Small HD 500 Series On-Camera Monitor
Porticos, a product design, and product development engineering consulting firm in Morrisville, NC, created yet another innovative, essential device—a 5-inch, full high-definition on-camera monitor. This on-camera monitor has a brilliant display, a desirable form factor, and is easy to transport. Porticos’ hardware engineers’ goal was to design a durable, minimal, small-sized yet visually appealing, HD monitor that would be easy and reliable to manufacture and assemble.
Product Design Challenges Overcome
The concept design for the on-camera monitor required no major changes to the existing printed circuit board (PCB). This means that Porticos’ hardware engineers were able to create a design that reinforced the delicate HD display to improve robustness in both manufacturing and the end-use of the product. Porticos also created the design to shock-mount the display for improved product durability while simplifying product assembly. This ensures that in both transport and use, the on-camera monitor stays in place, and consumers can use without wondering if the device will go flying off their camera at any point in time.
The innovative monitor was created with an extremely durable chassis design, compatible for manufacture by machining or die casting, and its battery contacts is integrated into the rear cover. While there is a requirement added to integrate an infrared transceiver for remote control after the initial mechanical design was completed, it was done in such a way that it did not add to the size of the overall product.
Porticos’ hardware engineers created designs for mini-joysticks and placed external buttons in minimal space that are still easy to access and press, as well as an overall clean-looking design for use with or without a user-replaceable screen protector. However, this product was designed to be durable enough to work well without a screen protector, which can largely be attributed to the shock-mounting of the product to the camera itself. To maximize the small amount of space given, a hinged SD card access door was created and is located on the device in a manner that did not compromise the look of the exterior appearance.
Concept Design Highlights
Due to the demand for an on-camera monitor, the customer was able to utilize the same mechanical design for their 700 series monitors—which contains a larger screen—by scaling it up, reducing both the cost of development and the time it takes to market. Additionally, the larger monitor size was able to sustain the same build chassis as the 500 series monitors which provided it with the same stability and durability.
