IDC Designs Low Volume Spectrometer

Award-winning product design specialist, Industrial Design Consultancy Ltd (IDC), has supported Specac in the design of a special portable spectrometer called Prospect XL 3000 that uses the company’s innovative new infra-red spectroscopy technology for use in process plants. With low volume production in mind, IDC was tasked with the rapid development of a new product that harnessed all the advantages of Specac’s new technology, without the weighty costs associated with injection moulding tooling.

“IDC was very unusual in being able to support us in just part of the development process or the whole project. We needed someone to focus the design elements to get the housing just right, as well as advice around manufacturing techniques. It had to be robust enough to use in the laboratories and plant sites, and incorporate the infra-red technology as well as the Wi-Fi aspect of the product. The fact that this was a low volume product presented a hurdle in terms of time and costs, both of which needed to be constrained,” explains Specac’s technical director, Dr Graham Poulter.

With a broad team of expert designers, engineers, modelmakers and project managers, and a hi-tech workshop on site complete with laboratory facilities, IDC was able to swiftly design, style, and produce a rapid prototype of the portable spectrometer in-house. As a result, injection moulding tooling was redundant, leaving out the worry of long delays and high costs.

Dr. Poulter continued, “The low volume production kept the end user needs and economical constraints in mind, without compromising on superior quality."

The Prospect XL 3000 was turned around in a three month period. All departments in IDC’s in-house team were involved in the project. After working closely with Specac to brainstorm the initial design, engineers and model makers selected the best techniques for the job at hand which resulted in using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) to rapidly create robust parts which were then hand finished and painted to a production standard.

The Prospect XL 3000 is proving popular in laboratories, process plants and pilot plants across a variety of applications areas, including foodstuffs, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.