5 Things You Need To Know Before Prototype Making
Prototype making is not just reserved for early in the product development cycle, at the same time, it’s also for better testing and perfecting investment ideas before mass production, thus optimizing products and make them can be brought into the market in advance.
If you’re not building multiple prototypes before mass production, you might spend more time and costs in the long run. To help you perfect your design and save on costs, we will share 5 things you need to know before prototype making. Through this learning, you will have more information about prototype making.
Below Are Several Steps From Concept, Design to Prototype Making
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What’s the product concept?
If you have a clear knowledge of your idea or develop a sales model. In general, this will occurs early in the product development lifecycle, and the purpose to build one or several samples to test the functions and applications of the parts. By this stage, you will have a general idea for the price, production time, and machining processing of the parts.
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How to proof the concept and Ideas?
We mentioned earlier that we need to have a product concept before prototype making, then we need to create a model, and the aim is to demonstrate core functionality and prove that the design is working as intended. Of course, in this phase, it doesn’t necessary to match the aesthetics of the finished products, usually, we will use off-the-shelf components to test them for saving costs.
At present, 3D printing, vacuum casting, and CNC machining is a popular choice for prototype making. Certainly, 3D printing is also one of the most cost-effective prototype making. It not only can accurately create sample models but also save the whole production time.
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Is it suitable for industrial design?
Except to validate the aesthetics, ergonomics, and scale of a product. We also need to use the prototype simulates the final products, and its main purpose is to analyze for the best usability and over ease of use. Typically, for better prove above this, we often use similar materials to build the final products for testing the end of consumer requirements. Such as metal materials: Aluminum, Stainless steel, Copper, Aluminum alloy, etc; plastic materials: ABS, POM, PEEK, Nylon, PE, PC, etc.
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What’s the function of the product?
To see if an idea will work. Firstly, we need to build one sample for testing its potential applications and functions: mechanical performance, mechanical properties, and thermal performance, etc. For this phase of testing, it is crucial to designer or investments, because it can reduce the risk of mass production and longer manufacturing runs.
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The importance of pre-manufacturing research
To better optimize a product for volume manufacturing, pre-manufacturing research is necessary. When this prototype looks and they function similarly to a finished product and you also can find similar parts on the marketing. At this time, we only need to the exam and consider this part design- how to make some slight modifications or changes on this, and it will not any affects the end-user, but it can have a big impact on cost- especially at high volumes.
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