Injection Moulding and Snake Bite Fitness: A Design Success Story
A few years ago, Design EyeQ had the opportunity to work with a fresh start-up company called Snake Bite Fitness. They had a cool idea for their first product and wanted help drawing up a CAD design that could be injection moulded.
Now, the average person has no idea what injection moulding is. But considering that a staggering amount of products we use every day (from toilet seats to plastic cutlery) are made by injection moulding, it’s good to at least understand the basics.
First off, it’s important to understand why so many products are made via injection moulding. Most of the parts we design are intended to be produced this way. The tool itself costs a hefty sum, but once you have the production line in place, you can mass produce a product relatively cheaply. It also provides more options for product materials, colors, etc. than a 3D printer or CNC machine. It’s a big investment up front, but if you have any volume whatsoever, you make it up fast.
The process of injection moulding seems straight forward: beads of plastic (or another synthetic material) are heated up and twisted through a barrel into a mould, which is then cooled. The clamps holding the mould release, and viola: out comes the object. Seems easy, right? In reality, designing a product that can be injection moulded can present some unique challenges.
When designing for injection moulding, you have to consider the draft angle of the mould. A draft angle is the degree to which a moulded object is tapered, or angled, so that when the clamps holding the mould in place are released, air can flow through the mould cavity and the cooled plastic can easily fall away.
That brings us back to Snake Bite Fitness. This was really the ideal small-business design project: the owner had a clear vision for his product, which he could articulate clearly -- and the product itself was super cool: a grip that a person could use on a barbell that had the texture of reticulated scales (hence the name, Snake Bite Fitness).
It was the reticulated scales that presented the design challenge. All those grooves embedded in the object made it difficult to determine where to place the draft angle. And without a draft angle, it would have been impossible to have the product injection moulded.
Fortunately, having worked on complex products in the past, we were ready to meet the challenge. Using Solidworks, we were able to identify the perfect placement for a draft angle: the flat surface area where the logo interrupts the scale pattern.
Once we had the design, it was simply a matter of finding the right material and manufacturer. We know how to talk shop with most people in the industry, so we were able to get Snake Bite Fitness a few manufactured prototypes that they were able to touch and hold before agreeing to the production order.
it wasn’t long before the owners of Snake Bite Fitness could hold the final product in their hands — and use said product to throw some weights around. Like, a lot of weights. Check out their Instagram. These guys don’t skip leg day.
The founder of Snake Bite fitness has this to say about working with us:
"Let me tell you: if you have an idea or design that you want to come to fruition, DEQ is the place to go! You can come to this business and know that they are looking out for your best interests. It is amazing how our first product, the snake bite grips, came to life — even from my chicken scratch drawings/measurements — with the help of DEQ. The snake bite grips came out perfectly. I'm so happy with them. There is not one thing I would change about them! I would recommend this business to everyone and anyone in need of their services. I will not go to anyone else! I'm already working on another new product with DEQ. They are the best. Period.”
Interested in working with our studio?
“You can come to this business and know that they are looking out for your best interests.” That is what we do at Design EyeQ. Contact us to learn more about what we can do to help your company craft bespoke products.
