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Changes to the design of this electrical connector
housing by manufacturing engineers caused parts to break in the field.
In order to get more plastic to the tip of the
housing during the injection molding process, the manufacturing
engineers added runners to the bottom of the lip. These runners
increased the cross-sectional area allowing more plastic to make its
way to the tip.
However, these "runners" also impacted the structural
integrity of the lip acting like stiffening ribs. Adding
these ribs moved the peak stress to a new location and parts began
failing due to this localized added stiffness. The snapping
action of the housing was also detrimentally impacted by the introduction of the
ribs.
A design
change was needed that ...
- allowed
plastic to reach the tip of the lip
- would
not adversely effect the function of the housing
-
minimized field failures
Kx worked with the customer's product development and
manufacturing engineering team in an iterative design process to meet
these objectives.
In the end, a design was defined that reduced the
stress in the housing while allowing more plastic to reach the tip.
In fact, we were able to utilize the current mold with some
modifications, therefore, achieving a superior design with minimal
manufacturing changes.
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