Custom Tooling Design
Workpiece carrier design
Designing workpiece carriers to move goods from one station to the other – they need to be precise robust, and repeatable, paying attention to customer keep-out zones.
Gripper Design
In addition to locating the part during transit, grippers often need to be designed to work with several product variants & have clear markings for exchanges.
Active Probing
Electrical probing is a key part of the design for modern end-of-line test systems. Our experience with electrical probing lets me help customers develop a probing plan.
Mission Statement
ELD Automation Design serves the custom tooling design industry with tooling design services, specializing in opto-electrical test tooling. We provide innovative, high-quality design solutions client needs. This expertise and flexibility offers our clients competitive advantage.
Portfolio / Example Projects
FiconTEC EOL
FiconTEC is a German supplier of photoics test and assembly equipment, which recently entered the automotive market. ELD was asked to step in as a project manager and design lead for an End of Line test cell, integrating test equipment from several different suppliers into the FiconTEC machine.
The first, and most important task, was to clarify responsibilities – who was responsible for providing which equipment, as well as the mechanical, electrical, and software interface requirements.
Once this was accomplished, we guided the design team in implementing the design. The task was completed by interfacing with the FiconTEC purchasing team, releasing completed assemblies in a staggered approach – a clear setup that enabled faster delivery. The result was a successful project integration. Of particular note, the delivery timeline was significantly accelerated.
FiconTEC – Active tooling
FiconTEC is a German supplier of photoics test and assembly equipment, which recently entered the automotive market.
Based on previous experience, ELD was asked to assist in designing a chuck to hold the camera in the End of Line equipment. During this testing, test equipment looks through the camera at a variety of test charts, evaluating the quality of the overall system.
Although the system was sold to only produce one camera initially, additional cameras were foreseen – a standardized electro-mechanical interface was required. In addition, a high degree of repeatability was required, as well as mechanical robustness to handle the high part counts – 250,000 / year (estimated).
The tooling was designed in cooperation with several team members (electrical design, automation, optical design), and the final product contained custom-fabricated aluminum & stainless steel parts, as well as a variety of off-the-shelf automation components.
Altitude – Sous Chef
Altitude is a product design Firm, based in the Boston suburbs. Due to capacity issues, they contracted with Carl as a mechanical engineer for a short-term project, designing a new type of food processing product for one of their customers.
Carl lead the design effort – from ideation through concept design, prototyping, and evaluation afterwards. The work resulted in a patent.
AEi Design Standards
AEi is an automation firm based in the suburbs of Boston – they are best know for their work in Active Alignment in the automotive market.
Carl worked there designing tooling for their automotive customer. A theme he noticed often – new customer projects often required custom grippers, in addition to the active tooling. The result was that the design of a variety of non-standard grippers, where design improvements were not carried over from one experience to the toher.
Carl proposed design standards, creating & documenting a set of unified grippers. The result was a family of standardized grippers, useable across customer designs – Fewer custom designs, higher overall quality.