BACKGROUND // For large portions of world, access to a power grid is hard to come by. The shortcomings of the infrastructure in these areas means that people very rarely have sources of power in their homes. Our client currently product line provides a solution to this problem in the form of a rechargeable battery unit. Powered by solar panels, these batteries allow for people to not only power devices in their own homes but also produce extra income by charging cell phones for people in the community.

BRIEF // To accompany the evolution of their technology, they asked us to produce a new form and aesthetic for the next generation and bring this new design through to manufacturing hand off with their vendor over seas.

TEAM // Mechanical Engineer; Industrial Design; User Experience

ROLE // Project Manager & Mechanical Engineer

SKILLS // Prototyping; Master Modeling; Surface Modeling

PROCESS // 

Since this was initially scoped as an industrial design project, when we began the mechanical engineering effort, the concept has been defined but all the details had not yet been flushed out. This meant establishing a feedback loop with our ID team to oversee the aesthetic details as I tried to balance the conceptual vision of our designer with the mechanical requirements and manufacturability.

One of the important components of this project was to produce a CAD model that was robust enough to easily adapt to a future feature rich product that they had in the works. This meant that special considerations had to be made in constructing the model to parameterize it’s structure so that it could scale appropriately.

Protoype

After a round of DFM with their molder, we prototyped the assembly with SLA and rubber-like polyjet parts to confirm assemblability , aesthetic, and clearances. From here, we iterated a couple times on a couple of the elastomeric elements to get just the right feeling to the tactile buttons.

Final Design & DFM

As a result of delays in collecting user data on the UX development, the mechanical execution portion of the project became quite compressed. This meant I was finalizing the CAD as they were flying to Shenzhen to meet with the molders.

CHALLENGES // 

1. In the instance that the unit is malfunctioning and needs to be opened by a technician, they have found that it is easiest to keep all the components with serial numbers on one half of the clam shell so the top part can be replaced. This meant that the screen had to be mounted on the bottom which caused a whole bunch of concerns when it came to the tolerance stack. Ultimately, we put a plastic dead front cover on the top so that the screen didn’t have to line up perfectly in order to be able to assemble.

2. There were a couple moving parts and competing interests in this project between the ID, ME and UX. The layout for the screen wasn’t locked down until very late in the project which meant multiple options were being kept on the table which some pretty differing implications. We were fighting for space around the display so based on which UX scheme was selected, there was likely going to need to be some large mechanical/aesthetic modifications.

RESULT // 

Despite a compression to our timeline, we delivered the CAD model to the client in time to be able to maximize their working time with the vendors while in country. The product has yet to be released, but all signs point to it making it to market.

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