I was rummaging through my desk drawer a few weeks ago and I came across this little beauty. It’s the first proper part I ever designed that made it into production. It would have been back in 1996 I think, when worked for Xerox. The part for a Field Service Kit, for a high speed office printer. The slot at the top is to hold a metal guide in place for about a 300mm stack of paper. As I recall the guide that located the paper in the paper hopper was inclined to flex under side load so it needed extra support.
The part was laser cut from ‘Zintec’, or zinc plated mild steel sheet. I might even have the drawing of it somewhere… This was the first of many thousands of parts I’ve designed over the years.
Tags: sheet metal zintec