About protoCAD
ABOUT US
protoCAD Corp was established in 1993. The two owners, Ron and Brian, have co-owned the company since the beginning over 24 years ago.
3D printing started in the late 80s about the same time as 3D CAD began. Ron and Brian, as engineers for the Navy, discovered how useful 3D printing was when they used it to help design a nozzle for a new ejection seat rocket motor. protoCAD was then established to provide engineering services and 3D printed parts to engineers. The 3D printed parts save engineering labor, improve designs, reduce errors, spur creativity, are great sales tools, and can even be used as production parts.
protoCAD Corp is still located in La Plata, Maryland and supports companies and government facilities across the United States. We provide personlized services to our customers to meet their requirements from a simple 3D printed part to managing million dollar projects with engineering design, hardware procurement, quatlity control, assembly, testing, training, and installation.
WHAT WE DO
protoCAD assists our customers in all phases of product development. We can help you conceptualize and define your product or idea early in the design cycle and model your product using our state of the art Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. Once your product definition and CAD modeling is complete, we can help you prototype your initial design concepts and help with any limited production quantities or sales models needed using our in house rapid prototyping equipment. We have worked with everyone from individual inventors to Fortune 500 companies. We will assist you with outstanding personalized service to handle all or limited portions of your product development, prototyping, or pilot manufacturing needs.
CORE CAPABILILITIES
Design and Mechanical Engineering
protoCAD is a mechanical design house. Let us design your product using our extensive CAD software and manufacturing experience.
Our internal core capabilities and resources include:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Creation of fully defined 3D CAD models
- Complex surface modeling
- Tool Ready Data and Documentation
- High Quality Renderings
- Designed for Manufacturing
- Creation of Detailed Drawing to Industry or Government standards
- Assignment of Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerances (ANSI Y14.5M)
- Tolerance analyses
- Patent Drawings
- Rapid prototyping
- Engineering Models
In-House Design & Prototyping Equipment or Tools:
- State of the Art CAD software (Pro/ENGINEER Creo)
- 3D Printing/Rapid Prototyping equipment
- Large and Small Vacuum Casting Equipment (uses soft rubber tooling)
- Prototype Rotational Casting Equipment
- CNC Mill
- Model shop
- Touch up paint booth
- Wood shop equipment
FABRICATION / MANUFACTURING PARTNERSHIPS
protoCAD has also established a collaborative team of fabrication shops to assist in whatever services are needed. Whether you need a handful of parts fabricated during your product development or you are ready to transition to product manufacturing, let our team of fabrication shops assist you.
Our collaborative team consists of the following type of manufacturers:
- Machine shop fabrication
- Sheet metal fabrication
- Injection Molding fabrication
- RIM fabrication
- Thermoform fabrication
GOVERNMENT CONTRACT INFORMATION
protoCAD provides prototyping support and engineering support using state of the art Pro/ENGINEER Creo CAD software to our government customers. protoCAD has a long history of working with various government agencies. Past efforts have included both various engineering tasks and fabrication and prototyping tasks.
A snap shot of some of our past government efforts are highlighted below:
- Drawing conversions of historical drawings into Pro/E CAD software and government configuration management system
- Various drawing reviews of component and assembly drawings
- Design and fabrication of test fixtures used to test small rocket motors
- Design and fabrication of assembly fixtures used in the production of various rocket motors
- Design and fabrication of frangible radar calibration spheres used to calibrate government radars
- Fabrication of various inert components used in rocket motors
- Construction of highly detailed engineering models of various systems, rocket motors, rocket catapults, and other energetic devices
- Tolerance stack up analyses to identify potential assembly problems when all size and geometric dimensions and tolerances are considered
- Consultations on the proper use of Geometric Dimension and Tolerancing (GD&T) on various machined component drawings used in various systems
About protoCAD:
- protoCAD is a small business concern
- Primary NAICS: 332710, 541330, 541340
- protoCAD is ITAR registered