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Design & Development Regulatory Manufacturing
Supply Chain
3D Additive Contract Manufacturing Electronics Materials Molding Package
Sterilization Testing


ARTICLE | OCTOBER 28, 2019




MEDTECH STARTUP SMELLS SUCCESS WITH ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Source: Protolabs, Inc.

OVR Technology turns to Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing at Protolabs to evolve VR
experiences

The sense of smell is the oldest and perhaps most evocative method to trigger
memory and emotion: Imagine the scent of a newborn child. A whiff of fir trees
from a forest trail. The acrid smells of a war zone, such as diesel fuel and
burning rubber. Scent is the only sense that is directly linked to the memory
and emotion section of the brain making it a powerful tool for affecting
cognition and behavior.

Combining this primal sense with rapidly evolving virtual reality (VR)
technology — enabling medical applications including helping soldiers with
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)— is the mission of OVR Technology, a
startup in Burlington, Vt.

The company’s pioneering product is the OX1, a lightweight, wireless patented
device that attaches to the bottom of a VR head-mounted display. To intensify
the immersion and authenticity of the VR experience, the OX1 emits microscopic,
millisecond-long bursts of various scented liquids into a small area under the
user’s nose. The OVR in the company’s name stands for “olfactory virtual
reality.”

Optimizing the design requires the flexibility to adapt quickly,
which Protolabs’ Multi Jet Fusion process offers as one of its industrial 3D
printing technologies, said Erik Cooper, head of design and co-founder at OVR
Technology. OVR Technology’s initial focus is on health care, education, and
training uses, Cooper said, as faster, cheaper, more accessible VR technology
drives increasing adoption in the health care market.

Clinicians already are using VR methodology to help veterans with PTSD with
immersion therapy and war-related scents to help them revisit and reprocess
traumatic experiences, Cooper said. More than two-thirds of PTSD patients were
symptom free after such care at a University of Central Florida program, OVR CEO
Aaron Wisniewski said in a recent TEDx talk.

In addition to health care, OVR Technology is looking at training, education,
entertainment, immersive experiences including gaming, and scent-enabled 4D
documentaries as potential markets, Cooper said. “We wanted to start in health
care and the blossoming digital therapeutics market,” Cooper said.


INNOVATIVE DEVICE NEEDS ITERATIVE DESIGN FLEXIBILITY

A primary challenge facing OVR Technology is developing a product that hasn’t
existed before, particularly one that emits scent molecules in such microscopic
bursts, Cooper said.

The OX1 produces those scents in response to an Architecture of Scent
application programming interface (API), which allows designers to assign
parameters to the scents of objects into the VR environment, Cooper said. An
object that has no smell when first picked up, for example, will produce a
stronger smell as the user brings it closer to his or her face. A user downwind
from an object will detect its scent in a virtual breeze but won’t when moving
upwind of it.

The device includes a fan to clear out the scent but the material it’s made of
has to be smooth enough to keep from trapping scent molecules, Cooper said. The
material also has to be close to what final parts are for testing.

In addition the OX1’s design has to work with VR technology that continues to
change and improve rapidly as adoption advances, Cooper said. Flexibility in
design and development and the ability to change form factor quickly are crucial
now and in anticipating what’s next in virtual reality



OVR Technology’s OX1 is a wireless, patented device that attaches to the bottom
of a VR display.

Cooper, along with OVR Technology chief technology officer Matt Flego, made some
housing prototypes with a fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer. But that
didn’t work for the types of geometry he needed. Scent molecules were sticking
in the small grooves the FDM process creates, making them impossible to fully
clean out of the housing.

The team at OVR uses another industrial 3D printing process, stereolithography
(SLA), with an in-house machine, Cooper said. But the material isn’t as strong
and the finish isn’t as close to that of a finished molded part.


MULTI JET FUSION PASSES THE SMELL TEST

Cooper gets the flexibility he needs to quickly change form factor along with
the finish and strength of end-use parts with Protolabs’ Multi Jet Fusion
process. Protolabs’ turnaround times and prices won him over, and its instant
design analysis and pricing tools made the process easier, matching his
experience on previous parts.

“Protolabs has been helping us with extremely high-quality nylon parts from the
HP Multi Jet Fusion machine,” Cooper said.

Cooper also praised the durability of the MJF parts. “We’re going to do testing
we would need if we do head into military applications, which it looks like is
very possible,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to do drop testing, electromagnetic
testing. The parts have to be pretty much analogous to what the final material
would be and the Multi Jet Fusion gives us exactly that.”

Knowing he can get parts from Protolabs in a few days—essentially manufactured
on demand—helps the startup avoid having a large inventory and further supports
rapid design innovation, Cooper said.



OVR used Protolabs’ Multi Jet Fusion additive manufacturing process to 3D print
prototypes and low-volume, end-use parts for the OX1.


LOW-VOLUME PRODUCTION WITH MJF

Beyond prototyping, OVR plans to use MJF while the OX1 is in beta testing,
Cooper said. He typically orders parts for 10 devices at a time as the company
works with early adopters and influencers to help validate the technology.

The device may be available commercially later next year, Cooper said. In that
event, switching to injection molding for a possible 10,000-part run may make
sense. Cooper explained that the decision to go to tooling is driven more by the
company’s milestones and demand, though he added that once OVR gets to more than
2,000 devices per year, “we will certainly go to tooling. By this point, design
iterations and development will have been solved for this version.”

Until then, Cooper would be comfortable with short production runs of up to
1,000 MJF parts. At that volume the expense of injection molding tooling still
would be hard to justify—and the device would require four to five different
molds. While molds can be changed, the OX1 design likely will go through some
wholesale alterations as development continues.

OVR Technology is considering options that would allow the company to replace
its devices as it releases new models, taking back older designs to recycle and
recondition, Cooper said.

“We keep pushing the R&D and making it better,” Cooper said. “It’s much easier
to stay nimble and flexible and keep the additive stuff going. You can’t stay in
one gear right now.”

...

This article was originally posted to Protolabs' site.






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