How We Did This Part 2
We set out establishing a set of product requirements and the use of industry standard CAE and FEA tools while coordinating with our supplier network to develop a design that would provide a seamless interface to vehicle’s equipped with a front vehicle tow lug access port.
Materials and coatings were chosen that would not corrode when easily exposed to the elements; thus, the product is made up of aluminum, stainless, and polymer materials.
While evaluating the existing market designs, there was no current method to easily remove or attach the license plate if an owner wished to display or not a license plate on his vehicle. Additionally, and based upon existing market designs, what if there was a low speed frontal car impact? What would be the collateral damaged to the bumper rail from the bolt protruding out that affixes to a license plate bracket? Most likely there would be some plastic deformation to the bumper rail. With this in mind, we incorporated polymer parts into the design to allow these parts to break away during low speed frontal impact.
With some of the above consideration, the goal was to develop a design that would allow a car enthusiast to easily display the vehicle’s front license plate to easily remain in compliance with local state motor vehicle regulations, swap it out for an action camera to capture those special driving moments, or quickly revert the car back to stock for those special social media photos, vehicle detailing, cars and coffee.
After several design iterations, analytical simulations, and collaboration with our suppliers in conjunction with DFM, we are excited to debut our product and would like to share some in process photos from our US based suppliers in addition to a big thank you to our suppliers: ATI, Pindel, and Ultra Tool.
Our parts are machined CNC machined on multi axes machining centers to allow the machining to be completed in one machine center without requiring multiple machine center setups or touch labor.
With quality additionally being a top priority as the same with our suppliers CMM inspection is key to ensure our product meets our specifications and that we can pass the same quality to our customers.
Based upon the success we have had with our suppliers and the results of the design; it has opened up additional expansions to our product lineup.