manufacturing costs,” Waa said. He noted this is not always the case with every customer. “We were well aware that there
would be a number of design chang- es along the way, but we wanted to minimize as best we could the design-to-manufacture time frame,” said Chuck DeVore, program engineer, 3M Design & Engineer- ing Solutions division. “We brought Pace Industries into the design pro- cess and on to the design team early so we could take advantage of their diecast tooling knowledge. [Pace engineers provided] the creative solutions and available options that both the prototype tooling and the production tooling would require.”
Keeping Costs Down Cost effectiveness was one of the
team’s major goals. Certain design features were developed to aid in this effort. “To be as cost-conscious as pos-
sible during the prototype process, we designed our tooling with inserts so we could maximize the use of reuseable components and accom- modate the next generation of size configurations,” Waa said. “We were well aware that part geometry was going to change, but we wanted to save time in what we had to rebuild.” T e initial prototype part dies had
a two-cavity family die design, so the team could accommodate the four indi- vidual part numbers, two in each mold. “As production ramps up, we will
move to four-cavity molds where we can make eight parts with each shot,” Waa explained. T e light bulb’s design places the
LED driver in a globe and not in the neck of the lamp. T is allows air to fl ow into the lamp just above the base and exit through slots in the upper half of the globe, cooling both the LEDs and the driver. T e LEDs are mounted facing upwards around the circumfer- ence of the neck of the lamp. 3M has designed the light guide
to form the outer structure of the lamp and use total internal refl ection technology to distribute light around the globe. T e light-extraction ele- ments are created with white paint on
The LED bulb has four diecast parts.
the inside of the light guide causing beams to refl ect outside the lamp in an omnidirectional fashion.
Planning Ahead
Pace Industries has provided 75,000 sets of diecastings for 3M’s initial test marketing phase. T e company plans to coordinate its tooling schedules to match 3M’s production schedules for each light bulb design and size. “We have been given a target
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Mar/Apr 2013 | METAL CASTING DESIGN & PURCHASING | 31
market price for these parts and are confi dent we will be on that number,” Waa said.
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