Yokov wrote...
"The combined technologies were supposed to "offer the potential to
injection mold metal and ceramic parts with complex shapes within days
of concept development . . . " [blah, blah]"
Is anyone using this process?
Reply:
Yes... but not with 3D AIM.
The Allied ceramic material is commercially available. Allied has
begun to line up custom molders willing to run their ceramic
feedstock. The material processing uses standard injection molding
presses. Processing temperature is 120oF. Material is water based.
This can cause serious flashing unless parting lines and shutoffs are
<.001" match. We've produced many resin composite molds to run their
materials. AIM is just another way of building low cost tooling.
AIMs particular benefit is one of its weaknesses. That is AIM
materials are very low temperature tolerant. AIMs second weakness,
not unlike other resin based processes, is lack of thermal
conductivity as required for standard thermo plastic resin processing.
Because Allied's ceramic is processed at very low temperatures mold
thermal conductivity is a non-issue. The one remainig point is press
clamp tonnage per square inch is high because of the presence of
water. Resin molds can crack under high clamp tonnage if not
absolutely flat and parallel.
What applies to Allied's ceramic basically applies to their metals.
Another interesting point with their metals is the ability to produce
parts with extremely high accuracy. Four place decimal range.
Unfortunately the mold needs to be more accurate then the part
requirements. So anything short of precision tooling when high
tolerance is required rules out all RP type processes.
Allied is interested in promoting their new materials. 3D AIM was a
way to expand their market penetration. By no means is AIM a
necessity to process their product.
Hope this info helps.
Regards to all,
Jim Williams
Paramount Industries, Inc.
2475 Big Oak Road
Langhorne, PA 19047
215.757.9611
215.757.9784 fax
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: RP for Ceramics and Metals
Author: Yakov Horenstein <yakov@planet.it> at INTERNET
Date: 2/2/98 8:39 AM
Last Autofact, 3D Systems announced an agreement with AlliedSignal's Powder
Injection Molding Group to explore market interest in a new tooling
application combining 3D's Direct AIM and Allied's newly developed metal
and ceramic powdered materials. The combined technologies were supposed to
"offer the potential to injection mold metal and ceramic parts with complex
shapes within days of concept development . . . " [blah, blah]
Is anyone using this process?
----------------------
Yakov Horenstein
Milano, Italy
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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