Commercial Design Work
Design Work for LUME CUBE
I was hired in June of 2017 at Lume Cube as the R&D Engineer after I won a design competition where I had submitted two separate 3D printed “proof of concept” designs. Lume Cube makes high quality, waterproof LED lights for use as external continuous flash for both photo and video professionals.
As the R&D engineer at the company, it was my responsibility to design and bring new products to market. Lume Cube had a large section of the drone lighting market cornered and when the DJI Mavic drone was released, I was responsible for creating mounts for the drone.
DJI Mavic Case Study
The DJI Mavic had some challenging geometry to work with and to top it off it was also DJI’s smallest drone to date. I had a unique solution to the problem of the awkward geometry by spanning the arms on either side in order to keep the center of gravity in roughly the same place.
Design Process
This project was perfect for rapid prototyping using 3D printers. With the power of four Flash Forge Creator Pros I was able to rapidly and precisely iterate on designs and make improvements daily. Utilizing Autodesk Fusion 360 as my main design tool, I was first able to import top and side views of the drone taken on my cell phone and get rough shaping and sizing. Once the rough size and shape were locked in I was then able to use digital calipers to generate exact dimensions. You can see this process of refinement in the images below.
From left to right: Rough FDM 3D printed part, FDM 3D printed, sanded, filled & painted part, SLA resin 3D printed part, final injection molded ABS plastic part.
Photos Captured Utilizing the Mavic Pro Mounts
Other Lume Cube Projects
During my time at Lume Cube I had several other projects that were ongoing while also working on the Mavic Mount. Their previous designer had not released the files he created while working under the company. I had been tasked to slowly reverse engineer the existing mounts into CAD so if modifications were needed in the future they would have the design files available.
When I joined the company in mid 2017, Lume Cube Air, which was to be the second lighting product from the company, was at a standstill. Development had slowed and no progress was being made. I had come forward with several design suggestions in relation to the material for the exterior of the product as well as sourcing a better LED. These suggestions were enough to get the ball rolling and the product is now in the hands of consumers worldwide.