Towards Automated Verification, November 2009

We have continued to extrapolate the tools we have available based on our scanning technology. One of the most recent developments is the implementation of Rapidform XOV - a software package that, among other tasks, is used in rapid part verification.

XOV provides a platform in which we can automate the analysis of inspection data the generation of required documentation for a First Article Inspection Report (FAIR) or for a Trend Analysis of ongoing production. With a software bridge program, we import 3-D GD&T toleranced dimensions directly from Pro/ENGINEER or other design software.

These features are located within the scan data, and summary data is reported for each dimension. For a First Article, scanning is performed on a set of parts, and the resulting values can be displayed and reported in conjunction with a 2-D part graphic and tolerance, or reported in a data table complete with Cp and Cpk statistical values. For a trend analysis, a data table can be generated, and amended as measurement data from later samplings is added.

Design 2 Part Orlando, October 2009

Motorola Rapid Prototyping Services was a premier exhibitor at the recent Design 2 Part trade show, held at the Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center, on October 28th and 29th. The venue, which included small to medium-sized custom manufacturer's from across the U.S., drew visitors from throughout the region, in industries that ranged from medical to aerospace, lighting to consumer products, energy to agribusiness.

While we did have to field more than a few questions about the new Motorola DROID phone, we were able to speak to a wide range of potential customers over the course of the two-day event. Thanks to Ruben Rivera, Peter Pulido, Jorge Rodriguez, and Gary Marcarelli for helping man the booth. In addition to the usual spread of appearance models, CNC machined examples, HDI circuit boards, Freeform printed parts, and molded plastics, We had a new marketing show running, and raffled off some excellent Motorola gear, including some S9 HD Bluetooth stereo headphones, and a bluetooth handsfree car kit.

Photos from the show are available on our Facebook Page.

Upgrading our Printing Capabilities, October 2009

While the emphasis on our Freeform Printing technologies has been mainly on Objet technology to provide speed and capacity in recent years, we continue to generate a large volume in SLA parts for a wide range of customers and our own internal processes. SLA materials are preferred for their higher stiffness in thin walls and better surface finishing properties that make them attractive from a model making viewpoint.

This month we retired our Invision polyjet printer, and replaced it with a Viper-SI2 printer. The Viper provides us with increased speed and resolution compared to our existing SLA machines, and fits in a very compact footprint. The choice of a Viper rather than one of the newest iPRO machines made with an eye toward long-term operations. With the Viper we can continue to take advantage of material sets in which we receive volume cost discounts.

Our next project will be to gang together two of our existing SLA machines to run off of a single laser and single controller. This will gain us some physical space in out Freeform lab, and will mean that all of our machines will be on solid-state lasers.

IDSA Meeting, September 2009

The Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) held its annual meeting in Miami Beach this year, at the Loews Hotel and Convention Center. The event was chaired by Bruce Claxton, Motorola's Director of Design, and included a presentation by Eduardo Conrado, head of marketing for Motorola's Home and Networks division. Several of our customers were also in attendance at the show

Motorola Rapid Protptyping Services was present at the show for the first time, as one of a limited number of exhibitors in the Design Gallery, showcasing our Appearance Modeling and Reverse Engineering capabilities. The four-day event included conference sessions, workshops, portfolio reviews, and other activities.

Some photos can be viewed on our Facebook page.

Papers and Presentations, September 2009

A paper on "Structured Light Tools and Applications", authored by Steve Spanoudis and Peter Pulido, was presented by Peter as part of Motorola's Virtual Engineering Symposium. The paper included a background on metrology, a survey of measurement techniques, and an explanation of Structured Light Scanning, White Light and the GOM ATOS system in particular. The presentation also included an overview of example applications, a numerical assessment of productivity gain, and commentary on future directions for the technology.

An abstract for a companion paper focused on plastics-specific applications has been submitted for presentation at ANTEC 2010, along with a paper by A.K. Venkatesh and others focused on improving estimation of molded-in stress for plastic parts using 'CRIMS' material descriptors.

ANTEC 2010 will be held in Orlando, and we will be exhibiting as part of the trade show floor at ANTEC for the first time.

Low Volume Production, August 2009

In addition to providing prototypes for new product development, our tooling & molding operations increasingly fill an important niche as a source of limited production during product startup, or as a source for on-going production of very low volume parts. Our operations are currently the qualified source for a small but growing list of part numbers for several of our customers.

Our customized Master Unit Die mold bases and press frames allow us to perform mold set-up in an amazingly short time, making small quantities affordable, minimizing the need to maintain inventory on infrequently used parts. We have the capability of performing First Article inspection, Melt Flow confirmation on materials, and all required W18 paperwork.

In addition to injection molding, we are also providing some post-molding operations, including heat staking, graphics application, part insertion, and assembly.

Reverse Enginering Update, August 2009

In addition to performing dimensional inspection, our high resolution optical CAV system provides excellent data for reverse engineering. There are many applications for reverse engineering - ranging from conversion of sculpted physical I.D. models into parametric CAD data (as shown in this example) to re-creating legacy parts and products in 3-D data for re-tooling or revision, to understanding the geometry of an existing assembly to design attachment features for a new accessory.

Pictured here is a recent example we created using our XOR reverse engineering software for visitors to IDSA in Miami. The process involves creating equivalent, parametric geometry based on the scanned surface data. This parametric geometry can then be exported directly to a CAD program (Pro/ENGINEER or SolidWorks for example) where it is fully featured and can be interactively edited, unlike an .STL file, which is of limited use ina design environment.

SPE ANTEC, June 2009

This year marks the first time that SPE's Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC) will be held concurrently with SPI's National Plastics Exhibition (NPE). SPE is the primary professional associatiion for engineers in the plastics industry, whle SPI is the official industry trade association. The events are held at McCormick Place on the lake front. Antec sessions will be held in the conference facilities of the new West Hall.

If youi're planning on attending, note that Steve Spanoudis of Motorola Rapid Prototyping Services will be speaking in Monday Afternoon's Marketing & Management session on "Managing the tools that enable innovation", and participating in the panel discussion.

SME Rapid, May 2009

If you happen to be in Schaumburg, Illinois May 12-14, stop in and see us at Rapid 2009 - the annual industry trade show for rapid prototyping, rapid manufacturing, and scanning technologies. We will be exhibiting in booth 205, featuring our new display backwall and representatives from our electrical, mechanical, and ee design groups.

If youi're planning on attending and would like to set up a meeting, contact Kevin Pieper (954-605-7250) to arrange an appointment.

New Promotional Literature, April 2009

We have finally had a chance to update our print materials to reflect our new business activities and range of services. Among the avaiable materials are broadsheets for our overall business and for optical scanning technology, as well as a new trifold brochure designed to match our new trade show booth. The new theme, "How important is TIME in Your world?" focuses on our core value to customers - reducing development cycle times.

In addition, a new trifold services brochure covers "What We Offer" in crisp detail, covering all of our major services, and highlighting our most important asset - our skileld and experienced staff. For more information, or to receive copies for your perusal, please contact Kevin Pieper, kevin.pieper@motorola.com.

More on Facebook, April 2009

We continue to add more photo content to our fan page on Facebook. New photo examples demonstrate some of our printed circuit board capabilities, such as high resolution legend printing, custom routing of complex shapes, and the use of special laminate materials, including teflon.

Look for more photos soon from upcoming events including Rapid and NPE.

Click Here to visit our Facebook page.

Motorola Supports National Engineers Week, February 2009

Motorola is a proud supporter of the National Engineers Week Foundation, and of its programs, including the Million Hours Campaign, Women in Engineering, and of course, National Engineers Week. From our South Florida location we also support up to three USA FIRST teams each year, helping local high schools compete in local, regional and national Robotics competitions.

As part of our local activities, Motorola Rapid Prototyping hosted a visit by Dr. Leif Carlson, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and fourteen of his students from Florida Atlantic University.

The visit, arranged by Pablo Gondim, targeted mainly mechanical and chemical engineers, and focused on plastic materials and processes. The students were given extensive tours through our freeform printing labs, urethane casting processes, and our entire mold, engineering, manufacturing, and molding operation, and generated significantly more than the average number of good questions about photopolymers, silicones, and molding presses.

Our new Wilton radial arm drill has arrived. It may look like nothing more than an oversized drill with lots of buttons and levers (and that's exactly what it is), but it will allow us to create cooling lines in larger mold inserts and mold bases.

This is important for our in-house tooling operations in several respects: it keeps our mold base preparations in-house, saving cost and cycle time; it enables us to safely handle molds for larger parts, and it enables us to route longer and more complex water lines for deeper mold cavities and higher cavitation molds.

Our new scanner automation table from Capture 3-D has arrived. We are pleased to be the first recipient of this new, 6-axis positioning system that allows us great flexibility in the positioning of parts for 3-D scanning.

Installation and training went well, and our scanning team has already programmed automated macro commands to cover a variety of part size envelopes.

The new system mounts our existing GOM ATOS scanner on an overhead XZ gantry, with A, B, C, and Y axis automation on the part table. Thanks to Dave and Ken for design, installation and training, and to Henry for construction.

Motorola Rapid Prototyping Services strives to be a good corporate citizen. We strongly encourage our staff to volunteer in their communities and pursue annual group projects for Motorola's Global Day of Service. This year our team focused on a small Family Central sponsored day care in Pompano Beach, Florida. Our efforts will provide the children with a safe place to play in an otherwise difficult neighborhood. A sincere thanks to all of our participants, and to Peter Pulido for project management.

Our processes are currently being audited in preparation for renewal of our ISO status next year. We have completed the Supplier Management, Resource Management, Hardware Requirements, and Training sections with flying colors.

We have recently implemented Rapidform XOR reverse engineering software to aid in generating fully featured CAD data created from the point cloud information gathered from our optical scanning process. One of Rapidform's software trainers was on site this month, making sure our users were fully trained in the process of extracting geometry and importing it into a CAD program (generally Pro/ENGINEER).

This reverse engineering capability gives us the opportunity to help customers in cases where they have to create data from a form-factor model, or build replacement tooling where 3-D cad data is unavailable.

The IMTS Show was a big event, even by IMTS standards. With the new McCormick Place West Hall open, the show covered a record amount of floor space and had an especially international flavor this year. Many companies invested in substantial exhibit floor space, and had some impressive machines on display. Motorola RPS was on hand to research areas ranging from ultra high precision EDM and CNC equipment, to updated CAD and CAM software, to tool setting systems for custting tools and electrodes. Click HERE to see some images from the show.

Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly the University of Missouri at Rolla) has a new and rapidly growing Interdisciplinary Engineering department, with 35 students enrolled this year, and 85 projected for next year. The goal of the program is to provide graduates with a more diverse engineering background than available from most schools, coupled with a solid, four year design-centric curriculum. The Industry Advisory Board met in Rolla to review faculty research projects, tour the facilities, and provide input for the upcoming ABET accreditation process. Participating were representatives from Boeing, General Motors, Sony-Ericsson, Lockheed Martin, Cookson, Six Flags, and Steve Spanoudis from Motorola RPS.

The American Contract Manufacturing Show, held at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center provided us with our first venue for jointly marketing mechanical and PC board prototyping services to a general audience. As expected, our presence was a surprise to attendees and exhibitors alike, with significant interest from both aerospace and medical electronics companies. Thanks to all of the customers who stopped by to talk with us. Additional show venues are being planned for Q1 and Q2 of 2009.