8In January 2023, Rion launched a new carrying case. The case measures 300 mm in length, 356 mm in width, and 100 mm in thickness, and is made of bluish-gray plastic for an industrial look. Among the Rion products intended to be carried around, the NL-53 series sound level meters, the VM-57 vibration meter, and the KC-52A airborne particle counter are The Rion carrying case was signifi-cantly upgraded in this way. However, the road to completing the design was far from smooth. Molding the carrying case, given its large size, presented significant challenges in handling the plastic mate-rial.“There are various types of polypro-pylene (PP) that can be used. Initially, we tried a material with a proven track packaged in this case. A growing number of models will utilize this case. Daisuke Sakaue of the Research & Development Department knows the full story of the trial-and-error that took place during the two-plus years since the start of its development in October 2021.“Until now, each product at Rion had its own specially designed carrying case. record in manufacturing hearing aids and other products. However, we found it was easily damaged in drop tests. From there, we began experimenting with materials that would have sufficient impact resistance. Naturally, a carrying case needs to be impact-resistant, but we also had to consider the strength required to withstand various customer use cases, leading to extensive trial and error.”For example, the synthetic leather car-rying case for the NA-28 Class 1 sound level meter, in use for around 20 years, was individually handcrafted, making it costly. And it became increasingly hard to produce the required quantity.”In addition to the products men-tioned above, the synthetic leather carry-ing cases for the KC-52 airborne particle counter, the NA-42 sound pressure level measurement amplifier, and the VM-83 general-purpose vibration meter are expensive and have an outdated design. The VM-55 and VM-56 vibration meters use ready-made plastic cases, but the cases are imported and therefore require The shrinkage rate during the mold-ing process proved to be unexpectedly high. During molding, PP shrinks more than twice as much as ABS resin, caus-ing warping as it cools. They found that the front and back sides of the case fre-quently failed to fit together when closed. Sakaue personally visited the factory to experiment with various combinations of materials, molding temperatures, die temperatures, cooling times, and other factors, eventually finding the optimal molding conditions.Improvements continued right up to the final stage. For example, when han-dling the finished product, they noticed that the slide lock at the end of the handle Key considerations for carrying cases: cost stability, material procurement, and designThe struggle in handling the plastic material appropriate for the new carrying case
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