High volume, multi-part recreational equipment

How Pressure Forming Helped an Exercise Bike Manufacturer Reach the Finish Line

Profile Plastics thermoformed the cosmetic shroud with speed, detail, and cost-effective tooling.

Companies that make recreational equipment need to stay ahead of the competition. Yet they can’t cut corners by eliminating product details. Increasing costs isn’t a winning strategy either. When an exercise bike manufacturer needed a complete solution, the company turned to Profile Plastics for help.

Challenge: How do you accelerate production without sacrificing details or increasing costs?

The plastic shrouds for stationary bicycles are the largest and most visible parts of this indoor exercise equipment. In a crowded marketplace, however, the companies that design and build exercise bikes need a way to stand out. Branding is essential, but so is ease of assembly. Cost management counts, too.

Injection molding can produce large-scale parts with a high degree of detail, including logos. The molds are expensive, however, and can take months to produce. Pressure forming is a quick and cost-effective alternative that supports aesthetics and ease of assembly, but product designers may need assistance.

Solution: Choose a pressure former who provides value-added services. 

Profile Plastics used pressure forming to quickly produce large-scale shrouds with the same detail on the cosmetic side of the part as injection molding can achieve. The tooling was less expensive and faster to make, and Profile met the customer’s timeframe and design criteria within the project’s budget.

The logo on the exercise bike was large, sharp, and featured a high degree of detail. To produce this critical branding element, Profile used a mold insert that was produced with wire EDM, a type of electrical discharge machining (EDM). In addition, hot stamping added a metallic look to the logo.

Importantly, Profile engineers also provided valuable design for manufacturing (DFM) assistance. This enabled the exercise bike manufacturer to meet its design requirements while getting plastic shrouds that were both easy to manufacture and assemble.

Partner with a Winner

Faster time to market is just some of what you can expect when you have the right partner. By working closely with Profile Plastics, the exercise bike manufacturer received large but highly detailed parts quickly, and in less time and with lower tooling costs than injection molding could provide.