Profoto: AcuteB600 battery cassette for flash generator
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2007-12-17
Profoto wanted to provide the world's top photographers with a new, compact, portable battery-powered flash unit. Success required smart new solutions – Profoto turned to Oxyma for help.
(Assignment: Reinforcement, mechanical design)
Even for professional photographers working outdoors there is not always enough sunlight. It must be supplemented with artificial light in order to control shadows and highlights.
In order to broaden its range Profoto needed to develop a new, small, battery-powered flash generator. The result was the AcuteB600, weighing less than 5 kg and capable of 160 flashes per charge. The battery is mounted in a battery cassette that makes it possible to quickly and easily switch to a fully charged battery.
Profoto contacted Oxyma because they needed a technical solution regarding how to use and change rechargeable batteries in a simple way. The difficulty was that the battery has no natural anchor points and that its tolerance will sometimes vary. The engineers at Oxyma, and representatives from Profoto, began by holding a “brainstorming” session to discuss possible solutions. A two hour meeting resulted in a number of sketches. A couple of these were considered so interesting that Profoto chose to hire Oxyma to construct the mechanics for the flash generator.
"This was the first major project that we undertook along with Oxyma," says Bo Dalenius, Technical Manager for Profoto. "We had come pretty far ourselves but needed help to finish up the mechanical details."
The series run for Profoto flash generators are in the order of thousands per year, which requires a cost-effective design. The chassis is constructed of sheet metal and a number of details are of molded plastic. The compact design combined with the high voltage levels of the electronics required that both circuit boards and other components were modeled using a 3D CAD system.
"Oxyma is different from other consultants because of their expertise and commitment, combined with a high level of service," says Bo Dalenius. "So far we have been using their mechanical designers, but in the future, we are definitely interested in their expertise in such areas as industrial design, which is something we lack."
The development time for the mechanics, from order to complete blueprints, including components used for injection molded parts, took five weeks. Six months later the Acute B600/600R was on the market. Since then Profoto has conducted several development projects with Oxyma, both industrial design and engineering services projects.
