“3D Systems On Demand Manufacturing Service provided exactly the full service help we needed to get an effective finished part, even though we did not have injection molding experience in house. The engineers spent the time and effort to explain why certain changes were important and backed up their comments by sharing the results from mold analysis tools that we would not have been able to obtain on our own. In addition, for our expected part runs, the overall cost of parts, including the mold cost, beat their competition,” said Dr. William Unkel, Co-CEO, MU Net, Inc.
When MU Net needed 1,000 pieces of its housing for the COAX connection to its Internet Based Electric Utility System in short order, they turned to On Demand Manufacturing for QuickTurn Injection Molding.
MU Net’s products are designed to enable utilities to leverage existing broadband communication infrastructure to enhance operational efficiencies, such as automated retrieval of billing and time stamped interval data, and deliver new services.
In the particular project at hand, the system uses a Cable Modem to connect to the CATV system that is owned and operated by the electric utility itself. The WebGate unit improves the operating performance by controlling the services to the premises remotely without expensive truck rolls.
进程
As part of he On Demand Manufacturing service's Live Engineering Review Board process, 3D Systems engineers reviewed the part design directly with muNet and provided muNet’s engineers with design recommendations to make the molding process run smoother.
Once the final redesigned files were received, a Project Manager worked with muNet to ensure the expected ship date for sample parts and the tight final delivery schedule for the 1,000 pieces was met.
Accomplishment
Using the QuickTurn Injection Molding process, the manufacturing team shipped sample parts off muNet’s Aluminum QC7 tool in 6 days. Once the tool was approved, muNet received 1,000 parts in 4 days. The parts were quickly used to produce the cable exit assembly shown.
“On Demand Manufacturing provided exactly the full service help we needed to get an effective finished part, even though we did not have injection molding experience in house. The engineers spent the time and effort to explain why certain changes were important and backed up their comments by sharing the results from mold analysis tools that we would not have been able to obtain on our own. In addition, for our expected part runs, the overall cost of parts, including the mold cost, beat their competition,” said Dr. William Unkel, Co-CEO, MU Net, Inc.