<< Figure 2: The difficulties involved in producing moulds for micro lenses. >>


Electroforming: advantages and disadvantages Electroforming is often the only way to manufacture especially complex tools, for example those for use in plastic injection moulding. It can be impossible, or only possible with great difficulty, to manufacture these tools using other methods. This is illustrated in figure 2. a) shows a cross section of a series of micro lenses that are adjacent to each other. It would be extremely difficult to retain the recesses by mechanical means, e.g. by machining, particularly when dealing with microscopically small lenses. Figure 2b shows such a recess. There is no tool suitable for this purpose. On the other hand, it is relatively simple to create a ‘negative’ of this object, as shown in figure 2c. Here, the tight radii of the type that are shown in a) and b) do not occur. If you use a tool such as that shown in figure 2c as the mandrel, an electroform can be produced from it that corresponds with figure 2a. The mandrel can be thought of as the A mould. This A mould is used to create the B mould, from which a C mould can be produced. This C mould corresponds exactly to the A mould.


19 | commercial micro manufacturing international Vol 6 No.5


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