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Phone Mount for Lighting on Helmet

Do not place content in this area. This area will be folded behind the poster board.

Do not place content in this area. This area will be folded behind the poster board.

Engineering 27: Introduction to Manufacturing and Tolerancing, Spring 2020

Group For: Joseph Benedetti, Aliya Kusumo, Landon Labuskes, Jason Xu

Market Need

From 2014-2017, 4 million Americans started using bikes on a regular basis. With the increased number of bikes comes more accidents with more than 50% of bike accidents happening at night. This is a direct result of not enough visibility to drivers. As biking and skateboarding become more popular, there is an increased need for better visibility among bicyclists and skateboarders. Our hands free design ensures that there will not be any reduction in biking or skateboarding maneuverability.

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Differentiation

Our product is very different from traditional lights on bikes and skateboards. Current helmets with built in lights or lights that attach to helmets require replaceable batteries. Our product eliminates the need for users to buy batteries; all it needs is a charged phone which most riders already have, thereby improving sustainability. Flashing patterns and brightness can be customized using a wide variety of apps to keep drivers alert, exceeding the fixed, pre-programmed options of many helmet lights. Also, our design adapts to all phone types and sizes ensures that our product is not limited to users of a particular phone.

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Design

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Material and process selection

The main structure of the design will utilize FDM printing of PLA filament in order to allow for rapid prototyping. The FDM printing process will likely use soluble supports in order to successfully manufacture overhang sections. PLA is chosen as it is less likely to warp and is more environmentally friendly than ABS. 3D printing also works well for complex curved designs, where traditional manufacturing may be too difficult or costly. For the purchased components, the strap is woven, the screw and insert are both likely turned, and the foam padding is extruded. Snap fit tabs connects the strap clip and clamp body section in order to maximize design flexibility. While the snap fit is not intended to be consumer detachable, it allows for different clip shapes to accommodate different off-the-shelf straps.

Scale-up production plan

When we scale up the production of our design,we will continue purchasing the components we initially purchased. This allows us not to spend and focus on additional manufacturing for parts that can be easily purchased. These components will be bought at bulk to reduced costs. For the main body of our design we will be using ABS and injection molding as our manufacturing process to produce these parts. Using ABS plastic in injection molding has the benefits of being low cost, a high impact resistance, a high tensile strength, and a high heat resistance. Also, injection molding is fast and gives very consistent results, potentially allowing for finer tolerances and less play in the final product.

Reflection

In this project, we learned the importance of not only picking tolerances that work for our design, but are achievable by our selected manufacturing techniques. Moving forward, we would definitely like the opportunity to actually 3D print our design, and be able to make several iterations to get a better understanding of the what clearances we need to have for the printed pieces to actually achieve the fits that we desire. Being able to have a physical prototype would help us modify our design as needed to ensure that we produce a product that will meets our requirements. In the future, we would try to produce a design with a smaller part count, so it would be easier to assemble. We would also consider adding a mechanism other than a locknut to ensure that the jaws do not loosen while a rider is in transit. The locknut provides resistance to loosening, is not ideal for repeated use and may make it difficult to tighten and untighten the jaws.

Fits and Tolerances