PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT | TECHNOLOGY
A wider role for 3D printing
Additive manufacturing systems are becoming more affordable and offer many advantages to the injection moulder for rapid prototyping, product development and increasingly for niche production tasks. By Mark Holmes
Makers of additive manufacturing systems and materials are engaging with the plastics injection moulding industry to demonstrate the many advantages that this technology can bring to the business in rapid prototyping and increasingly in production, and the market is developing quickly. “For the plastic injection moulding industry, there is a lot of focus on engineered-grade resins,” says Scott Kraemer, Production Development Engineer at Carbon. “In other words, there is more focus on using specialised resins that are designed for the final part performance rather than using what has always been used by the previous engineer. Rapid prototyping is also following that same trend by developing more engineered resins that fit the need of the product design.” Speed to production is the main driver. “More
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and more people want to make parts faster and get into production faster - whether it is printing a mould insert or printing production parts,” adds Kraemer. “This is where digital engineering comes in to play. Having minimal amount of touches to the CAD part and streamline right in to final produc- tion. With Carbon’s materials, we are seeing more trends of prototyping and producing on the same technology rather than the need to cut a mould.” However, design limitations can come into play.
“Current engineers need to be designing for the final manufacturing process – whether it is additive manufacturing or injection moulding,” Kraemer says. “Just like designing for the part performance, you will also need to design for the correct manu- facturing process. One of the main technical areas of interest at present is making production parts
October 2018 | INJECTION WORLD 47
Main image: The Ultimaker S5 3D printer
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