Otter Products, a leading premium mobile and outdoor accessories company, is benefiting immensely with the implementation of Stratasys PolyJet technology when it comes to design validation for their product engineers and ultimately seeing their products meeting their customers’ expectations.
The mobile accessories market is highly competitive especially with new phones appearing in the market every now and then. This is especially so with mobile phone cases for example where there’s not much time available for the design process because of the need to get to market fast, but it has never been an option for Otter to compromise on design.
Otter themselves is no stranger to 3D printing having started out with SLA technology back in 2007 before turning to PolyJet technology in late 2012. The company added a J750 4 years ago, and the new PANTONE color validation feature is important for them when it comes to realizing realistic graphic prints in each print.
“With PolyJet 3D printing, we can generate color parts, including graphics, within the manufacturing tolerances of our color specifications,” said Richard Vinson, Principal Engineer at Otter Products.
As part of their design validation process, Otter actually prints 100 prototypes for use in their consumer insight studies, where consumers are asked to physically experience the product early in the design phase. With such early feedback, iterations can be made easily and allow the design team to explore multiple paths.
“With PolyJet, part tolerance is virtually the same as molded production parts. This allows Otter to make changes in CAD, rather than in steel tooling. It’s currently the only technology to meet Otter’s requirements for resolution and tolerances in multiple materials, let alone in multi-color prints.”
Just counting 2019 alone, 2,000 parts were printed by Otter with the J750, which in calculation makes out to be several 3D printed parts printed every single day.
Click to learn more about PolyJet 3D Printing technology and the J8 Series. You can contact us via our contact form, email us at info@creatz3d.com, or call +65 6631 8555 for any further inquiries.
