IGNITE
RETHINKING THE LIGHTER ARCHETYPE
While working as a mechanical engineering intern at LUNAR, I took on a intern project with the goal of designing a novel pocket lighter that creates meaningful experiences by complementing human geometry, encouraging social behaviors, and designing for sustainability. Though the internship ended, I am continuing this project in the hopes of creating a marketable consumer product that could be competitive with current disposable lighters.
CONCEPT
This project was inspired by inadequacies I saw with commonly used lighters such as BIC's. Despite being the most popular lighter brand in the United States, this lighter is completely non-recyclable and cannot be taken apart. Resulting from this poor design, millions of used lighters end up degrading in landfills, or being eaten by wildlife. Because disposable lighters have such a short lifespan, designing a refillable lighter to be thought of as a legacy item would require studies on human behaviors and a timeless design.
IDEATION
Various forms were sketched out prior to the teardowns. These were high-level designs which explore form, while the teardowns and subsequent mechanical design ideation dove deeper into the ignition and mechanism design.
TEARDOWNS
In order to get a better understanding of the internal ignition mechanism design, I carefully disassembled a range of lighters from cheap, disposable pocket lighters to higher quality specialty ones. In taking these products apart and carefully studying the internals, I gained a lot of insight on how to design a switch mechanism capable of simultaneously opening the gas valve and sparking a piezoelectric switch.
FORM STUDIES
In order to assess what forms fit well in the hand and looked attractive, a range of handheld forms were constructed out of foam using a power sander. While atypical for a mechanical engineering project, form studies are commonly used in industrial design to get a realistic idea of what interacting with an object might feel like. After making a dozen forms, I settled on a couple promising ones and began designing them on SolidWorks.
MECHANISM DESIGN
To create a flame, two things need to happen in parallel: the gas pin needs to be pulled up to release gas, and the piezoelectric switch needs to be depressed to cause a spark. With these two constraints in mind, I thought through ways of completing these two actions with the single input of the user pressing a button. In the first working prototype I fabricated, a hinged button depresses the piezoelectric switch, and engages a lever that pulls the gas pin. The measurements of each item and the necessary forces were calculated in order to create a working button.
PROTOTYPE 1
After completing a design for the interior spark mechanism, I 3D printed a working prototype to validate the button worked, and to get a feel for the object's ergonomics and aesthetics. Since the individual parts were so small, I scaled them up in this prototype and was able to validate that the ignition mechanism worked correctly by simultaneously engaging with the piezoelectric switch and pulling up the gas pin to release gas.