DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Richard Sant is excited for OceanLED’s future in the private super-yacht market. On his office wall is the blueprint for one vessel measuring 148m in length; it will have six engines, several decks, the finest materials and most importantly, lots of lights. Despite sumptuous ships like this costing in the region of 100s of millions of pounds, business is booming. To build on their success, OceanLED’s strategy is to move beyond the bespoke market of super-yachts in which it started to develop relatively higher-volume products for other growth sectors; a plan that involved a fundamental rethink of the firm’s manufacturing techniques which inevitably led them to begin using rapid injection moulding.

OceanLED (www.oceanled.com) is a young company but it has a long pedigree. Chief Operating Officer Nigel Savage has more than 25 years experience at the forefront of the marine and architectural lighting industry. He originally set up OceanLED to produce simple, maintenance-free marine lighting but went on to develop what many in the industry regard as the world’s most advanced underwater lighting system.

Owners, designers and builders of super-yachts demand OceanLED’s state-of-the-art Light Emitting Diode (LED) products to give their yachts that special touch of elegance, including the firm’s trademark ‘unbroken halo of light.’ However, the company is now pushing into the fast-growing private boat market and, as Richard Sant points out: “The USA is probably the biggest opportunity because so many people own private fishing and sports boats.”  Hence the need for lower-cost, higher-volume products for direct sale to consumers, as well as the firm’s traditional bespoke lights for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Marquis Yachts and Viking Sports Cruisers.

Although OceanLED designs and assembles its lights in-house it doesn’t manufacture any of the components. Instead, they choose to partner with very carefully chosen UK engineering companies. For example, the complex lens components come from one specialist supplier, while the big Aluminium-Bronze light housings - as used on super-yachts, and costing thousands of pounds - are supplied by another.

The new, smaller consumer lights are made from polymers which means they can be mass-produced economically and demand is growing; compared to traditional light sources LEDs are very energy efficient and produce less heat. As a result, boats can use more light units, look great and still keep their weight and energy costs low. And LEDs don’t just appeal to the marine sector - they are increasingly used to illuminate docks, swimming pools and buildings.

Richard expects particularly strong demand for the firm’s latest Amphibian range which can be used above and below water. These advanced, high-output lights use injection moulded polymer bodies that still manage to contain all the drivers and the dimmer functions, so “providing superior operation and versatility with fewer components and connections.”

As Richard points out, OceanLED had no experience of making plastic injection moulded parts for lights. “Although I’d been using SolidWorks to design mechanical products for a long time, this was my first plastic injection moulded product. Like most people venturing into plastic mass production, we started by using a company in China but became increasingly unhappy with the quality and costs. So, we looked for someone who could do a better, faster job – that’s when we found Protomold.”

Richard, who joined OceanLED in 2005 after a long career as a mechanical design engineer, was particularly pleased with Protomold’s online ProtoQuote service. This enabled him to upload his existing 3D CAD designs and receive not only a detailed breakdown of manufacturing costs but also a report highlighting any design issues, literally within hours. “The Protomold process allows an injection moulding novice to design and order a part without any problems,” he says. “It gave us complete control and it’s close to home - it’s good to know we are using the best option and it’s a company in the UK.”

At first OceanLED used Protomold to make prototypes of the various mounting brackets for all three models in the Amphibian range, including the ‘foot and bridge’ components that make up the clamp. “Originally, we thought of making the mounting kit in steel,” said Richard, “but it was ugly and expensive.”  Above all, he wanted the mounting system to be versatile, which meant being light-weight, strong, low-cost and able to fit as wide a range of mounting points as possible. He found using ProtoQuote was ideal for optimising the design because you can upload as many modifications as you like. The processing speed of the Proto Labs compute clusters means you get your analysis results in hours.

“Protomold makes and gives away various educational ‘toys’ to help explain the technicalities of rapid injection moulding - but we soon realised they are definitely not gimmicks,” Richard stresses. “We found them very useful, especially the ‘cube’ and the ‘puzzle’. They helped us understand the process, the characteristics of different plastics and what’s possible. As a result they saved us time and money.”

Once OceanLED had finalised the design of the mounts, it was able to order relatively low volumes of production-quality parts from the same mould. As a result the kits can be sold separately and retail for around £15-20. “At the moment, we only order 500 each time,” says Richard. “If we were using traditional steel moulds in China we would have to run off thousands just to make the tooling economical.”

Looking ahead, Richard Sant sees even more promise in the architectural lighting market. “Our lights are essentially the green alternative to traditional lighting, which means they are valuable as both decorative and functional building lights. This is an excellent market opportunity and we intend to make the most of it, with the help of ProtoLabs.”

#1 http://twitter.com/iainclaridge - for a stream of blogging goodness for all things design.
#2 http://twitter.com/solidsmack - when you read that first tweet, suffix with Good Morning, the world seems somehow happier.
#3 http://twitter.com/dorasmith - Might as well be “how to do Social Media 101 for the corporate world.”
#4 http://twitter.com/AutodeskMFG - if you’re an Inventor user Mr. Bedder has got tips and tricks galore - and he’s currently singing along to the Muppet’s christmas carol soundtrack.
#5 http://twitter.com/deelipmenezes - When he’s not pimping his data translation tools, he actually has something interesting to say. Interesting? Yes. Accurate. Not always. But always entertaining.

#1 Solidsmack.com - It’s Josh. I want to be him when I grow up. And sometimes, he even gets a post out before me (ha)

#2 Core77.com - News just in that Carl Alviani is leaving is sad news indeed, but Core77 is a beaming icon of how communities are built and how it’s done. Its an inspiration.

#3 Formlovesfunction.com - Joe’s a busy guy and hasn’t updated but this is a resource that works.

#4 replicatorinc.com/blog: all things 3d printing, rapid prototyping and mass customisation related. Wicked.

#5 materialstories.com - Materials. Lots and lots of Materials.

#1 Anything and everything that Frances Corbett writes for us is worth reading, but this one I took the Trekenetic story to heart and it’s a prime example of a good idea, well executed that can change people’s lives for the better.

#2 The one where Greg gets his geek on and tells you how to tune up that workstation for blistering performance.

#3 The one where Al gets to mention Godzilla and Jetpacks in one article

#4 The one where Stephen talks to Paragon about diversification and prototyping.

#5 Martyn talks to Bernard Charles in an ‘exclusive’ interview (which allegedly means the BBC cancelled on him at the last minute).

#1 The Economy: It sucked. Let’s leave it at that and hope 2010 brings brighter times.

#2 Press Vs. Bloggers: Much debated this year. The press (all of whom write blog) are worried about Bloggers taking over their exhalted position as keepers of the truth. Bloggers think the press don’t know what they’re talking about. I couldn’t care less.

#3 WolfeGate and the definition of ‘relatively unimportant’: Stephen Wolfe wrote an article (crotchety), it kicked off quickly than a Red shirt at a Manchester City game here.

#4 Being French for a week in Chicago: Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to do the Daily Express “we hate the french” nonsense, but wearing this badge both amused (and I mean hot tea through the nose kind of amused) and disappointed me. Whether it was the French name, the heavy accent or the beret I’m not too sure. BUt for one glorious week, I felt tres continental.

#5 Closing Magazines: I love print media. Yes. Web and mobile devices are the future, but there’s something glorious about a well executed print magazine. Too many have disappeared due to unsound business models, lazy publishers and a harsh economic environment.

It’s the end of the year and people love lists. One for Santa, one for the Elves, one for the pagan gods of . And journalists the world over are compiling top ten lists for the festive season. Why? because it’s easy, there’s christmas parties to go to and it’s a quick way to file copy and get the hell out of the office. So, rather than a Top 10, in true Nick Hornby style, here’s our Top Five list of Top Five list of all tim.. ok. of 2009.

#1 Twitter - The Marmite of Social Media: Some of the team hate it (Martyn), some of us love it (Al and Dr. Mings), some of us remain ambivalent about it (Greg), some of us couldn’t give two shits (Stephen). But while the world is going social networking mental, it seems that 2009 is the year of twitter, the year that it jumped the shark, the year that you overheard it discussed at length in supermarket check out queues.

Some 3D vendors are using it in clever and engaging ways (Siemens - particularly with Dora Smith - @dorasmith - and Mark Burhop - @burhop - helming efforts), some are using it in an uncoordinated way that looks kind of scrappy (a quick look at the #AU2009 hashtag stream). From my own personal perspective, I find it fascinating. You can engage with people in a completely open manner, find out what makes them tick, find areas of common interest and truly discover new and exciting things. Yes, it’s a small percentage of the world at large (though it’s moved on from its alpha geek territory) but its a growing community of people with common interests, particularly around the 3D design industry. But what I find most interesting is how it enables people to interact and the effect that has on those moments when they meet in person. Things click more easily, people know who each other are and it just works on a social level much more fluidly. To me, who’s job is to pretty much talk to and listen to people, that’s a fascinating advance.

#2 Direct Modelling, the 20 year Overnight Success: SpaceClaim reinvigorated it. Siemens made a brave move to bring this technology to its 3D design products. CoCreate got sold on the back of it. Then Autodesk released the Inventor Fusion tech preview. While many of these things broke in 2007 or 2008, this year was the year that direct modelling, synchronous technology, dynamic editing, call it what you will, started to pan out in terms of a clearer vision of where things are heading. Siemens’ Sync Tech has matured with two releases under the belt and while many feared a cut-off from history-based modelling tools, it’s clear that things are never going to be that cut and dried. These types of tools are going to become part of the designer and engineers’ toolkit. they’ll be integrated into the existing tools.

Some will be explicitly separated, some will be much more tightly integrated. Look at the work Autodesk is doing with Fusion and Change Manager, at what PTC has done with Pro/E Wildfire 5.0 and which will continue with Wildfire 6.0, at what Siemens is doing with NX. The History vs Non-history based argument will seem petty in a year or two’s time. Why? Because it’ll just be a set of tools.

#3 Live Events: This year’s been crazy for the D3D team’s travel schedules. We’ve been to the US for nearly three months of the year visiting some of the most interesting events. We’ve met users from across the planet, seen more demos of software than you can shake a very big stick at and we’ve made some friends along the way. In these days of digital-everything, the live event shows that people still get the most from meeting face to face, from discussing things over a coffee, or more than likely, at 2am in the morning in a bar, somewhere on the planet. Aeroplanes are our third office (the second is the Oxford services on the M40) and we love it. And you know what, we’re heading back out on the road to do it all again. I talked about the benefits of face to face in a post around the time of COFES and the same still stands. People like people, people buy from people and that’s how it works.

#4 Simulation spreads: Simulation, Digital Prototyping, Analysis, call it what you will, holds many benefits and this year we saw a huge growth of interest in the tools, the technology and the best practices across a huge range of industry sectors. This is going to be a key focus for us for 2010, so stay tuned. Exciting times and one we’ll be revelling on with glee.

#5 The Rise of the Mac Platform: If you read the magazine or the blog, you probably knew this was coming. While word is still out on AutoCAD for the Mac, the release of both Alias and NX (and the public beta of Rhino OS X) saw serious design and engineering tools released freshly on the OS X platform alongside those tools that have been there for some time, such as solidThinking and Ashlar’s Cobalt tools. The introduction of bootcamp has seen massive adoption and you see that glowing Apple logo much more regularly than you ever have before. We set-up mac.develop3d.com to cover things as they break.

The original StormTrooper helmet. Image courtesy of Curventa

Found this fascinating, it’s a story about well known UK-based industrial design firm Curventa and how they helped a client, RuRoc, take its ‘Storm Trooper’ snowboarding helmet from the slopes to the autosport world. The helmet helped launch RuRoc back in 2007, with it’s integrated google, facemask and of course, head protection. What’s interesting is that RuRoc have now been asked to provide the product to the Formula One racing world as safety gear for pit crew.

Image courtesy of RuRoc Racing.

As Director at Curventa, Ian Murison said, “Crews usually wore motorcycle helmets, but a lot of the mechanics found them too hot and heavy to wear during races. In 2008, the Red Bull team contacted RuRoc and said they wanted to use the snowboarding helmets for their crews. We made some modifications and added flame retardant materials to the helmets, and they broke on the Formula One scene last season. Pretty soon, the McLaren team ordered chromed helmets for their pit crew. Now RuRoc has distributors in North American, Canada, and Europe selling to other motorsport teams.”

The original StormTrooper helmet. Image courtesy of Curventa

Curventa did the design work for RuRoc founder, Rob Gavin, when he came to the London firm with a rough physical model of a snowboarding helmet that protected faces from extreme cold while venting enough to prevent goggles from fogging over. Curventa laser scanned the helmet design then entered the data into SolidWorks following physical mock-ups. “We created the early designs in blue foam, and once approved by the client we laser scanned them into SolidWorks. From then on, we were designing and detailing on the fly within SolidWorks,” Murison said. “We did a lot of adjusting inside SolidWorks, tweaking the helmet design to adjust how it fit in the back, for example, or how it moved when the wearer turned their head. SolidWorks really held up well during that process.” There’s also another little nugget of info in the press release, in that the design team made heavy use of the Freeform feature in SolidWorks during the design process.

Image courtesy of RuRoc Racing.

If you fancy an F1 spec helmet for your own purposal use, they’re 400 quid a pop and available over the web - you can even get your company logo laquered into the back of them.Or you can buy Brawn F1, McLaren or Force India (shown above) replica helmets if that’s your bag.