casting, mainly by adding raft angles etc. Now I am in the process of printing the final parts for display in my viva presentation and degree show…

New holder part

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So I have now been spending my time working on the holder part, between the mount and the laser device. To ensure the device can easily be swapped between sides of the bike, as well as ensuring it can easily be adjusted to the perfect angle, I  have introduced a new system on the holder part, which allows the part dubbeds at ‘holder pin’ (The part where the laser device slots in) to be adjustable through 90 degree increments. Unfortunately, as can be seen from the picture, I reopened the slice on my finger, which sprayed blood on the part and table…

Final mount tweaks

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So annoyingly, the week began with the mount design snapping. The hinge could not take the strain put upon it by tightening it to the frame and so they broke free from the rest of the body. For this reason, I have been working on a redesign of the way the hinge works. Instead of on hinge having an angle arm and the other having a 90 degree angle, I have now made both arms have a 45 degree angle, with additional ribs to improve their strength. I have also bought new printing materials, both black and white PLA. Annoyingly, when removing the new prints from the 3D printer, I rather excellently cut my finger…

New hinge mount mechanism

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So this week, I have been working on the MK8 mount design, which uses a hinge style design. The original design had a very thin body, which immediately snapped under the strain of tightening it to the frame… THe newer designs employ a far thicker body, which makes sure it wont snap. TO make sure the screw fitting could be used easily, I employed a barrel system with a tightening nut. The barrel allows the thumb screw to move through approximately 60 degrees to meet the opposite side of the hinge, no matter what position it is in.

Mount designs and testing

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

This past week I have been constantly developing the mounting system, alongside a few members of my target market. I have created multiple revisions of the design to ensure it is held tightly to the bike and easy to attach. The testing has shown me that simple is better. Some of the complex original designs proved too weak and broke during testing, others were almost impossible to remove from the bike without breaking them… I will now be working on MK8 of my mount design, which will employ a new hinge system which will wrap around the chainstay bar.

New device holder

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

So I had been working on a new design for the part which holds the laser device to the mount, in order to change the angle of the device’s broadcast area… Unfortunately, the new part proved not to be very strong and it snapped when I brushed past it with my leg.. Because of this, I have adapted the design with some additional ribs, to vastly improve the strength of the part. I am fair;y happy with the new part and it is clear that the design it far stronger from some real world testing…

New mounting system

Posted Posted in Final Year Product Design

I have been working on a new mounting system for the past few days which has far improved strength and durability. I’ve been thinking for a few days that the device needs to be mounted correctly to the bike and it was clear that my old system was just not cutting it, mainly due to it being designed for the old device… Overall, I do feel it needs a bit more work though, as it is still not that stable on the bike and the laser device wobbles considerably…