Customer voice: fast prototyping for multi-constraint custom projects – the battery pack temperature sensor use case

“Our tech specs were demanding: robustness, miniaturization, hermeticity, and chemical resistance across six receptacles and cable assemblies. Yet Fischer delivered custom prototypes for our battery pack temperature sensors in just three weeks.” – Reported by Kresimir Potesak, Field Application Engineer, Fischer Connectors Germany

Three weeks doesn’t sound like much time to solve a complex connectivity challenge. For this customer, it was exactly enough.

A demanding project, spec by spec

This feedback comes from a long-standing Fischer Connectors customer*, a supplier of battery packs for a world-renowned luxury car manufacturer*.

For this project, the customer selected custom receptacles and cable assemblies with 60-degree angled TPU overmolding  from the Fischer MiniMax Series in Size 08 (12 mm diameter), featuring 8 pins for connecting the temperature sensors in their battery packs.

The technical requirements left little room for compromise: quality, a compact form factor, robustness and durability to withstand the automotive environment, and hermetic sealing using a special epoxy resistant to chemicals, specifically mineral oil, across six receptacles fitted in each battery pack module.

* Identity withheld for confidentiality reasons.

Responsiveness under pressure

What the customer valued most was how the team performed under tight deadlines. The Fischer technical team delivered functional, high-quality prototypes in just three weeks, turning a demanding, multi-constraint specification into working hardware the customer could test, handle, and validate almost immediately.

That kind of responsiveness matters most at the very beginning of a business relationship. Before a single production unit is ordered, fast, credible prototyping is often what wins the business and establishes the confidence on which a new partnership is built.

A key enabler of ‘de-risking’ and accelerated design convergence

Fischer Connectors’ rapid prototyping capabilities enable customers to test and qualify connectivity solutions against demanding project timelines and technical requirements, including power and data transmission, signal integrity, and cable assembly quality.

It is also a competitive advantage: being the first to deliver a viable proof of concept can be what wins the business.

The greater value, however, is technical.

Transforming concepts, specifications, and CAD models into a physical prototype allows engineering teams to validate assumptions and identify issues early, when changes are still quick and cost-effective to implement. A physical part also reveals what drawings cannot: fit, usability, and installation constraints, providing customers with tangible feedback rather than an educated guess on paper.

Through successive cycles of design, build, and testing, teams rapidly converge on the right solution. The result is reduced risk, greater confidence, a shorter path to market, and a final product that is both technically sound and precisely aligned with the customer’s needs.

Innovating in additive manufacturing, too

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is a critical part of that process.

The R&D center in Saint-Prex, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland, headquarters of the Conextivity technology group that owns Fischer Connectors, has recently developed an innovative in-house technology for designing 3D-printed insert cavities used to overmold cable assembly prototypes rapidly, efficiently, and with a high degree of design accuracy.

Produced in as little as five hours and at a lower cost than traditional molds, these insert cavities are printed using reinforced resin capable of withstanding the high pressures involved in overmolding injection.

This new technology enables prototypes to closely match the final product in both design and functionality, including customer-required features such as robustness and bend relief, ensuring that what customers test is a reliable representation of what they can build upon.