The brief was to create some stylish mounts for a 5.1 surround sound speaker system, that would be triangulated on the listener, without the normal adjustable arms, screw and bolts that you get on a retail set.
The first thing was to turn the supplied measurements for where the listener would be sat in relation to the speaker into CAD software. This allowed a rough outline of the shape to be modelled.
From here, mounting features were designed and then modeled to attach the speaker.
One of the cool things about 3D printing, is the ability to rapidly test your designs. This can be especially useful when interacting with real world objects, allowing us to decide whether the fit is just so. Here, we first checked the mounting pin, then a simple piece with the side brackets. From there, an adjustment was made to the bracket location (they were a bit too tight), and a hole inserted to reduce material usage.
Then a full size hollow was made (reducing costs), allowing the client a final check, followed by the final article.
The final article was printed with a 20% infill, giving it adequate strength, in a “silk” plastic, which gives it a subtle shimmering effect on the surface. The client opted to have them semi-permanently mounted with self-adhesive Command strips, so we designed this into the back of the mounts, with flat to-size sections ready to be stuck.
ToughFix 