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When a customer says, "I need it yesterday,” they can only be joking, or can they? One Friday morning at Quigley Design a customer called asking for a rapid prototype to be delivered in a few days. The customer wanted to assemble the prototype, including the printed circuit and other components, in front of the decision makers in a meeting.
“Fortunately we knew the project well and had produced a series of concepts by this stage," said Kevin Quigley of Quigley Design, “but the problem was that the required prototype was a completely new design—and we only had a day to model it!”
Working directly from the customer’s AutoCAD DWG layouts for the PCB display configuration and envelope, the basic enclosure form was created with some additional detailing in the handgrip area. Then this was sent off for approval as a series of photorendered views produced directly from Cobalt.
After getting the go ahead, the basic form was split and shelled, then internal details were added, such as ribs, location pillars for the PCB, screw bosses, and even a snap fitting battery cover.
By 4:30 the parts were complete, converted to STL (using Cobalt’s built-in STL export translator) and e-mailed off to the prototyping bureau for building over the weekend.
A couple of days later the parts arrived, on schedule, at the meeting - and all the components fit together. “To say I was relieved was an understatement,” said Kevin, “but the job was done and everyone was happy—so much so that they decided to chance the design!”
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