Professional Rapid Prototyping Manufacturer
Holly is a rapid prototyping manufacturer specializing in custom prototyping services, small batch production, rapid tooling and 3D printing services. We provide excellent quality, fast turnover, and cost-effective model services to customers all over the world.
Holly has advanced manufacturing technology, cutting-edge production equipment, and a team of engineers with more than 20 years of experience, allowing you to test the market with high-quality prototype products before production.
Our company provides services including 3D printing, CNC machining, vacuum casting, injection molding, and SLS molding. If you need professional rapid prototyping services, Holly will meet your prototyping needs.
Featured Plastic Prototyping Service
Holly provides high-quality plastic prototyping service for plastic parts low-Volume Manufacturing, including 3D printing, CNC machining, and Vacuum Casting.
Different types of Plastic Material Avaialble
The aluminium alloy has a low density but relatively high strength and can be processed into a variety of shapes. Its plasticity is excellent and it can match or exceed that of high-quality steel. Comparatively to steel, it is widely used in industry because of its high electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and corrosion resistance.
Some aluminium alloys can obtain excellent mechanical properties, physical properties and corrosion resistance after heat treatment. Hard aluminium alloy belongs to the AI-Cu-Mg series, usually contains a small amount, and is enhanced by heat treatment. Hardness is high, but plasticity is poor.
In the super aluminium alloy Al-1-Al-Al-O system, heat treatment can strengthen the material. It is the highest strength aluminium alloy at room temperature, but it has poor corrosion resistance and softens quickly at high temperatures. Wrought aluminium alloy is mainly an alloy of aluminium-aluminium alloy. It has a variety of elements, less content, good thermoplasticity, and is suitable for forging.
Alloys derived from aluminium have excellent properties including processing, welding, corrosion resistance, toughness, high toughness, no deformation, easy polishing, no defects, and fantastic oxidation properties.
The material is moderately strong, has good corrosion resistance, is weldable, and has good process performance (easy to be extruded). Scope of application: building windows, curtain walls, industrial equipment, frame accessories, solar energy frames, etc.
AL6061, Al6063, AL6082, AL7075, AL5052, A380.
There are two types of brass: ordinary brass and special brass. Brass is highly plastic, corrosion-resistant, deformable, and castable, and has a substantial industrial application value. According to the different chemical compositions, brass can be divided into two categories: ordinary brass and special brass. The so-called ordinary brass is a binary alloy of copper and zinc.
The copper-zinc alloy can be divided into ordinary brass and special brass based on the elements added for better strength, corrosion resistance, and casting performance. The elements aluminium, iron, silicon, manganese, nickel, and others are added for better strength, corrosion resistance, and casting performance. Therefore, copper alloys composed of two or more elements are called special brass.
Ordinary brass is composed of copper and zinc. According to the difference in zinc content, it can be divided into single-phase brass and dual-phase brass, but the zinc content cannot exceed 45%, otherwise, the material will become brittle and cannot be used.
Special brass: Lead, tin, aluminium, and other alloying elements are frequently added to ordinary brass to create special brass. Lead brass, tin brass, and aluminium brass are the popular names for special brass. The purpose of adding alloying elements. Its main purpose is to increase tensile strength and improve processing performance.
HPb63, HPb62, HPb61, HPb59, H59, H68, H80, H90
Red copper is pure copper, also known as red copper. Due to its excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, copper is widely used in the electrical industry and precision processing industries. The biggest advantage and performance of copper is its good electrical conductivity, second only to silver, but the price of copper is much cheaper than silver. Red copper has become the most important part of the electrical industry.
High-purity copper is the primary condition for use in the electrical industry, and the purity must be higher than 99.95%. As long as a very small amount of impurities are mixed, the conductivity of the product copper will be greatly reduced, and the oxygen content of copper will also have a great influence on the conductivity. Impurities like phosphorus, arsenic, aluminium, lead, and antimony should be avoided in most cases. This kind of high-purity copper can only be obtained by electrolysis using original copper as the positive electrode, pure copper as the negative electrode, and sulfuric acid solution as the electrolyte. During the electrolysis process, the original copper on the positive electrode is melted and ionized, and pure copper ions are adsorbed on the negative electrode to obtain the pure copper we need.
Purposes of copper: wires, cables, brushes, EDM copper, generators, bus bars, switch cabinets, transformers, heat exchangers, pipelines, flat plate collectors for solar heating devices, etc.
C11000, c12000, c12000, c26000, c51000
Steel is an iron-carbon alloy. We usually call it steel. The carbon content of the material must not exceed 1.7% to ensure its toughness and shape. In addition to iron and carbon, other elements of steel include silicon, manganese, sulfur, and phosphorus. Other components will make the steel performance different.
Both steel and iron are iron-based iron-carbon alloys, but due to the difference in carbon content, the state and structure of iron-carbon alloys are also different at different temperatures. Iron has poor formability, is not easy to deform, and has poor weldability. These properties of steel are very good, especially when a certain amount of alloying elements are added to steel, there will be some special properties, such as high strength, resistance to wear, heat, corrosion, etc.
After ordinary steel is refined and other alloying elements are added, widely used steels with different properties can be produced, such as fatigue resistance, heat resistance, impact resistance, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, high polishing, etc. These high-quality steels are widely used in machinery parts, injection mold steel, stamping mold steel, aerospace, tools, automobiles, home appliances and other industries.
In order to improve the performance of steel, we usually use heat treatment, stress treatment, quenching and tempering treatment, surface coating and other methods.
SS303, SS304, SS316, SS416, low carbon steel, carbon steel, 4140, 4340, Q235, Q345B, 20#, 45#
Plastic is a polymer, and its main component is a synthetic resin. In addition, add some specific purpose additives as needed, such as plasticizers that can improve plasticity, anti-ageing agents that prevent plastics from ageing, and so on.
Polymers may have a large relative molecular weight, but their compositions are not complex and their structures follow certain rules. They are made by the polymerization of small molecules, such as polyethene plastics, which are made by the polymerization of ethylene molecules. When polyethene plastic is heated to a certain temperature range, it starts to soften until it melts into a flowing liquid. The melted polyethene plastic becomes solid after cooling and then melts into liquid after heating. This phenomenon is called thermoplasticity.
Polyethene, polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene are all thermoplastics. A thermosetting plastic, such as phenolic resin, will no longer be able to be softened and molded after processing, but it can be softened and molded when heated in the manufacturing process.
Plastic is a poor conductor of heat, which has the effect of silencing and damping. Plastic hardness, tensile strength, elongation and impact strength. Due to its small specific gravity and high strength, plastic has high specific strength.
Plastic parts are widely used in various fields of life, such as household appliances, instrumentation, wires and cables, construction equipment, communication electronics, automotive industry, aerospace, daily hardware, etc.
ABS, PC, PE, POM, Delrin, nylon, Teflon, PP, PEI, Peek, carbon fiber.
Our commonly used titanium alloys are composed of titanium, aluminium, tin, vanadium, and niobium, and different elements form different properties.
The main excellent characteristics of titanium are described as follows:
Low density and high specific strength: Titanium has a higher density than aluminium but is lower than steel, copper and nickel, but the strength is on top of the metal.
Good corrosion resistance and heat resistance. It is possible to use the titanium alloy at a temperature of 600°C for a long time.
Low-temperature resistance: Titanium alloys Ti-al-2, Ti- 2-o and Ti alloys are low-temperature titanium alloys, whose strength increases with decreasing temperature, but the plasticity changes little. In cryogenic environments, it exhibits good plasticity and toughness at temperatures as low as 196-253°C, avoids cold brittleness common in metals, and is an ideal material for storage tanks and containers.
The tensile strength is close to its yield strength: the titanium material has a higher yield strength ratio (tensile strength/yield strength) during the forming process, indicating that its plastic deformation is poor. As a result of titanium’s high modulus of elasticity compared to its yield limit, it has an incredibly flexible forming process.
Better heat transfer performance: Although the thermal conductivity of titanium is lower than that of carbon steel and copper because titanium has excellent corrosion resistance, the thickness can be greatly reduced, and the surface heat resistance and steam reduce the thermal resistance, so there is no junction on the surface. By reducing thermal resistance, fouling can significantly improve titanium’s heat transfer capabilities.
Alloys made from titanium have excellent physical properties that make them a preferred material in the aerospace, aviation, marine biomedicine, and automotive industries.
Ti 1 grade, Ti 2 grade.
Finishing Methods for Plastic Prototyping Service
Polishing is the process of grinding and modifying the surface of parts using various tools and media. The function of polishing is to make the surface of the part smoother, but it cannot improve the geometric shape and dimensional accuracy of the part. Technically speaking, polishing refers to the use of abrasives and machinery to make the surface of parts smooth, while using machinery to apply abrasives to the surface of loose parts is a more active process, which will make the surface finish smoother and brighter.
Polishing on mechanical parts is generally divided into three steps:
The first step: After the processes of knife scar, grinding, CNC, spark machine, wire cutting, etc., the surface is generally rough, so we need to polish the surface of the part with oilstone.
Step 2: After the oilstone operation, the sandpaper operation is performed. When the sandpaper operation, pay attention to the round edges, sharp corners, rounded corners, and orange peel of the parts.
The third step: We mainly use diamond grinding paste, and the accuracy requires Ra0.2, which requires a clean polishing room.
The processed surface is the surface effect of the workpiece obtained by directly processing the workpiece with various machines and equipment without any post-processing. With the improvement of modern machinery accuracy, the surface quality of the workpiece is getting better and better. Although the processing line can be seen on the surface of the workpiece, it is actually very smooth, and the general processing surface quality can reach Ra3.2.
Anodizing is divided into ordinary anodizing and hard anodizing.
The conversion film formed in the process of metal anodization is wear-resistant, corrosion-resistant, and other functional or decorative properties on the metal surface in the electrolytic solution electrochemical treatment, and the treated part is used as the positive and negative corrosion-resistant materials.
The object of anodizing treatment can be aluminum and aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, titanium and titanium alloy, etc. The anodic oxidation of aluminum and aluminum alloys is widely used in the market and is developing rapidly.
The main function of anodizing is to improve the hardness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance and surface coloring of the workpiece, and to protect and beautify the surface of the workpiece.
Sandblasting is a kind of high-pressure air as the power to spray abrasives into the workpiece that needs surface treatment at a high speed, thereby changing the post-treatment process of the surface of the workpiece. Due to the impact and cutting action of the abrasive on the surface of the workpiece, the working surface will get different roughness, which improves the mechanical properties of the working surface and improves the fatigue durability of the workpiece. Due to the influence of abrasives, very small pores are generated on the working surface, thereby increasing the adhesion between the workpiece and the coating and prolonging the service life of the coating.
The main functions of sandblasting are as follows:
In order to remove oil and rust, sandblasting can remove rust and other dirt on the surface of the workpiece, forming a certain rough surface on the surface of the workpiece, thereby improving the adhesion of the plastic powder and the paint film.
For processed workpieces, burrs on the surface can be removed by sandblasting to make the workpiece more beautiful.
For castings or heat-treated parts, sandblasting can remove oil and scale on the surface, improve the surface finish, and make the workpiece more beautiful.
Powder coating electrostatic spraying is to use static electricity to adsorb the powder coating on the working surface, and the powder is baked at high temperature to form a solid coating on the surface of the part.
Electrostatic powder spraying must first have an electrostatic generator to generate DC high voltage, a spray gun, a power supply system, and a powder recovery system to spray and atomize the powder. The workpiece to be sprayed should be grounded to the positive electrode, and the negative high voltage generated by the discharge needle gun connected to the powder outlet of the spray gun will generate corona discharge through the discharge needle. At this time, the negatively charged powder particles reach the surface of the workpiece under the action of static electricity and compressed air flow.
Due to the attraction of electrostatic force, the powder is uniformly adsorbed on the surface of the workpiece for a period of time without falling off. The workpiece enters the curing furnace, leveled, consolidated, and controlled humidity or time, and finally a tight, uniform, smooth and dense coating is combined with a firm workpiece. .
Powder spraying makes the surface of the product smooth, and the coating has strong acid resistance, alkali resistance, impact resistance and abrasion resistance. And can withstand strong ultraviolet radiation and acid rain for a long time, and the coating has no powdering, discoloration, falling off and other phenomena.
Black oxidation is an oxidation treatment on the surface of steel, mainly suitable for carbon steel and low alloy steel.
The black oxide heats the workpiece in a solution of concentrated alkali and oxidant (heating temperature is about 550°C), forming a dense oxide film (fe3-fe3) on the surface of the steel. The iron oxide film can isolate the air, prevent the internal steel from oxidizing, and achieve the purpose of corrosion resistance.
The steel is oxidized to form a protective oxide film with magnetic iron oxide (fe-fe2o3) as the main component. Its color is generally black or blue-black, and cast steel and silicon steel are brown. The oxidation treatment methods include alkali oxidation, alkali oxidation, acid oxidation and so on. It is often used for the protection and decoration of machinery, precision instruments, weapons and daily necessities.
Whether iron oxide can be oxidized with dense and smooth iron oxide, it is very important to choose a strong oxidizer. The strong oxidant is composed of sodium hydroxide, sodium nitrite and sodium hydroxide phosphate. When the color is blue, the steel part is treated with its molten liquid; when the steel part is treated with an aqueous solution, the steel part is black.
Surface drawing is a surface treatment method that forms lines on the surface of the workpiece by polishing the product and has a decorative effect.
The surface drawing process is to use drawing materials to make a decorative surface of metal stainless steel aluminum surface, and the surface drawing process is also a surface treatment method. It can make the surface clearly show every tiny silk mark, so as to make the metal frosted surface a fine brushed gloss product. Because wire drawing surface treatment can make the surface of the material show different textures and make the product more beautiful, wire drawing processing is becoming more and more popular nowadays.
There is no uniform classification and name for wire drawing. Usually divided into straight wire and wire according to the surface effect. Straight wire is also called silk thread; while silk thread is called snow pattern.
Electroplating is the use of electrolyte to electroplate other types of metals on the workpiece. Use electrolysis to attach the surface of the part to the metal film to prevent metal oxidation (corrosion), improve wear resistance, electrical conductivity, anti-reflection, corrosion resistance (such as copper sulfate), and improve aesthetics.
Electroplating metal or other insoluble materials, anodizing the workpiece, and cathode coating metal cations, form a coating surface on the surface of the workpiece. In order to eliminate the interference of other cations and make the electroplating uniform and firm, the electroplating solution should be used as the electroplating solution containing electroplating metal cations to keep the concentration of metal cations unchanged.
Rapid Prototyping Manufacturer FAQ
Rapid Prototyping Service – Ultimate FAQ Guide
Rapid prototyping can directly accept product design (CAD) data without preparing any molds, tools, and fixtures, and quickly manufacture new product samples, molds or models. Since 1995, Holly has been focusing on plastic prototyping service in China, we have a professional rapid prototyping team with more than 10 years of experience.
Here you can find a quick prototyping guide. Feel free to contact us with any other questions.
1. What is rapid prototyping?
Rapid prototyping (RP) or rapid prototyping manufacturing (RPM) technology refers to the general term for the rapid manufacturing of three-dimensional entities of arbitrarily complex shapes under the direct drive of CAD models. The technology was developed in the 1990s. For manufacturing enterprises, it serves as a key common technology for developing new products. It is conducive to promoting enterprise product innovation, shortening the development cycle of new products, and improving product competitiveness.
2. What are the advantages of rapid prototyping?
Rapid prototyping can directly accept product design (CAD) data without preparing any molds, tools, and fixtures, and quickly manufacture new product samples, molds or models. As a result, popularizing and applying RP technology can improve the quality of development, shorten the development cycle of new products, and reduce costs. From the traditional “removal method” to today’s “growth method”, from mold manufacturing to moldless manufacturing, this is the revolutionary significance of RP technology for manufacturing.
3. What are the characteristics of rapid prototyping?
Rapid prototyping technology discretizes complex three-dimensional processing of an entity into a series of layered processing, which greatly reduces the difficulty of processing, and has the following characteristics:
- The rapidity of the entire molding process is suitable for the modern and fierce product market.
- It can produce 3D entities of any complex shape.
- It is directly driven by the CAD model to achieve a high degree of integration of design and manufacturing. It is intuitive and easy to modify, providing a good design environment for perfect product design.
- As a result, no special fixtures, molds, or tools are required during the molding process, thus saving money and reducing production time.
- The high integration of technology is an inevitable product of the development of modern science and technology, and it is also an inevitable product of the comprehensive application of modern science and technology, with distinctive high-tech characteristics.
The above characteristics lead to rapid prototyping technology mainly suitable for new product development, mold and model design and manufacturing, complex shape parts manufacturing, rapid single-piece, small-batch parts manufacturing, shape design inspection, difficult-to-process material manufacturing, assembly inspection, and rapid reverse engineering.
4. Types of Rapid prototyping?
3D printing technology is a collective term for a series of rapid prototyping technologies. The basic principle of 3D printing technology is lamination manufacturing. The rapid prototyping machine scans the cross-sectional shape of the product on the XY plane and intermittently moves the thickness of the layer on the Z coordinate, finally, a 3d part is formed. At present, rapid prototyping technology is divided into four types: Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), 3DP Technology, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Stereo Lithography (SLA) and Laminate Manufacturing (LOM).
5. What is FDM technology for rapid prototyping?
Using filamentous hot-melt materials, FDM technology heats and melts the filaments together. At the same time, under the control of the computer, the three-dimensional spray head selectively coats the material on the worktable according to the cross-sectional profile information and forms a layer of cross-section after rapid cooling. After the formation of one layer is completed, the machine tool table is lowered by a height (that is, the layer thickness) to form the next layer until the entire solid shape is completed. There are many kinds of molding materials, and the strength and precision of molding parts are quite high. This technology is mainly applied to small plastic parts.
6. What is rapid prototyping SLS technology?
SLS technology is to first lay a layer of metal powder or non-metal powder material workbench, under computer control, let the solid part of the laser-sintered powder according to the interface configuration information, and finally continue to repeat the previous process to form a layer. This method has a simple manufacturing process, fast forming speed, low cost, and a wide range of material selections. It is mainly used in the casting industry to directly produce rapid molds.
7. What is SLA technology for rapid prototyping?
The SLA technology uses photosensitive resin as raw material and uses computer-controlled lasers to scan the surface of the liquid photosensitive resin point by point according to the layered cross-sectional information of the part. The resin thin layer in the scanning area is photopolymerized and cured to form the thin layer part. After the curing of one layer is completed, move the worktable down by a thickness of one layer, and then coat a new layer of liquid resin on the surface of the cured resin until a three-dimensional solid model is obtained. The method has fast forming speed, high dimensional accuracy, and a high degree of automation that can form any complex shape and is mainly used for rapid forming of complex and high-precision parts.
8. What is the difference between SLS and SLA technology for rapid prototyping?
There are 7 obvious differences between rapid prototyping SLS and SLA technology. Details are as follows:
1) Process principle
The process principle of SLS is to generate high temperature by laser, and the temperature of powder is raised to the melting point for sintering, while the process principle of SLA is to generate ultraviolet light by laser, which is irradiated on the surface of the material for curing.
2) Resolution rate
Building materials can be cured with laser beams in both technologies, but they use different wavelengths: ultraviolet light for SLA and infrared light for SLS. The corresponding strong irradiation area is also different, the ultraviolet light irradiation area is much smaller than the infrared light irradiation area. Therefore, in general, the resolution of SLA is higher than that of SLS.
3) Mechanical behaviour
SLS printers can use a variety of materials in powder form, the most common is nylon (PA12), its properties (such as colour, strength, elasticity, hardness, etc.) can be changed by additives. This material has excellent properties: durable and abrasion-resistant.
As for SLA printers, manufacturers usually use their own resin materials, and there are many third-party options to choose from, and the price is relatively cheap. Generally speaking, resin materials are harder than nylon, so they are weaker.
Another important difference is their performance under load: hard resin will become fragments under severe impact, while nylon has a certain degree of elasticity and can be restored to its original state.
4) Visible surface
The visible surface of the SLS printed product will form a solid material with pores because the air in the powder forms small bubbles on the sintered material, which will feel a little rough when in contact. And the surface of the object printed by SLA will be smoother.
In addition, nylon powder usually has three colours of black, white and grey, and the resin material can produce any colour through white or transparent resin and pigment.
5) Support structure
SLA printing technology requires a supporting structure. When using the support structure, the printed parts need to be cleaned manually, which takes a certain amount of time. It is important to keep in mind that the materials that are used in SLA printing should also be the same as those used in supporting materials. On the contrary, SLS printing technology is one of the few examples that does not require any support structure because the unsintered powder acts as the support structure during the printing process.
6) Post-processing
Although their printed products can be post-processed, there are still some differences. Before proceeding with post-processing, we should check with professional suppliers. For example, SLA printed parts do not require polishing.
7) Cost
As nylon is a common material, and SLS technology can handle a large volume of output, SLS is usually cheaper than SLA.
9. How does rapid prototyping work?
The basic principle of rapid prototyping technology is: to segment the three-dimensional data model in the computer to obtain the profile data of each layer. According to this information, the computer controls the laser (or nozzle) to cure the powder material (or solidify layer after layer of liquid photosensitive resin, or cut layer after layer of sheet material, or spray layer after layer of hot melt). Material or binder) selective sintering layer by layer. Then, the sheet-like entities are stacked layer by layer through fusion, polymerization, bonding, etc., and finally designed new product samples, models or molds are manufactured.
10. What are the advantages of plastic prototyping service SLA technology?
- As the earliest rapid prototyping technology, it has been highly developed.
- Production cycles are short and processing is fast.
- It can handle prototypes and molds with complex structures or difficult notifications.
- Visualize the CAD digital model to reduce maintenance costs.
- Provide test samples to verify and check the results of computer simulation calculations.
- It can be operated online and remotely controlled, which is conducive to production automation.
11. What are the advantages of SLS technology in rapid prototyping?
The most prominent advantage of SLS is that it can use a wide range of materials. In theory, any powder material that can form interatomic bonds after heating, including paraffin, polymers, metals, ceramic powders and their composite powder materials, can be used in SLS. Due to the wide variety of SLS molding materials, wide distribution of molding properties, material savings, and is suitable for multiple purposes, without the need to design and manufacture complex support structures, SLS has gained more and more popularity and wide applications today.
12. What is the process of rapid prototyping?
The rapid prototyping process includes: pre-processing (construction of the three-dimensional model, approximation of the three-dimensional model, and slice of the three-dimensional model), layered and superimposed manufacturing (cross-section and cross-section overlap) and post-processing (such as surface treatment, etc.) ).
13. What are the shortcomings of rapid prototyping SLA?
- The cost of the SLA system is relatively high, and the cost of use and maintenance is also relatively high.
- The SLA system is such sophisticated equipment that needs to be operated on liquids, and it needs a strict working environment.
- The material of the molded parts is mostly resin, which has limited strength, rigidity and heat resistance, and is not suitable for long-term storage.
- The preprocessing software and driving software have a large amount of calculation and are closely related to the processing effect.
- The software system is complicated to operate and difficult to learn. In addition, the file format it uses is not familiar to most designers.
14. What are the disadvantages of SLS for rapid prototyping?
1) Shrinkage rate of printed matter
Powder materials such as nylon shrink after sintering. Shrinkage is affected by various factors, including powder type, laser energy used for particle sintering, part shape, and cooling process. Note that the part does not shrink symmetrically in all directions.
2) The operation after printing is more complicated.
After the printing process, there is enough time to cool the powder, so we can remove the material blocks. Workers need to dig out parts from the material block, use a vacuum cleaner to remove excess powder or use the wind to remove remaining particles. After finishing all the work, it can be cured by heating to increase strength. In addition, sometimes it may take time to stain, frost, or paint the surface.
3) Discoloration/moisture absorption
If the printed part is to be dyed, painted or coated, its porous structure may absorb a large amount of dust, oil or water from the air, resulting in a colour change or some weight reduction.
4) Processing and material loss
15. How do we use rapid prototyping?
Rapid prototyping technology can be used for design evaluation and functional testing in the product development stage. In addition, it can also be used in household appliances, automobiles, toys, light industrial products, architectural models, medical equipment and artificial organ models, spacecraft, military equipment, archaeology, industrial manufacturing, sculpture and film production and other industries.
16. What is a rapid prototyping tool?
A rapid prototyping tool is a tool that uses its specific shape to form a product with a certain size, shape and surface accuracy. It is mainly used for mass production. Mass production reduces the cost of each product despite the high production and mold manufacturing costs.
17. What is the difference between 3D printing and rapid prototyping?
Rapid prototyping is a new type of molding technology based on the material accumulation method. This is considered a major achievement in the manufacturing industry in the past 20 years. By integrating mechanical engineering, CAD, reverse engineering technology, layered manufacturing technology, numerical control technology, material science, laser technology, etc., design ideas can be directly, accurately, automatically and quickly transformed into prototypes with certain functions or directly manufactured parts. This provides an efficient and low-cost method for realizing part prototyping and validating new design ideas.
3D printing technology refers to the latest rapid prototyping equipment using light-curing and paper lamination technology. This is basically the same as ordinary printing. The printer contains liquid or powder and other “printing materials.” After connecting the “printed materials” to the computer, they are superimposed through the computer control layer, and finally, the design in the computer becomes a real object.
18. Compared with mold manufacturing, what are the advantages of rapid prototyping?
Technology for rapid prototyping does not depend on the structure or shape of the product. As long as there is CAD data, no matter how complicated the shape and structure of the product are, it can be easily completed. Therefore, this technology is very suitable for OEM and ODM projects. Moreover, the use of rapid prototyping technology does not require opening new molds, which can reduce the cost of developing new products and shorten the cycle. In addition, most rapid prototyping equipment is available 24/7 without an operator, which helps to save labour costs and improve production efficiency.
Prototyping technology can also be used to design, develop, test, and manufacture small batches of products. Any project that requires physical proofing or testing can use rapid prototyping technology.
In addition, the amount of post-assisted processing of rapid prototyping technology is greatly reduced, and the time span of data leakage and outsourcing processing is avoided.
19. What is the significance of rapid prototyping?
First, rapid prototyping greatly shortens the development time for new products.
Second, it improves the possibility of manufacturing complex parts.
Third, it plays an important role in improving the first-time success rate of new product production. Because we can find design problems in time, and then make improvements to avoid big losses.
Fourth, we can carry out new product design, sample production, market promotion and production preparation at the same time.
Finally, it helps to save a lot of mold opening costs.
20. What can we do to improve rapid prototyping technology?
Rapid prototyping technology is widely used in the manufacturing industry (up to 67%), which shows that it plays an important role in improving the level of product design and manufacturing.
Rapid prototyping technology still has some shortcomings. In the future, we can improve rapid prototyping technology in the following areas:
- Improve the reliability, productivity and production capacity of the rapid prototyping system, especially the production accuracy;
- Develop economic rapid prototyping system;
- Improve and innovate rapid prototyping methods and processes;
- Application of rapid mold manufacturing;
- Develop rapid prototyping materials with good performance;
- Develop high-performance software for rapid prototyping.