Prototype and Low Volume Production Options in America?

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on a product of mine, and am looking for a way to prototype the product with a third party. The end goal is to produce a small amount of parts that be made available to a small community of hobbyist.

Right now I am struggling with finding a company that can help me prototype my part for the right price. What are some good options for me to achieve this? Im located in San Francisco Bay Area, and I've thought about renting spaces at TechShop to do the CNC machining work myself. But in the long run, I will be developing more products, and eventually won't be able to prototype everything myself. A good local company that can make prototype for me by CNC machining would be great, but out of state would be ok too. The end goal is to keep cost low and avoid too long of lead time.

Then the next step would be low volume product for the part. And I would like to get some advice on how I should approach this?

Thank you in advance for your input.

Material? Processes?

Have you looked at urethane casting from silicone molds?

For prototype, anything from polymer to aluminum should work. The end product would need to be 7075-T6 or steel. I'd prefer to have my parts made by machining.

My part needs to be within 25-50 thousandth of an inch for tolerance. Would urethane casting be able to do that? I will have to look into it further, but my impression of the technique was that it could not produce precise parts.

ProtoLabs has gotten to the point where they are advertising on billboards, not just trade rags. You might look into their services.

My $.02:

The best way is to produce legitimate drawings of your parts. By legitimate I mean comprehensive and IAW ASME Y14.5. The drawings will allow you to quote far and wide. Those quotes will represent real world costs of your designs.

If you're a hack or a newbe, pay someone with engineering/design/producibility skills to help you generate those drawings.

I make my prototypes on my manual machines first then I take the parts to a cad drawer who turns them into files that I send out for quotes. I just started using shops outside of my home town, it has not been a problem. You are going to have to throw money at this in the begginning, if I didnt have my parts that I made on my machines my costs would be crazy high. The last thing a shop wants to do is look at a sketch and some rough dimensions and have you running back and forth for 3 weeks checking on the progress. Most of my cad drawing are for complete machines that I designed and they are around a grand a piece to have a really good cad person make it perfect. A bad cad guy will cost you way more than you ever thought possible.

Depends on the complexity of your part. Best bet is to find a draftsman with Autocad (or any program) , give him a rough sketch and get a drawing made. You can find people who can do mechanical Autocad drawings on Craigslist.

Then post your part in the jobs listings here and get your prototype produced.

Thank you all for your input.

I've emailed ProtoLbas, but has not gotten a respond yet. I've also found a company called Xometry that looks promising. We'll see how it goes.

I'll refine my drawings and post it in the job listings as well to see how can help me out! That sounds like an awesome solution for prototyping as well.

nightwolf0215 said:

The end goal is to produce a small amount of parts that be made available to a small community of hobbyist. <snip>

Right now I am struggling with finding a company that can help me prototype my part for the right price. .

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That's the problem right there. You cant get them produced for the $ value, you estimate them.
This has all the hallmarks of some one that has an ingenious idea, But doesn't understand the costs of Manufacturing. Classic better mouse trap.

You don't see the hour to come up with a drawing, The 30 minutes to come up with a program, the buck and a half $1.50 you need per minute to justify the lease on a CNC. What looks to you as a $20 -$40 part, soon becomes $295 for any one to run it.

All of that to produce in your own words, "a small amount of parts" One off's, specials, low volume, always attracts a premium. Its all in the set ups. Order a thousand at a time, then you will get into discount territory.

You haven't mentioned perpetual motion. We've had our share of them here across the years.

Regards Phil.

See Kpotter in post 6 for least 'realistic' costs for openers, manual samples in-hand.

See machtool in post 9 for the general environment.

Then further recognize that even a 1000 units of most basic goods is but typically ten batches, mebbe one day's worth a month, even on antiquated all-manual machinery.

Where is the volume to justify CAD/CAM and CNC out of that, even if units were 100% identical and all sold in Year One?

Realistic 'market' for that? Essential purchase? NO competition? NO alternative choices?

Little or NO aftermarket warranty costs? Low or NO product liability exposure?

Fed or State regulations to deal with?

High-dollar yield per-each still 'there' after all those things are factored in?

Or just wished-for?

Convair, Lockheed, Glenn L Martin, and Douglas used to make commercial airliners. Some right decent ones for their day, too.

And now they don't.

For each of those there are thousands and tens of thousands of small parts makers who no longer play, either.

Some were killed-off by 'success' rather than failure. Bigger fish had their product knocked-off cheaply and went on down the road with the sales of it, not always with so much as a dime spent on legal fees.

Tough world out there....

Bill

We are a small 3 man shop and we have worked with several individuals who were designing/building prototype components or mechanisms. Quite frankly, we love it. It is by far the most interesting and rewarding work. That being said, it does come with its challenges. It requires a shop who has a willingness to work from incomplete ideas and drawings that are hastily created on the spot.

Surprisingly, we have had very little re-work on the prototype projects. You get an idea of where the person wants to go and then you go back and forth for a bit to hammer out the idea to make sure everyone is on the same page and then you get to work. These projects have often been easier then dealing with engineers at the larger firms who leave out key dimensions and then insist that everything that is needed to make their part is on the drawing and then after trying to keep your cool for fifteen minutes on the phone with them it finally dawns on them what you are asking and they get you the missing dimensions.

So what I am saying is, look around. There is probably a shop in your backyard that is similar and they would love to work with you. We understand that these projects have smallish budgets and there are always contraints so we try to help you come up with cost effective solutions. What you end up with may not be exactly what you had in mind when you walked in the door but it will accomplish what you are after for a much smaller cost. After all, in prototyping you are simply trying to prove out a concept. Then you work the bugs out. Then you make it presentable for market.

Would we be on the hook for liability issues - possibly. But being in business is risky. It is always a calculated risk. If you want to make more money than an hourly wage or you want to be in business for yourself, risk is unavoidable. I am saying this - not for the op - but for all those guys here who are going to jump on this post and project all kinds of gloom and doom about how you put everything at risk when you are part of the designing phase - no kidding!

Then you will have another bunch of guys that are going to tell you how your project cannot possibly succeed. Whatever. Just stay true to your vision and keep moving forward.

nightwolf0215 said:

.

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two options below that fit your tolerances

If that is not cheap enough or fast enough then you may need to re-evaluate what you are doing.

Proto Labs : Fastest Provider of CNC Machined and Injection Molded Parts
http://www.quickparts.com/eu/en.aspx

Joe Miranda said:

Then you will have another bunch of guys that are going to tell you how your project cannot possibly succeed. Whatever. Just stay true to your vision and keep moving forward.

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Good balance, Joe.

Whole thread may not be what he expected, but I trust he'll be less of a naif once he sorts the various sides of it and gives the project a more stringent review.

Too many folk have lost their houses in this game already, so better the heartburn and a plan to deal with it is in-place right up-front, not post-disappointment.

Bill

There is a big difference between 1. "vision", 2. "ideas" and 3. "products".

I make 3. "products".

The vast majority of people who have 1. and 2. do not wish to invest the time and effort in going on to make 3. from 1. and 2.
Most professionals realise this, and wish to work with the small minority of people who are willing to do such work, OR
.. who are willing to pay me or someone else for it.

Part of the work may be, often, the 200-400 hours of study in learning how to use a cad program decently, and then use it to make a proper print for mechanical manufacture.
"Hobby" is when you wish to spend time with like-minded people and dont expect to pay the going rate for a professional for such time.

It takes about 1 grand, to do a low precision medium-low-complexity 3D model of something to be done well, as kpotter said.

If the OP expects me to spend one day (= 1 grand) at it, I expect to get a firm order in advance (with some payment) or to be paid for the 3D work - just like anyone else.
If he has spent the time and effort himself, he becomes credible, and anyone will look at his models in a different way, and many will wish to quote for it.

"Sales plan" means not that "we will advertise".
It means you know what, how, when, where and how much $ and can write it down.
Just like manufacturing.

Thank you for the very helpful input everyone. I appreciate your honesty in the matter, as it will help keep me grounded on this project.

I've had a bit of experience in producing CAD drawings. Even though my Y14.5 is a bit rusty and I will definitely need to touch up on that, my drawings have been cleared enough for shops to produce parts at my old job. I hope it would be sufficient for what I am doing as I do not have the budget to spring for a professional CAD drawing of this simple part.

I've also had just a little bit over 1000 hours operating manual mill, manual lathe and Haas CNC mill. That amount of hours is no big deal, but it did get me some exposure to the entire process from creating G-code, machine set up, calibration, to finishing the products. My experience has been mostly with 7075, 6061 and softer plastic material. A possible route for me to produce my prototype would be to CNC it myself, but I do not have access to a CNC mill, which I am also working on solving.

I am hoping that with my drawing ready, I could send it to a shop and have the parts done according to my drawing. That would help save me on the cost of CAD drawers. Then after I test the prototype and finalize the product drawings, I could, once again have a shop produce the part for me in low volume. I don't think the part will cost $20-40 to prototype, but $500-600 is just too much out of my budget. And if cost doesn't allow, I will have to figure out another way to make this happen.

We are doing exactly what you describe for a company from Menlo Park near Sunnyvale . . . it involves in some cases taking existing SolidWorks solid models and tweaking the design for easier manufacture and increased efficiency of the assembly and creating dimensioned drawings and then making the parts, assembling and testing.

There is also a controller aspect of it - in this case a small Siemens PLC with about 64 I/O, a vacuum pump and compressor all monitored and parameterized from a touchscreen.

We are confident that we can get this machine to work for our customer and our hope is that we can make it work 5 - 10 times better than what they have managed to cobble together themselves. It is interesting all the way around as we are refining a first draft effort and given freedom to try different materials and change parameters of the design as we see fit.

The company we are working with flew their chief scientist in today for a design review. He flies up in the morning and flies home in the afternoon. We charge $124/hour for engineering and $90/hour for shop time and a moderate markup of materials based on whether it is mechanical or electrical and whether or not we have a contract with the vendor. Information exchange with the customer is managed using Smart Sheets . . .

This is not a simple inexpensive machine - my thought is that once in serial production these machines will cost about $10k each to manufacture and we are hoping to build 10 or so for the first run after the design has been hammered out over the next 2 - 3 months.

look up craftmethod on Instagram.

nightwolf0215 said:

$500-600 is just too much out of my budget. And if cost doesn't allow, I will have to figure out another way to make this happen.

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Perspective on costs, then. Over ten years ago, I had my original design for '1/3 U' rackmount server housings executed in stainless steel.

CNC from day-One, my 'Zero Day' dead-accurate india-ink on vellum epertly replicated into CAD/CAM to drive a CNC punching milling, tapping, folding contraption or more than one.

Two 'halves' - identical and symmetrical in all-aspects - clamshelled to form each case at half the usual parts-count, and they fit like a glove.

All-up cost for six shells needed to fill a "Triligon TriXerver" 1U demo was $6,000 USD.

Even so.. I got that price only because the firm's USUAL biz - building Broadcast TV field-mobile satellite linkup vans, fully turnkey, racks, electronics, and sweatsocks - was in the doldrums and they were desperate to hang-onto otherwise idle skills and machinery.

I'd stick a 'zero' onto that $500-$600, and go find the money (as I had to do - it was MY dice roll)...instead of seeking the band-aid.

Will it come good? Mine did not. Moving too slowly either missed the chance.. or saved my ass.

Right about the time we had a higher-density solution that could use industrial all-in-one board parts, not 'blades', the Data Centres around the Planet were running out of UPS per-rack budget. Within the year, it became cheaper to lease additional racks - which came with a decent BASIC UPS budget - and quarter-fill them with ordinary taller servers and empty space, than it was to add even a trickle of extra UPS power to any given rack.

We had solved too much of the wrong end of a moving problem for the 'common' environment, and not ENOUGH of it for the seriously high-density players such as Google.

Called "falling into the cracks" (between floorboards, not legs, unfortunately)

Bill

nightwolf0215 said:

I don't think the part will cost $20-40 to prototype, but $500-600 is just too much out of my budget.

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For perspective, three years ago I was developing a new product that did not go into production. Used a local sheet metal shop for prototypes of two variations on a modest bent-metal part, quantity two each variation. There was a non-recurring engineering charge of about $225 for each part. In quantity two, the prototypes cost me $110 each. At quantity 100, they would have cost $8 or $8.80 each, at quantity 200 about $7 or $7.75 each, and at quantity 300 about $6.60 or $7.40 each. I paid the $440 and got four prototype parts.

This is absolutely normal to the product development process. If you want prototypes, you have to pay the one-off costs for tooling and setup. If you don't want prototypes, your CAD process had better be flawless and you better have a proven working relationship with your vendors.

If these numbers seem high, by all means do the TechShop thing if you have way more time than money. At the very least you will learn a lot about CNC programming so have a better sense of how to design for efficient programming. Also, you should make sure you're up on other process such as laser or waterjet cutting, press brake work and extrusions. All of these approaches can are used very successfully for low volume manufacturing, maybe with machining as well.

On an unrelated note, unless this is a bicycle or aircraft part, and a structural one at that, why 7075?