Nearly every day a record breaking crowdfunding campaign catches the attention of the world with new devices that meld the worlds of software with hardware. And one key player in this revolution is 3D printing.
The DrinkMate project, now on Kickstarter is one of those projects and thanks to Sculpteo’s services, DrinkMate’s team has been able to prototype, manufacture and ship the new product at a reasonable cost for a small company.
Be safe and make the right decisions. That’s the inspiration behind the new DrinkMate, printed in 3D by Sculpteo. It’s the smallest breathalyzer in the world and plugs into your Android smartphone to display your Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) on the screen.
A Breathalyzer You Can Put in Your Pocket, Smaller Than Any Lipstick
Two people have been involved in this adventure: Shaun Masavage, an Electromechanical Engineer who devised the hardware and Mack Redding, another engineer who was in charge of creating DrinkMate’s app.
To be able to design such a small breathalyzer, its creators had to start from scratch. Shaun explains: “We knew that to make a new breakthrough in size reduction, we couldn’t have any bias from existing larger designs. That’s we ended up with a prototype, smaller than any lipstick, and that fits in all pockets. But a lot of work still had to be done.
“I’m a hardware guy and creating dazzling prototypes for ideas is in my DNA. However, the steps afterwards are not trivial by any means. The gap between prototype and product is immense, intimidating, and stops the overwhelming majority of inventors from bringing their ideas to market.”
3D Printing by Sculpteo Made the Product a Reality
“I knew that if I were to make DrinkMate a reality, I needed to have a 100% final design in my hands to test with, especially with regards to the plastic enclosure to ensure that any future plastic injection molded components would work properly. Filing, drilling, and carving an enclosure by hand was out of the question for the complex curves, hollow areas, and twists needed.
“The solution: Sculpteo 3D printed enclosures. The prints were dimensionally accurate enough to drop my circuit board right inside with no wiggle room whatsoever. I then snapped the two pieces together, popped the cap on, and threw a label on the side. Voilà!
“Sculpteo even offered Batch printing for my final round of 40 samples where the unit cost dropped by almost 70% each.
“Thanks to 3D Printing and Sculpteo’s services, bootstrapped aspiring entrepreneurs such as us are able to turn their ideas into reality.”
The company is based in Washington, DC. For more information visit: www.edgetechlabs.com.
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)