SolidBox loves to see our customers succeed, and to see their product ideas become reality in the marketplace. Such was the case when our very own Joel Sears took a stroll through a local OfficeMax, as well as his most recent and oh-so-wonderful visit to his dentist. What did he see? Products from one of our more recent customers, OttLite, based out of Tampa, FL.
OttLite specializes in high-definition indoor lighting solutions for various industries. Rich Bolduc, Product Designer at OttLite, tells us a little bit about his SolidBox Engineer Desktop L1 , and how it’s helped make his job easier:
SB – How long have you been using SolidWorks?
RB – I first started using Solidworks back in 2003 when I was doing R&D work for a medical laser company up in MA
SB – What’s one of the biggest challenges you face in designing your products? How has using 3D CAD helped?
RB – The hardest aspect on the design side is getting the contours just right for consumer products. Getting the model to where we want it, then being able to do a rendering we can get a good feel of how the actual product will look. Several times we’ve compare the finished product photos to the renderings, and we’ve had trouble figuring out what was a photo and what one was the rendering. If it wasn’t for being able to do the design in 3D and then render it, we’d have to spend a lot more on prototyping to get the parts looking right. In past jobs, it’s allowed me to do stress analysis, circuit board layouts, and thermal analysis as I’ve done everything from golf cart tops to optical test equipment that’s been sent to Mars and the Moon.
SB – Why did you decide to go with SolidBox?
RB – That’s something you would have to ask the IT department. The system was sitting here when I first started here.
Sounds like a cool IT department to me. Let’s see what Jill Emerson, IT Manager at OttLite, has to say about it.
JE – I asked [our reseller] about hardware requirements for [SolidWorks] and [they] referred me to the SolidBox site… Joel was my sales rep and really helped me choose the right bundle for what we needed. They made everything so easy for me. I ordered the hardware, they configured it, installed all of the software, and shipped it to me. I set it up, joined it to [our] network and have not had a problem since. Rich does some awesome work with it!
True dat. Rich was kind enough to send us some renderings and photos of some of the products they’ve been desigining on his new system.
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SB – Who would you say that SolidBox is for?
RB – It’s a Dell at an excellent discount. I’ve always been a fan of the Dell workstations but going through Dell you need to know all the little aspects. The problem with ordering straight from Dell is you need to know every little thing about your system requirements. By knowing what your design requirements are though, SolidBox has pre-configured systems based around your design needs.
SB – Favorite thing about your new system?
RB – The peripherals it came with. I was excited to see there was a SpacePilot with the system when I started here. I’ve been using them for about 5 years now and can’t design without them. The system also came with an ultra-responsive and comfortable Logitech mouse.
Be sure to check out more about OttLite and their line of products.
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