Industrial Motor Starter

The client is a UK-based manufacturer of motor starters and industrial energy saving products. They wanted to combine pre-existing electronics and heavy duty internal mechanical arrangements taken from some of their existing products to add a new top-level product size to a growing range.

Hillside Product Design had been involved in the design and development of other products in this range, and so understood that the client wanted to keep assembly time, component count, and intricacy to a minimum. A detailed assembly was created from existing CAD components where possible, and new components were modelled by Hillside Product Design as required. The existing electronics were imported into the assembly, and Hillside Product Design developed a novel assembly method which was robust to assemble and transport, as well as maintaining air clearances and wall thicknesses required for very high voltage applications.

As with previous motor control projects, pre-production samples were required in order to perform aggressive short circuit testing to ensure that a catastrophic failure within the enclosure would remain contained. The design was prototyped as a fully working and cosmetic facsimile using a combination of high-resolution Polyjet 3D printing, and desktop FDM printing. The prototype was passed to the engineering team to run their design validation checklist and testing.

Prior to commissioning tooling, small modifications were necessary and the final prototype was presented for sign off at board level. Following design sign-off, Hillside Product Design prepared a full manufacturing specification for the moulded plastics and fabricated metal components. Hillside supported the client during the tool build and sampling process and then carried out audits on sample mouldings leading to the sign off and completion of the project.