Fourslide Case Study

THE CHALLENGE:

Using the customer’s existing body, cross-wire from one side of the body to the opposite side pins.

The body and the existing wire configurations which are cut-to-length, stripped and pre-formed by hand get placed by hand and hand soldered at all joints: a rather time-consuming assembly operation. OK for prototypes, but not for production.

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THE SOLUTION:

Our initial step was to design a manufacturable piece to replace the labor-intensive wires.

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Since there were two discreet wires, two pre-formed pieces were needed for the assembly, each with slightly different forming.

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The wire EDM’d blanks were hand formed for prototyping and initial customer design sanction.

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Used together, they accomplish the same cross-over wiring solution as the wires did.

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But there were still two separate pieces that both needed hand soldering.

3D model custom metal stamping

So we combined two pieces into one with a “bridge”, and incorporated solder-bearing material.

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Assembly was simplified by the placement of only one piece.

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The second step is to clip the “bridge” out and wave soldering can be incorporated,since the material is solder-bearing. The tedious hand soldering becomes history.

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What was once a ten-step process, is now done in three!