Core77

Clever Design for a Quick-to-Use Multi-Angle GoPro Mount

How do you figure they molded this thing?

By Rain Noe - November 11, 2015

in Photography

This is one of those small, simple, useful product designs that have you kicking yourself for not thinking of it first. Beijing-based photographer Zhou Ruogu was frustrated with the set-up time required to get his GoPro at the desired angle. After spotting this Dungeons-and-Dragons-Die-resembling Chinese seal…

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…he struck upon the perfect solution:

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Zhou’s Slopes gewgaw is on IndieGogo, where it’s already surpassed its $10,000 goal with $25,441 and counting. It appears it will retail for $25, a bit more than I expected given its size, but perhaps the molding is complicated. Speaking of which, those of you with injection molding experience: Based on the photo below, how many parts are there to this mold?

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Also: Looking at this shot…

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…I can’t quite tell by the size of the photo, but it seems the numbers were molded with the tool perpendicular to each of their respective surfaces. That seems like a lot of tooling; do you reckon all of these numbers on the bottom are molded by just one part of the tool that pulls straight up (perpendicular to the “10” surface)? That seems impossible to me as the draft angle would make the numbers look wonky on the angled surfaces, so I’m very curious as to how they did this.

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Colin Worobetz

9 years ago

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Given the shallow nature of the lettering, the high draft on them from what I can see here, I bet you could do this part with 2-3 additional slides, if you can get away with not needing them for some of the shallower angles

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Andrew Edman

9 years ago

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If it's crowdfunding now, those parts probably aren't injection molded just yet. I would not at all be surprised to see the draft distortion on the numbers to come into play as part of the "last minute" design for manufacturability that so often changes the original design intent of a product.

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Matt Chapman

9 years ago

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Wouldn't it have been sensible to make one of 40 degree angles on sides different to add an extra option. Would just involve rotating the unit 180 degrees in the holder to achieve the other angle - like the 45 and 30 degree on the front and back.

Quite a useful tool to consistently reproduce the same angle of shot quickly and simply. I think it needs to sell up this repeat-ability, after all, a ball of Plasticine would have more variability, just no consistency.

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