Mechanical design and engineering
We also develop clients own initial design concepts through the mechaniacal design phase for manufacturing (productionisation) or evolving our own concept creations to the finished product (see creative design process).
We will advise on the choice of materials and production processes to reduce investment costs on tooling to the minimum requirement. Our Chinese office has built direct relationships with local toolmaking companies, as you would expect, which means we are able to provide low-cost injection mould tools (and tools utilizing other materials technologies).
Once the product materials and manufacturing processes have been agreed we can then start discussions in earnest regarding internal component layout and PCBA positioning and mounting systems. We are well aware of the restrictions imposed by EMC, IP (liquid and solid ingress) and heat generation within the confines of a plastic or metal or hybrid enclosure through experience with these issues on previous projects.
A fully detailed 3-D assembly is then created including all internal components and exterior casing. This is then discussed in detail at a design development meeting and any issues at that stage are resolved. We will also explain in detail the assembly design of the product and design details of each component so that our client understands 100% the mechanical solution(s) we propose.
There may be some minor adjustments to the final mechanical design at this stage; however the ultimate result is that TQ will produce a complete set of 3-D data files and 2-D reference component drawings for the product.
The next process in the chain is the manufacture of injection mould tooling or other tooling for reaction injection moulding, compression moulding, progression forming, die casting, or other processes and technologies as required.
Depending on production volumes envisaged, multi-impression tools for large volumes or 'family' tools for smalller numbers of moulding sets will be manufactured as dictated by budgets and project requirements. After manufacture, production tools will be trialed to T1 stage for compliance to the drawing dimensionally and T2 stage for adherence to surface finish and dimensional parameters over a pre-production run. Once approved by our client we will then manufacture a pilot run for final approval or ship tools to the UK for production in our partner facility or the clients own moulding resource.