BioLite BaseLantern
The BaseLantern, a sleek, portable lantern that can be controlled via a smartphone.
A Brooklyn-based start-up took advantage of MakerBot Replicator 3D printers’ capabilities to promote its latest innovation at the 2016 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market trade show.
BioLite redesigns traditional outdoor products, like stoves and flashlights, with high-tech, sustainable energy so that each product works without fossil fuels. Yet, to showcase the BaseLantern, a sleek, portable lantern that can be controlled via a smartphone, at a summer trade show, it needed to be all but complete months before its release.
With just one week to create blister packs for ten products, BioLite turned to a range of MakerBot 3D printers to meet the tight deadline. Not only was time saved, but a substantial amount of money was also clawed back, as the BaseLantern was duly showed off at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market.
BioLite had selected blister packs as it exposes the product to customers, while still protecting it. This means the customers would be able to interact with the lantern, cycling through its range of lighting modes. Blister packs are typically produced using vacuum-forming, an industrial manufacturing technique where sheets of plastic are heated and formed over metal, wood or plastic moulds. Previously, BioLite used outside vendors for prototyping blister packs, which typically required a ten-day turnaround time and higher costs.
MakerBot Replicator
“Before we had a MakerBot, we outsourced the full prototype production of the blister packs to a model-making house,” Anton Ljunggren, Director of Design at BioLite said. “The cost for one package (two blister halves) would then be $600 per blister or $1,200 for a full package. This summer we made ten new products so the cost to outsource it all would have been $12,000. Plus a rush order would up the cost by 50% to 100%.”
Since the BaseLantern is the size of a sandwich, the BioLite design team 3D-printed packaging moulds on the MakerBot Replicator 5th Generation, one of its three MakerBot 3D Printers. Its other two MakerBot 3D printers being a Replicator+ and Replicator Mini+. After the prints, the PLA moulds were sanded, primed and painted to ensure smoothness.
As a member of the Brooklyn New Lab, an incubation space for hardware-focused entrepreneurs and start-ups BioLite could then use the vacuum-forming machine to create the blister packs. All in, BioLite’s costs were around the $5,000 mark, accounting for 3D printing, the labour to post-process prints and use the vacuum-forming machine, a New Lab membership, and the cost of plastic for the blister packs.
BioLite BaseLantern packaging
BioLite selected blister packs so customers would be able to interact with the lantern, cycling through its range of lighting modes.
“We saved about $7,000 on having the MakerBot and doing it ourselves,” added Ljunggren. “Plus, we got it done faster than any shop could have turned it around for us. 3D printing with MakerBot allows us to iterate and try different ideas. Before, if we’re going to pay $600 for a blister pack, we want to make sure it’s the final one. Now we can try completely different blisters because it’s not that much work for us if we’re already doing it.”
The MakerBot 3D printers allow BioLite to upload old processes to uniquely create faster, more cost-effective solutions that achieve better results for the business. Here, the moulds significantly cut down on marketing costs and allowed BioLite to meet a deadline that would otherwise be impossible.
Meeting that deadline, was especially important for the company. Thousands of buyers were able to see the product, many of whom were attending with a view to make some purchases. And while generating revenue is essential for BioLite, it has a much higher goal. The company uses profits from its consumer products to support its mission to develop cleaner, safer energy in developing countries.
