Cadtek customer London Associates used SolidWorks to design the innovative GPS dog collar which enables owners to track and locate their dog using a mobile phone or computer.

Retrieva's GPS Dog Collar was voted number 1 on The Gadget Show's 'Top 5 Pet Gadget's' feature, to watch the episode click here

The collar was also recommended on The Alan Titchmarsh Show as they discussed the rise in dog theft.

Another great example of how innovative you can be with SolidWorks! to see more from LA Design please visit their website by clicking the following link www.la-design.co.uk

We recently caught up with customer Seven Towns to see what they'd been up to with SolidWorks.

Description of Project: Rubiks Cube Game Re-design

"Tasked to re-design for a re-launch of a classic Rubik game from the 1980’s, Rubik’s Race. The objective was to re-launch the game into the market and to do so we needed to update the styling and make the design viable for today’s manufacturing and cost parameters."

How did SolidWorks Help?

"We used SolidWorks for the outset to quickly visualise how the game could look. We use Photo Works to render Jpegs and 3D PDF files to share with the team for approvals. Once approved we share the files with our China based vendors for consultation on cost and engineering. Our vendors also have solid works and we find it very useful share files which they can give us an accurate cost quickly. We can also share back and forth the files to discuss manufacturing issues which we resolve together issues of tooling and assembly. Once agreed with the vendor we output STL files from which we have our own in house Rapid Prototyping Objet printer from which we can quickly build useable prototypes to play test. Finally on approval from the team the files and the prototype are sent to the vendor for production."

What was the outcome of the project?

"SolidWorks has allowed us to fast track the entire design process to production as well as better manage the project, better communicate the design to all involved, fast and accurate costing with out vendore, output direct to STL to creat rapid prototypes, create HI-res photo real images used for packaging and instructions and generally improve our professionalism and quality of the final product."

To see more from Seven Towns click the picture above or click here

or to visit the Rubiks Website www.rubiks.com

& find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rubiksonline

"We're always looking for new and challenging projects, so when we were asked to design and manufacture heat shields for an icon from the classic car world, we jumped at the chance. Our client wanted to fit custom made heat shield to protect the bodywork (and passengers!) from the heat generated by the monster five litre V8 engine"

How did SolidWorks Help?

"We used SolidWorks extensively throughout the project. We started by creating handmade templates which we then scanned using a large sheet scanner then imported into SolidWorks. We used the SolidWorks autotrace function to sketch the outline of the templates. Using the sheet metal function we were able to quickly create sheet metal parts which could be folded and assembled. From this we created the engineering drawings for the laser cutters to work from to produce the finished heatshield profiles."

What was the outcome of the project?

"By using SolidWorks we were able to make changes to the handmade templates and print in at 1:1 scale to trial fit prior to cutting any metal. This reduced the development time and eliminated any cut part errors by creating the parts right first time resulting in Great looking, accurately made panels that fit right and came in on budget."

Above are pictures of the handmade templates which were then scanned and imported into SolidWorks.

Above is the Laser cut panel for the bulkhead of an AC Cobra LeMans 289

Click any of the images above to visit the Slipstream Design website and to read about this on the slipstream blog please click here

or you can read more about the building of the AC Cobra 289 LeMans here

if you are interested in ordering the AC Cobra LeMans 289 heatshields drop them an email at sales@slipstream-design.co.uk

I caught up with our ipad competition winner Ben White of Integra Products to find out about the ideas behind his Glow in the Dark curtain pole entries and how SolidWorks helped him come up with an ipad worthy design

"I was tasked to design a range of curtain poles aimed specifically at children, from new born to teenage years. The product needed to be easy to fit yet customisable to grow with the child to maximise the product life and a budget so low that we had little room for new tooling. 

The core of the product range would be an extendable pole set based on standard parts pulled from our standard product library, however the low target RRP meant that our standard curtain rings proved too expensive so an injection moulded design was developed. The finials (the decorative parts that sit at the end of a curtain pole and stop the rings from falling off!) were definitely not so simple, keeping the costs to a minimum lots of manufacturing techniques were explored from laser cut and painted steel to hand painted cast resin. However the final production technique that delivered the vibrant colours, aesthetics and texture we required turned out to be far simpler, a TPR (Thermo Plastic Rubber) moulding. 

Difficulties with the finials didn’t stop there as research showed that furniture and textiles aimed at children were all based on primary shapes and simplified cartoon shapes. Primary shapes are simple to generate in CAD but cartoon’s proved to be quite tricky. Thankfully the Import and Block functions in Solidworks saved the day. This allowed me to create the designs in Adobe Illustrator save the vector files as *.ai or *.DXF files and import them into a Solidworks block to use as a 2D sketch. The layers also imported directly so from here so developing the multi layered coloured components was easy.

To enable the customer to customise the curtain pole themselves, the range concept was to offer the pole set in several different colours to which they would add the curtain rings in the colour of their choice and their choice of finial designs. The idea being that you could mix and match or even buy new finials when your child grew out of a particular design. 

With multiple colours of pole and rings and multiple finials designs the combination of possible solutions soon adds up but with the use of configurations in Solidworks, I was able to have one master assembly and create a configuration for each variant. This flowed through directly into Photoview 360 enabling us to quickly visualise different combinations to present to our customer. Although this may sound very time consuming, once set up and using Task Scheduler I could create visuals for almost the whole range over night."

Please Click the images above to visit the Integra Products Website.

We recently caught up with customer AME Design to see what they'd been up to with SolidWorks.

Description of Project: Kingfisher Power Tools B&Q

“We were approached by B&Q's parent company Kingfisher to design their own brand range of entry level power tools. They wanted a strong design language to tie a large product range together and to be able to simplify the construction to reduce manufacturing costs in moulding and assembly. We carried out two stages of concept development, CAD of the hero products (the big sellers) and a brand and design language guideline document. The timings were tight and we pulled out all the stops to get the work completed on time with a few of the team working concurrently to speed up the process and over a few weekends to hit the deadline. We designed 32 tools in 3 months, with the 3 hero products (cordless drill, jigsaw and angle grinder) being produced in Solidworks. We then used the CAD data to produce renderings and to build prototypes in our in-house facilities to assess the ergonomics and form. “

How did SolidWorks Help?

“Solidworks was an essential tool in our process. It's very intuitive and the surfacing has improved a great deal compared to when we started using CAD quite a number of years ago! Also Photoview 360 is easy to use and produces good results in very little time and it aided us in presenting the work to the customer. We used to use a competitors CAD software and we purchased a few seats of Solidworks when one of our major customers wanted us to start using it. We found it didn't take long to pick up the basics and we now use it on approximately 80% of design projects.”

What was the outcome of the project?

“The clients were delighted with the resulting power tool range and the increase in revenue that the products have generated. It was also a project that was a lot of fun to work on and a good experience working with clients who really understand the value of design. It's feels great to see lots of products we've designed when we visit our local B&Q”

Dave Bond, AME Design

To Visit the AME Design website click the image above