RE: prototype in polypropylene?

From: KottmanM (KottmanM@allsteeloffice.com)
Date: Wed Sep 06 2000 - 19:04:06 EEST


Rob,
You may be better off looking at rapid tooling processes to take you to the
next step. Even if you could RP parts in PP, the physical properties are
not likely to be the same as an injection molded part. If the Z-corp
machine works as a concept modeler, a good intermediate step to production
would rapid tooling that would make you real injection molded PP parts.

Mark Kottman
Allsteel
http://www.allsteeloffice.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Haut, Rob - GCP [mailto:rehaut@gracocorp.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2000 7:24 AM
To: 'rapid prototype list'
Subject: FW: prototype in polypropylene?

Some clarification of my posting (see below). We are interested in
purchasing a RP system that can produce parts in PP. I appreciate the offers
from service bureaus for their services but I need to be able to produce in
house, real PP parts for fit / function testing as well as welding onto our
existing parts to simulate revisions. It seems like there isn't anything
currently available that can do this. The closest may be an SLA made with a
flexible resin (9100?). The reason we shy away from getting an SLA machine
of our own is the materials handling of the resins, costs associated with
the machine, and technical expertise needed. We went with the ZCorp machine
for it's ease of use, benign materials, and costs are relatively low. The
process works very well as a rough modeler - we've turned out 90+ part some
weeks. We need another process to compliment what we now have. If anybody
has any thoughts, please email me (rather then calling).
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Haut, Rob - GCP
> Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 9:25 AM
> To:
> Subject: prototype in polypropylene?
>
> I'm new to the list so pardon the question if it's been asked before: Is
> there a RP process that produces polypropylene parts? Our products are
> mostly PP. Currently we use an in house ZCorp machine to make models for
> molding in urethane to get us close to PP. If we had a RP process for PP
> we would save a lot of time and $$. Seems like a Stratasys system concept
> extruding PP instead of ABS would be very feasible. There is definitely a
> huge market for it because PP is a commodity plastic and is used
> extensively for injection molding. - Thanks
>
> Robert (Rob) E. Haut
> Lead Senior Design Engineer
> Graco Children's Products Inc.
> 51 S. Pine St.
> Elverson, PA 19520
> 610.286.4538
> fax 610.286.3014
> rehaut@gracocorp.com
>

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