Metallised Resin Injection Moulding Provides Solution
When a London-based FilmLight Ltd, a specialist supplier of digital film technology to post-production houses the world over, wanted to develop a high quality hardware control surface for its colour grading and mixing equipment, the company asked Midas Pattern Company, Bedford, to help.
The system was developed around three years ago and was originally supplied to customers using third party, off-the-shelf, control hardware. However, FilmLight wanted to provide its customers with added value and also give the product greater identity, so the companys R&D team set about hatching ideas for its own dedicated hardware and control surface. The new product was to be named Blackboard.
FilmLight first created a Blackboard prototype which was unveiled at a trade show approximately 12 months ago and almost immediately, the company had orders for around 20 units.
After a review of the available technologies, FilmLight concluded that the size of the product, the low volumes involved, the rapid process speed and ease of modification meant that Midas Pattern Companys economic, Metallised Resin Injection Moulding (MRIM™) process, was the ideal solution.
The MRIM™ process entails the manufacture of a metal-filled composite resin mould tool directly from a CNC machined master model or pattern, ensuring the most complex of forms can be produced accurately, quickly and above all very competitively. Square faces, undercuts, metal inserts, bushes and features that would normally need to be machined, can all be cast into PU mouldings produced using the MRIM™ process at Midas Pattern Company.
An added value service offered in Bedford by Midas Pattern Company is the assembly of the Blackboard. The assembly process involves the addition of five large PCBs, 174 keys, four screens, a jog control, tracker balls, a tablet and several knobs to the base moulding.
