mesmi27
Clock
This Clock Project consisted of using a lathe, mill, saw, drill, and different grit sandpaper to manufacture the specific clock design as seen in the image.
Cost Estimate
Raw Materials
Aluminum:
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3/8" X 2" 6061-T6511 Aluminum Flat = $8.50
Brass:
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1/2" dia. Alloy 360 Brass Round = $5.85
Steel:
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1/2" Dia. 1018 Cold Finish Steel Round = $3.55
Acrylic Clock Face:
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1/8" X 10" X 10" Falken Design Acrylic Sheet: $19.99
Clock Kit:
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3/4" Clock Movement Kit = $12.98
Brass Nut:
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9/16" C360 Brass Hexagon = $15.90
Total Cost of Raw Materials: $66.77
Labor
Aluminum:
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5 Hours
Brass:
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3.5 Hours
Steel:
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4.5 Hours
Acrylic Clock Face:
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1.5 Hours
Clock Kit:
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0.5 Hours
Brass Nut:
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0.5 Hours
Total Time in Production: 15.5
Wage: $26.23
Total Labor Costs: $406.57
Total Cost: $473.34
Mass Production Cost
Total Raw Material Cost (for one clock): $66.77
Total Raw Material Cost (for 10,000 clocks): $667.700
Total Time of Production: ~15,000 Hours/ 1.7 Years
When it comes to the EMEC, the average student would probably take around 15-20 hours to complete one clock, which is already around 4-5 days of work with just around 3-4 hours of work per day. That would already basically be about a week's worth of work for just one clock. For 10,000 clocks, a student would be working an estimate of around 150,000-200,000 hours for that mass production, which would be a minimum of 6,250 days (or 17 years!). While that would make a student suffer immensely having to continue to do the same process for around 17 years, that student would end up making around 4.4 million dollars.
Lessons Learned:
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Before starting the project, definitely make sure that you are comfortable on the machines (lathe, mill, CNC, sanding) as that will help not make any unnecessary steps and help not have to redo any parts.
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What also helped me the most was to give myself time to actually take my time. It's better to be slow at first and take things step by step rather than just trying to get everything done quickly.
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Definitely ask as many questions as necessary, both while in lab and while using the machines. As I didn't have any experience on any of the machines, I for sure asked every TA I could find if I was doing (in my case) the threading right, if I secured the lathe correctly, how to correctly use the edge finder on the mill.
Improving Production Efficiency
One of the great parts of manufacturing is that the steps that are taken are becoming shorter every time a new method of manufacturing comes to the market. While manufacturing everything by hand may have worked back when automation wasn’t created, now that CNC has been added to manufacturing, it will make the entire process to make the clock a lot faster.
Using the CNC Mill would make the process of facing and drilling a lot faster, as the CNC would be able to not only be more precise, but it would remove the amount of time used to remeasure the pieces. A CNC Lathe would be used for the threading process following the facing. The finishing process in all of the pieces could still be done by hand, as the most efficient and best process would be sand blasting the pieces. Another part that can still be done manually is the clock face, which will be finished by around the same time as the entire clock itself.
While automating the process may take longer in the beginning with having to code all of the different processes, in the long run it would take around 1-2 hours to have a finished clock rather than 15-20, which even with a professional would make it a clock a day.