3D Printing Prototypes to Save Money and Minimize Risk

Noise Aware, the startup behind a noise monitoring and management system for high-risk rental properties, personally designed and modeled their product with the Ultimaker 3 printer.

Saving thousands of dollars through the process of initially prototyping all parts, the Noise Aware team is able to create new design mockups in just hours and efficiently test designs before sending them to a manufacturer for final processing.

Reduced prototype manufacturing costs from $800 to less than $10 per product

“If we didn’t use 3D printing with Ultimaker to facilitate our product development, we would need 10 times more time to test the product – which opens up opportunities for potential competitors – or try our luck by going to a less experienced manufacturer.”

Challenge and solution

Provoke

Noise Aware needed to adopt effective startup methodologies to validate, test and launch ideas quickly and financially intelligently. Since the initial prototyping phase would cost more than $20,000, it was critical to find a way to produce working prototypes to field test with customers to improve design, acoustic performance, system architecture, device allocation, radio frequency (RF) transmission and more.

Solution

Rapid prototyping on the Ultimaker 3 allows Noise Aware to fully test the product before sending it to partners for final production. 3D printing has reduced costs from $800 to less than $10 per prototype product, reducing production time from days to hours. Furthermore, they are able to demonstrate their performance to customers, potential investors and suppliers by presenting tangible products during demonstrations.

Cost comparison

By saving money by rapid prototyping with Ultimaker, the Noise Aware team achieved a quick return on investment with low risk

As manufacturing manager, Garrett Dobbs says, “The cost to complete the required prototypes with another supplier would have been at least 4 times that of Ultimaker. If we leave out prototyping, we risk the future of the company by creating an untested product.”

result

• • Functional prototypes for testing: The Noise Aware team creates functional prototypes using the Ultimaker 3, with the ability to test features such as design, acoustic performance, and RF transmission for immediate feedback.

• •  Reliability for constant production: Their in-house Ultimaker printer runs for hours and sometimes days, meaning they are able to perform all the necessary projects to ensure the overall success of the final product.

• • Design flexibility for any changes: The ability to design unlimited products means the Noise Aware team can design and redesign products to meet customer needs, constantly improving to achieve the best possible results.

Increased productivity at the start: With working prototypes, Noise Aware benefits from increased productivity in an early-stage environment by uncovering potential challenges in manufacturing and proposing solutions through design patterns.

Conclusion

The experience of Noise Aware highlights the profound strategic advantage that in-house 3D printing offers to startups focused on sophisticated hardware development. By personally designing, modeling, and prototyping their noise monitoring system using the Ultimaker 3 printer, the company successfully minimized its financial risk and accelerated its development timeline. The ability to create new design mockups in just hours dramatically compresses the product iteration cycle, allowing the team to quickly address flaws and refine functionality. This agility ensures that only fully validated and optimized designs are sent to external manufacturers for final processing. Crucially, this process directly resulted in saving thousands of dollars by eliminating expensive outsourcing fees and reducing the need for multiple high-cost tooling revisions. Ultimately, the Ultimaker 3 served as a vital innovation tool, empowering Noise Aware to achieve high efficiency and maintain tight budgetary control while bringing its high-risk rental property management system to market.