Picture courtesy of Idan Gil
Leading micro additive manufacturing (AM) technology developer, Nanofabrica, has recently achieved enormous success trialling its process in the development of direct rapid soft tooling (DRST). The company accomplished a breakthrough which enabled the printing of a mould that lasted 20 shots, with plans to increase this to 1000 shots in the coming months.
In its recent experiments, Nanofabrica (which can achieve ultra-precise 1 micron resolution and an excellent surface finish on its Terra 250 AM platform) succeeded in injecting PP, PE, and ABS into a 3D printed mould, which was manufactured with a new material that the company is currently developing. In the initial experiments, the moulds lasted for 20 shots with a moulding pressure of 400 bar at 230°C. It took Nanofabrica an hour to additively manufacture one mould at the cost of under $20. The materials were injected using an Arburg 35 ton machine.
The trials were initiated at the request of key industry players who were interested in assessing the time and cost savings that are inherent when producing DRST as opposed to conventional hard steel tools for injection moulding. In addition, the companies were eager to achieve the high surface finish as well as tiny features and complexity possible through the use of Nanofabrica’s AM technology which are effectively impossible using conventional machining of mould tools.
Jon Donner, CEO at Nanofabrica says, “The time and cost associated with the fabrication of conventional tooling for injection moulding means that many OEMs are assessing the viability of creating AM produced DRST for short run production parts and functional prototypes. As a company, Nanofabrica is consistently experimenting week-to-week in the area of AM mould tool fabrication as it recognises the huge potential benefits for manufacturers, and is consistently achieving ground-breaking improvements in mechanical capabilities, mould designs, materials, and the accuracy and integrity of parts injected using the AM mould tool.”
Tovit Neizer, VP Business Development at Nanofabrica adds “We are fine tuning the manufacture of our DRST through a combination of design optimisation and improvements in materials. While we are getting a good 20 shots off this preliminary testing, we are working on improving both the material as well as the process with the aim of handling tougher injection conditions and a bigger array of injected materials. Our aim is to last 1000 shots in the coming months. This unlocks new business possibilities for mould makers and manufacturers who up until this point have been restricted to the use of long lead time and expensive traditionally manufactured mould tools for the achievement of any volume of moulding, from prototype runs all the way through to mass manufacture. The Nanofabrica trials should stimulate the business case for a process chain that includes DRST, with a dramatically shorter lead time of about 2 hours from file to injected part and at costs reduced from thousands of dollars to tens.”
Using Nanofabrica’s Terra 250 precision AM platform to produce DRST capable of manufacturing upwards of 1000 parts per tool opens up the possibility of small and even medium batch manufacturing. This is a product of Nanofabrica’s platform that is able to accommodate the manufacture of multiple small tools in each build, and so manufacturers will be able to produce numerous replacement tools at extremely low cost.
Neizer continues, “The rest is just math! In the future, for the cost of one aluminium precise mould which costs about $10K you could manufacture 500 soft moulds on a Terra 250, leading to about 500K final parts through a significantly faster process. In addition, each tool can be adapted as required, opening up the possibility of speed to first part out, and the ability to correct during the manufacturing process according to market and customer needs.”
It is usually the case that when AM produced DRST and traditional injection moulding are compared, the savings in terms of product development time and cost are seen as the most compelling benefits for using AM. However, the fact that AM is relatively agnostic to complexity means that AM produced DRST could also stimulate innovation in product design and manufacture. AM can achieve geometries impossible using conventional processes, and as such is positioned as a key enabling technology driving the production of cutting-edge products as well as shortening the product development cycle. This is because it is quite often the case that product design updates are shelved by manufacturers due to the cost of new traditional moulds.
Donner concludes, “Until Nanofabrica’s results, the demand for AM produced DRST has been held back by perceptions that AM is limited in terms of surface finish, precision, accuracy, and repeatability and also in terms of the limited number of materials that can be processed. Nanofabrica’s AM process reaches micron - level resolution enabling high surface finish, and when applied to manufacturing of mold tooling for the very first time the requirements of tooling can be achieved without the time-consuming and costly need to cut steel. Uniquely, the high resolution that Nanofabrica’s technology achieves means that it can create extremely precise and micro features, and this is a key attribute that manufacturers are also keen to take advantage of. Today, Nanofabrica is well positioned to lead the market of soft molds for micro injection”.
As part of its efforts in promoting the area of AM produced DRST, Nanofabrica aims to work with a select number of companies to demonstrate the value of using DRST in the production cycle. By so doing, the company projects that numerous manufacturers will see the value and feasibility of working with its uniquely accurate micro AM technology in future production and insert mould fabrication projects. If you are interested in this possibility, contact Tovit Neizer at tovit@nano-fabrica.com.