Gate 1 Group 27 2012

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Introduction

In Gate 1 we will develop a detailed plan on how the group will go about assessing the product. It is important to have a plan for taking apart the drill. In this gate we will develop a plan for disassembling the product, as well as attempt to predict any potential challenges. We will also be assessing the strengths and capabilities of our group members so that we may function better as a whole. Gate 1 will also outline a timeline of the project and allocate tasks to the different members based on each persons strengths.

Figure 1.1 Black and Decker 12V Litium Ion Drill, Left Side View

Work Proposal

Disassembly

The disassembly of the Black and Decker 12V Lithium Drill/Driver will be divided into two processes. The dissection of the outer shell, and the removal and disassembly of the drill's subsystems and functional parts. The first part should be a simple, quick process well the second should take a little longer with more attention to detail and functionality.

Exterior Disassembly

The exterior shell of the Lithium Drill/Driver is made out of a hard plastic that is held together by eleven small steel phillips head screws and at least one metal crimping piece. The metal screws should be able to be removed using a number eight phillips-head screwdriver. A pair of needle nosed pliers or a small flat-head screwdriver should be able to remove any of the metal pieces crimping the plastic together.

Interior Subsystem Disassembly

The interior systems of the drill will be taken off the casing in a specified order to preserve the electrical connections from the battery port to the motor, trigger, and LED. First we will start with the removal of the drill chuck and work our way back towards the motor. The drill chuck is held onto the clutch by a steel hex-head machine screw that is accesible through the drill bit port. This screw will be removed by using a 3/32" hex head wrench and will allow us to remove the drill chuck from the clutch. Next we will remove the drill clutch from the drive shaft by removing any set screws in the collar and carefully taking off any bearings or springs located in between the two pieces. At this point we will have reached the connections between the motor, the trigger, the LED and the battery port and can now begin to remove the wiring and electrical components. The motor should come out easily and further disassembly of any connecting gears can now be finished. The reverse/forward switch can now be taken out as well as any remaining electrical parts. The drill should now be completely disassembled.

Part	Tool	Time
Steel Screws	#8 Phillips Head Screwdriver	2-3 Minutes
Metal Crimps	Small Flathead Screwdriver/Needle Nosed Pliers	1 Minute
Drill Chuck	3/32" Hex Head Wrench	1 Minute

Challenges

Challenges in the completion of this project can be assigned to be either physical and structural obstacles or group incompetence.

Physical/Structural Obstacles

Challenges to the overall disassembly/assembly of the drill start with the disassembly of the outer shell. The metal crimps that assist the screws in holding the shell together will be hard to remove without bending the metal out of shape or breaking the plastic. Once the plastic is off, the biggest concern our group has is the documentation and proper placement of the small bearings/springs and other mechanical components of the drill. The drill is small and as such the pieces inside the drill will be small and if any of them fall out of the casing before we have a chance to document their position and relation to the other parts the reassembly process will be much more challenging. Another concern is the electrical connections between the battery and the trigger, motor, and LED. When taking these pieces off the drill it is important that none of the electrical connections (if unremovable), are broken or torn off.

Group Incompetence

Challenges that fall under group incompetence can be defined as any challenges that result from the failure of group members to properly perform tasks. This includes improper part documentation/recording, failure to complete an assigned task before a set date, breaking/improperly dissecting the drill, and lack of sufficient knowledge needed to complete the task.

Capabilities

Member	Capabilities	Shortcomings
James Favale	Technical Writing Experience Project Leadership Experience	No previous webdesign experience
Chadwick Sargent	4 Years Hardware Experience Proficient in AutoCad and Inventor Good Technical Writer	No knowledge of Html No Drawing or Drafting Skill
William Dahn	Taking Product Apart, Auto CAD and Inventor	Technical Writing
Pradeep Raghupathy	Product Analysis	Working as a team, Technical Writing
Gerard Casimyr	Proficient in AutoCad and Sketching	Technical Writing

Improving Weaknesses

The group will improve upon their weaknesses by going to office hours, as well as having other members of the group review each other's work. This should create balance among the strengths and weaknesses of the group.

Management Proposal

Member Info

Member	Contact	Title	Task
James Favale	jamesfav@buffalo.edu	Project Manager	In charge of setting meeting dates, keeping project on schedule, resolving conflicts, and allocating tasks. Will also be responsible for reviewing overall wiki page.
Chadwick Sargent	cjsargen@buffalo.edu	Technical Expert	Leading person in dissection of the project. Will be responsible for making sure the drill is properly assembled/disassembled, with the proper tools.
William Dahn	wrdahn@buffalo.edu	Wiki Editor	In charge of writing and setting up wiki page, ensuring links and pictures are placed as they should.
Pradeep Raghupathy	pkr3@buffalo.edu	AutoCAD Specialist	Responsible for creating 3D models of the project, as well as all other drafting/design work.
Gerard Casimyr	gerardca@buffalo.edu	Document Recorder	Responsible for ensuring that the progress of the project, including assembly/dis-assembly, is recorded. Works with the Technical expert to ensure that each detail is documented.

Timeline

Task	Components	Component Due Date	Final Due Date
Gate 1	Work Proposal Management Proposal Product Archaeology	10/07/12 10/07/12 10/07/12	10/08/12
Gate 2	Cause for Corrective Actions Product Dissection	10/17/12 10/24/12	10/26/12
Gate 3	Cause for Corrective Action Component Summary Product Analysis Solid Modeled Assembly Engineering Analysis Design Revisions	11/02/12 11/02/12 11/12/12 11/12/12 11/12/12 11/14/12	11/16/12
Gate 4	Cause for Corrective Action Product Reassembly Mechanisms Design Revisions	11/21/12 11/21/12 11/26/12 11/28/12	11/30/12
Gate 5	Finalization of Deliverables Final Assessment Technical Report Oral Presentation	12/05/12 12/05/12 12/12/12 12/12/12	12/14/12

Group Meetings/Conflicts

Group meetings will be held once a week, either in Capen ground floor, or in the dissection lab. The meeting time will vary, depending on if the work requires the use of the dissection lab or not. The time we will meet will be after class, either on Wednesday or Thursday. After each class we will meet briefly to express immediate concerns with the group. To manage conflicts, all group decisions will be voted upon, with majority rule. To allow meetings to run smoothly, each member is expected to have their individual components completed and uploaded prior to the meeting. Everyone is expected to review others' work, and to accept review and criticism. During these meetings, the document recorder will write down what has happened, and what needs to be done. The project manager will then email the documentation to the group.

Product Achaeology: Preparation and Initial Assesment

Development Profile

From the information gathered the product was first sold in October 2010. Thus the product must have been developed sometime during the beginning months of the year 2010.

Looking at all the features packed in to the product and the price of the product, it can can be seen that the product was designed for household purposes. The product is designed to be used in narrow places while compared to its current and previous variants are bulky. And from the product’s battery voltage rating and the standard of units used in the manual it is meant for parts of Europe and America.

The product is sold in almost all parts of North America and a few Latin American countries. The product is intended for markets where power tools are used for household drilling and screwing materials.

By the products features such as the eleven position clutch which prevents stripping,overdriving which is intended to be used for an extra level of control, the LED light for drilling in dark places, and the soft grip on the handle for better comfort, it can be seen that the product is well designed for consumers using the product for household purposes. Though the product has a lot of good features, it is aggressively priced at $50 to make it more affordable. From the information gathered from popular websites which sell hardware tools, it can be seen that this product is given good reviews and is well accepted by the consumers for its intended use and the price of the product.

• Reviews were taken from www.lowes.com/reviews

Usage Profile

The product provides two important functionalities. That is drilling and screwing. The product can be used for either household or commercial purpose. Extensive knowledge is not required for the usage of the product. One would require only two protective gears, that is heavy duty gloves and eye gaggles to protect themselves form accidental injuries and derbies flying into the eyes. The product has a trigger switch for the input signal from the user with direction knob and has a clutch to control the torque in the drill bit. Most people who have used an electric drill can easily figure out the controls by eyeballing the product. The can be used on materials such as wood, metal and plastic. It includes some good features such as the 11 position clutch which prevents stripping and overdriving screws which provides extra level of control. There is a LED light which is used to illuminate surfaces in dark places and the soft grip on the handle for comfort. Additional functionalities as mentioned above, would add benefit for the user.

Energy Profile

The drill that we are analyzing uses electrical energy to power the motor and all other components of the device. The electrical power initially comes from an AC power source. When in the United States, where the drill is designed to be sold, the standard power output of a home is 120 Volts at 60 Hz [1]. The battery requires much less power than this to charge, so the charger reduces the power to .330 Amps. The charger then charges the battery to its max capacitance. When the battery is plugged into the drill, it completes the circuit. From what we can tell without taking the drill apart, there are 4 components to the circuit. There is the source of electrical power, which is the 12v battery. There is also the variable speed trigger, which mechanically controls the amount of current running through the system. Without taking the drill apart, we are yet unable to determine exactly how this is accomplished, but what is known is that somehow it limits the amount of current going through the circuit, possiblly through a variable resistor. We suspect that the component is a variable resistor because a variable resister is a simple mechanical way to limit the current in a circuit. This allows the mechanical operation of the trigger to be converted to the mechanical operation of the variable resister, which would be a simple and effective circuit. Another component is the LED light, which is attached to the front of the drill. The LED lights up when the drill is being used. Because of this, it can be assumed that the light is connected to the same circuit that the motor and trigger are connected to. The final component is the motor, which will be responsible for the largest use of electrical power. Looking at the drill, it can be seen that there are vents and a small fan on the back of the drill, near the motor housing. This indicates that the electrical energy in the motor is converted not only to mechanical power, but some of that electrical energy is converted to heat as well. The amount of heat is significant enough for the engineers to design vents in the drill.

Complexity Profile

The overall complexity of the drill is not very high. The drill contains a series of subsystems of varying complexity, which work together in a fairly straightforward way towards the overall functionality of the drill.

Motor

The motor is a fairly simple twelve-volt electric motor that is powered by the lithium battery. It sits in the back of the drill and attaches to the clutch by a drive shaft. Squeezing the trigger controls the motor. The trigger is variable speed so depending on the amount of pressure put on the trigger the motor will spin the drive shaft faster or slower.

Clutch

The clutch regulates the drill’s torque. The clutch has a torque-adjustment collar, which has ten different torque settings for screwing into different materials as well as a setting for drilling holes. The higher the clutch setting, the higher the amount of torque the drill puts out. When the drill reaches the maximum preset setting, the clutch disengages the drive shaft allowing the motor to turn but not the bit.

Chuck

The chuck is the mechanism which fastens the drill or screwdriver bit into the drill. It is fitted with a collar so that it can be done by hand. The chuck has three jaws that clamp down on the bit and keep it in place while the drill is spinning. Once a bit is inserted, the spinning of a threaded screw tightens the jaws, the screw thread and the back of the jaws are on an angled surface so when tightened the jaws move down the angled surface and tighten down on the drill bit.

The drill has a few smaller subsystems including the battery port, the work light, and the forward and reverse switch. These subsystems contain two to three reacting components. Overall the drill has about twenty to twenty-five pieces including housing and fastening screws.

Material Profile

The majority of materials in the drill are concealed beneath the plastic housing but can be safely assumed based on previous research.

Exterior Materials

Materials visible on the exterior of the drill are as follows:

• Heavy plastic shell that houses the mechanical components

• Rubber coated battery port and handle

• Steel drill chuck

• Steel screws and metal crimps that hold the shell together

• Plastic coated copper wire cord charger

Interior Materials

Materials hidden beneath the plastic shell can be assumed to be as follows:

• Steel drive shaft, clutch gears, and motor parts

• Copper wiring and motor parts

• Plastic and steel battery receptacle

• Plastic glass and carbon LED light

Interaction Profile

This is a very simple user interface for any user.

Figure 5.6.1 Drill with labeled components

If it is a users first time using a drill, he/she would need to read the manual for specific instructions on how to use the Black and Decker drill. This product is very easy to use and almost everything becomes obvious to the user because the most important parts are labeled; from the battery pocket to the speed levels at the top. The product works when the user pushes the trigger with their finger. The user can also control the torque by turning the clutch left or right depending on the amount of torque desired. This product requires little to no maintenance, besides charging the battery when it dies. The charger allows you to recharge the battery by itself, which allows you to store your drill in a safe place while charging. This prevents the area around the outlet from getting clustered.

• www.lowes.com/BlackandDecker

Fig 5.6.2 Battery

Fig 5.6.3 Charger

Product Alternative Profile

Our product, the Black and Decker 12 Volt Lithium-Ion Drill, has a few alternatives. We will compare our product to three other products. The first product is the Skil 12-Volt Max 3/8-in Cordless Lithium ion Drill with Case which costs about $20 more than our product. The second product is the Kobalt Bare Tool 18-Volt Cordless Drill/Driver which costs the same amount as our product. The third and final product that we will compare ours to is the Black and Decker 12 Volt 3/8-in Smart Select Cordless Drill Kit which costs about $10 less than our product [2].

Comparison of Products

Conclusion

In conclusion, our product seems to be one of the better products available for the cost and the tasks that need to be accomplished. One advantage that our product has is an eleven position clutch which allows the user to regulate torque better than the other products available. One disadvantage that our product had was that other products had more torque than our product. These features are what makes our product one of the better options in its price range.

Bibliography

Energy Profile
[1] http://www.powerstream.com/cv.htm
[2] www.lowes.com/LowesProductComparision