Two injection molding machines with a clamping force of 8,000 tons each have now been delivered by Austrian injection molding machine maker Engel to the Infiltrator Water Technologies (IWT) plant in Winchester, KY. IWT took delivery of the first Engel duo 130000/130000H/8200 combi US machine, the largest machine ever built at Engel’s St. Valentin facility in Austria, in February of last year. A second machine, a replica of the first, arrived at the facility this month. IWT, a subsidiary of Advanced Drainage Systems (ADS), produces water management products.

Offering a user experience that merges rider intent and independence with the protection and assistance that LUCI’s technology provides also was a priority.

What they came up with, along with a little manufacturing help from Protolabs, is LUCI, an attachable accessory system that brings smart technology to power wheelchairs for stability, security and connectivity.

As a power wheelchair user steers LUCI with a joystick or other means, onboard sensors map the surroundings to avoid anything in the way, such as curbs, pets or people. The mapping technology includes millimeter-wave radar sensors that detect the range, velocity and angle of objects in the environment.

Special shipping and ground transportation arrangements were needed to move the machine from Austria to the United States and even within Austria. The platens were transported to and from the St. Valentin manufacturing facility along the Danube River on barges. “Each machine was fully assembled and tested prior to shipping and then disassembled to be shipped to the United States,” said Jim Moran, business development manager at Engel North America.

The design team worked urgently to deliver LUCI to the market, given their personal stake and the high level of interest from potential users. That urgency trickled through to everything, including their choice of manufacturing partner. The goal from the beginning was getting LUCI to the largest number of users possible. For many, it was the difference between someone being able to independently drive themselves and somebody being pushed or not having that freedom in all locations.

After years of development, the Dean brothers began selling the LUCI system in early 2021. The system was quick to receive widespread recognition, its accolades including Time’s Best Inventions of 2020, Popular Science’s Best of What’s New, a CES 2021 Health & Wellness Innovation Award and Mobility Management’s “Smart Technology” Product Award.

LUCI’s hardware and software combine to give power wheelchairs a 360-deg. view of the world to avoid collisions and drop-offs, as well as warn of tipping dangers. Cloud-based communications alert loved ones of an accident and securely send user data to family and medical team members. LUCI incorporates stereo-vision cameras and infrared, ultrasonic and radar sensors in a patented, first-of-its-kind system that gets mounted between the seat and wheels of a power wheelchair.

Additionally, sheet metal prototypes arrived from Protolabs within a week compared with eight to 12 weeks from a traditional metal shop. LUCI continues to use Protolabs’ on-demand manufacturing to source end-use molded parts and to prototype plastic parts for more models of wheelchairs and new products.

Engel was recently awarded a gold sustainability rating by EcoVadis, which relies on data from more than 90,000 evaluated companies and global supply chains to rank companies.

The duo injection molding machines each have two 85,000 cm³ injection units, which allow for injecting a total shot weight of 270 lb (122 kg). Despite the clamping force and shot size, the machines have a relatively small footprint — 96 ft. (29.3 meters) long and 37 ft. (6.4 meters) wide — enabled by Engel’s two-platen design.

The plastic housings that contain the radar sensors posed a design challenge, Jered said, because those housings need to be “invisible” to the business card-sized radar sensors, while also being a certain shape, material and thinness to enable the radar devices to do their job of identifying potential hazards.

The team landed on an ABS plastic that was durable, cost-effective and compatible with the radar sensors. The part would be injection molded at the thinness required, enabling the radar devices to work properly. LUCI iterated rapidly on the housings, cutting test tools, having prototypes made and working on revisions before making new tools for another round of prototyping. The process overall was more cost-effective. If the team went with a traditional injection molder, higher costs and slower turnaround would have meant fewer iterations and more guesswork.

When the team mentioned their concern about robustly securing the plastic housings to LUCI’S frame, Protolabs suggested using its insert molding service. Insert molding in this case incorporates threaded metal inserts into LUCI’s molded plastic housings to improve their strength when they’re attached to the frame. Insert molding is working so well that LUCI now uses it whenever attaching plastic parts securely to metal.

Protolabs delivered injection-molded parts within three to four weeks, with expedited orders coming in as little as five days. That compares to 16 weeks or longer to order a mold and get first articles from a traditional injection molding service with less flexibility to make rapid iterations to part designs.

At the IWT site in Winchester, new manufacturing facilities had to be built to house the large machines. As 29 truckloads of machine parts were arriving from Austria, the 59,000-square-foot building expansion went forward. A 150-ton overhead crane was installed to move molds in and out of the machine and was also used to help assemble the new press.

For the speed and flexibility required, they turned to Protolabs for injection molding of plastic prototypes and production parts, as well as sheet metal fabrication for prototypes of the chair’s platform. The team required quick-turn parts because they were not only developing fast, but also with a lot of unknowns.

Engel added in the news release that it shares a commitment to sustainability with ADS, which claims to recycle more plastic than any other company in North America.

“We have made significant investments in new equipment, and this will allow us to produce our products more effectively and efficiently,” said Bryan Coppes, vice president of engineering and R&D at Infiltrator. “It is the new capabilities and opportunities for continued product development that are truly exciting. This new equipment will allow us to continue to bring new and innovative products to market and meet and exceed our customers' needs.”

In addition to their urgency to create a safer alternative for Katherine and other power wheelchair riders, the Deans’ announcement of their intent to develop such a product generated intense interest from wheelchair manufacturers.

One expression of that needed to be through LUCI’s dashboard. The dashboard, located on the wheelchair’s control panel has four indicator lights to track things like Wi-Fi, cellular connection and sensor obstruction. The team wanted each light to have a corresponding symbol that would clearly identify its function while also being attractive and durable.

Another concern was finding a way to securely attach the plastic housings holding LUCI’s various sensors and electronics to the system’s Smart Frame. The frame is a sheet metal platform that is mounted between the seat and wheels of a new or existing power wheelchair to install the LUCI system.

Engel said it received the purchase order in November 2020 and completed handover of the first machine in February 2022. The second machine, a replica of the first, was delivered this month.

Getting the 8,000-ton machines from Austria to the Infiltrator Water Technologies plant in Kentucky was a logistical challenge.

To come up with solution, the LUCI engineering team used Protolabs digital quoting platform for design-for-manufacturability (DfM) feedback early on in designing plastic housings for LUCI’s sensors and electronics. Getting the design just right for the housings holding the millimeter-wave radar sensors required iteration and help from Protolabs engineers.

Sheet metal fabrication service was also used to prototype dozens of parts for the smart frame and brackets that hold LUCI’s sensors. For the dashboard, the team utilized a pad printing process, which transfers a two-dimensional image, like a company logo, to a three-dimensional object. The pad printed symbols are more attractive, durable, and convenient, given that Protolabs was already making LUCI’s dashboard.

Power wheelchair users have the potential to get hurt when their devices, which weigh hundreds of pounds, tip over or run into objects. For brothers Barry and Jered Dean, the danger was one that hit home as Barry’s daughter, Katherine, used a power wheelchair. When a family friend was sent to the hospital after a wheelchair fall, the Dean brothers set out to find a solution that would make his daughter’s chair safer while helping all power chair users avoid potential pitfalls.

Engel said it is increasingly receiving requests for custom solutions in the extremely high clamping force range. Clamping forces of 10,000 tons and more are possible. Machines of this size can process individual shot weights of several hundred kilograms or pounds and achieve two-ton-per-hour material throughput.