Springfield Spring worked on a time-sensitive project with the design engineering team of a major East Coast contract manufacturing company on a special battery contact.

Springfield Spring & Stamping manufactures a large variety battery contacts for a broad cross section of both commercial and industrial applications (see picture at right).

The contract manufacturing company had a plastic housing with integral slots to accommodate the press-fit insertion of the battery contacts into the slots.

Springfield Spring & Stamping tooled the battery contacts to the customer’s approved drawing and design.

The original design of the battery contacts were pressed into the plastic slots but the slot width in the plastic injection molded battery compartment was slightly too wide to firmly hold the contacts in place.

The contract manufacturing company did not have the time or money to modify the plastic injection mold used to produce the battery housing. They also did not want to completely redesign the battery contacts.

Springfield Spring & Stamping’s fourslide tooling engineering team collaborated with the customer’s engineering team to better understand the problem they were encountering.

To accelerate communication and help find a solution, we asked our customer to come on-site to meet our team and brainstorm some ideas we had. Within hours of the customer’s arrival, we had a few ideas we thought we could easily employ to solve their problem.

Based on the versatility of our fourslide stamping machine capabilities, our tooling design team suggested adding outside lances to the contact. The lances could be adjusted to any height and they took up the slop in the area of the battery housing where the contacts were inserted. The lance design also acted to “grip” or “score” the plastic when the contacts were pressed into the plastic slots. Samples were produced for our customer within days with a minimal tooling cost.

Our customer sampled the parts and was elated with the fit and functionality of the revised battery contacts. The battery contact drawing was revised, and production commenced days after our customer’s visit. Challenge solved!