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Apple Design Project

A design project for an iPod battery door release mechanism

Design Challenge

Analysis

Design Goals and Considerations​

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  • Simple and intuitive

  • Visually appealing

  • Reliable and robust

  • Low cost

  • Small Volume

  • Easily manufactured and assembled

  • Minimal components

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  • Door should be hinged if it going to spring open

  • Button should be small enough to prevent accidental pressing but large enough to be accessed

  • Minimized ingresses for functional and aesthetic purposes

  • Realistic button force and travel distance

  • Consistent wall thickneses

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  • Minimized stackups and over constrained parts

  • Every feature should have a purpose

  • Minimize moving components

  • Symmetric assembly and components

  • Minimize friction

  • Battery door should sit flat with housing

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Design Concepts

CAD

Assembly

Next Steps

•Optimize for fatigue strength based on 365,000 cycles

•Explore other designs concepts further to see if there are any inherent benefits in other designs

•After analyzing the friction forces in the button force, I am inclined to believe a pivoted lever design would greatly reduce friction, internal stresses, and button travel

•Review the design with other engineers to get ideas and find mistakes I missed

•Perform more tolerance analyses and adjust design as required – I think there will be many more tolerance issues

•Look into  replacing screws with snap features

•Perform more FEA  and drop test simulations

•Optimize materials and wall thicknesses

•Go through all design criteria and look for ways to improve the design

•3D print a prototype and perform actual drop tests, as well as function tests and look for assembly/tolerance issues

•Get better costing estimates from vendors

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