I have returned to my specification to see if I have met the criteria I had set out for myself.
Yes I did meet all of the requirements for my prototype production.
Successes
These are the things that felt were particularly successful:
- Modelboard was the right choice of material for the required finish.
- The design of the internal space for the speaker worked well & the quality of sound was more than acceptable.
- I included a switch within the given circuit & my design as I wanted to improve the battery life.
- Battery & components were still fully accessible within the finished product.
- The paint colour for the model complimented the design.
- I changed my speaker for a slightly smaller speaker than the originally issued size.
If I was to manufacture this project again then I would alter a few things:
- Simplify the design so a 'step joint' is not required, as I found it difficult in the manufacturing process than if I'd used a flush joint. I was therefore having an issue of how do I flip the model to machine the other side.
- I wouldn't scale my model again once I'd made the split as I had issues with several different versions of the parts in Pro Engineer but not the correct size.
- I would allow more room for the tool as the tolerances I'd allowed were tight for a 6mm Ball end cutter.
- I would manufacture a prototype out of foam board (blue or green) if the router had been free, as there were issues with machine time I went ahead with manufacturing the prototype straight away.
- I would move the switch position as the speaker has a tendency to turn it's self off if knocked.
- I would look into different switch styles as well to possibly source something more suitable.
- I would possibly look to a smaller speaker & scaling everything down as my model was still a little bit bulky.
- I would look more into speaker technology to see how I could improve the sound, with possible baffle redesign or including dampening.
In summary this project has been successful in that I have produced a prototype to the theme of Olympics 2012 using several different CADCAM methods & finishing the details by hand.
