It’s an iterative process

One of the perspectives I have developed, which has gotten me this far, is that there is no such thing as a failure. The only way to fail is to not learn something from the situation, and there is always something to learn. Sharing the learning process, the struggles, and upcoming projects is what these blogs are intended to share.

Upcoming products, currently named U-PCW2.5 and U-PCW2.5B, are currently in production prototyping. The only pictures I have that I can share right now are about the struggles with developing the bezel for the “B” version. They are Dayton Audio CE70PR-4 2.5″ drivers paired with generic 3″ passive radiators, with part of the design being a version with a bezel with a speaker grill for driver “protection”. My initial idea was a bezel ring to hold the grill cloth in place and hide the edges. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it made things more complicated than they needed to be when trying to get the ring to line up smoothly with the bezel. I found printing test parts for fit, function, and feel is absolutely invaluable. Here are some examples of one of the later-stage iterations of the bezel design.

I also found the layer lines to be excessive and distracting. Moving the bezel ring to the back solved the alignment problem, and printing this iteration made it clear other design changes needed to be made to bring the aesthetics of the design up to a functionally satisfactory state.

The speakers themselves are in the production prototype phase now. After over 2 dozen iterations that vary from minor to major overhauls of the designs and printing settings, they are virtually ready to be marketed. The bezel still requires a fair amount of labor to assemble and affix to the enclosure, part of which is minimizing the connection line between the two, but I personally think it looks pretty good.