Manufacturing tooling production and 3D printing
Manufacturing tooling is a key part in production processes, it includes any number of implements required to manufacture a product such as automotive parts, turbines, propellers, and plastic components. Types of machine tooling include (but are not limited to) moulds, dies, gauges, jigs, fixtures, cutting tools, and grippers.
Typically, once the product design department of a company finalizes the design of a new part, it is passed to the feasibility and tooling departments where an appropriate tool is designed. With manufacturing becoming more complex as time passes, timely production of tooling is extremely important as it is a bottleneck for getting production under-way. Then once manufacturing has begun, new tooling must be produced to replace worn or damaged ones, which is another potential bottleneck for the production.
Additive manufacturing (AM, or 3D printing) used to be seen as a tool for prototyping, but it has matured enough to where it is a viable manufacturing solution for making end-use parts. This includes tooling, in particular low-volume use cases where tooling performance could be improved through tool redesign, since several new material options have allowed metal and resins to be replaced with cheaper, lighter, and more durable plastics while still maintaining the required properties, for example in applications where corrosive chemicals are used.
The growing adoption of AM technologies
With 3D printing, cost doesn’t increase with complexity, unlike traditional manufacturing technologies, allowing highly customised parts at a fraction of the cost of conventional manufacturing. It is also possible to consolidate several tools together into one, modify existing ones, or create new tooling, all of which can be done easily and quickly compared to traditional manufacturing.
These advantages have led to the growing adoption of AM technologies by key equipment manufacturers, industrial parts suppliers, and AM service providers that produce tooling. In fact, according to an insight by SmarTech Analysis, the market of AM tooling has been growing and is forecast to reach a value of 5.48 billion USD in 2029.
The need for 3D printing to reduce production lead times
More and more companies have already recognized the advantages of 3D printing as a method to fabricate tooling due to the technology’s ability to produce low volume, complex and customized equipment on demand. Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology is an extremely popular printing technology that is used all over the world and across many industries because of its low cost, high speed, and simplicity. The choice of materials for this printing technology has greatly expanded to include composite materials such as Roboze’ Carbon PA, a 6-10 nylon reinforced with 20% chopped carbon fibres. This results in an extremely stiff material that is ideal for tooling production, with an ultimate tensile strength of 130 MPa and a on edge printed flexural strength of 150 MPa.
As mentioned, making the tooling can be a severe bottleneck in the manufacturing process. Traditional technologies have lead times of days or weeks and high costs, but 3D printing can greatly shorten manufacturing lead times this to days or hours. The increased production speed allows a remarkable shortening of lead times resulting in reduced down-times and more efficiency of the production processes. It is also possible to further shorten the production of tooling and spare parts by optimising the 3D printing process.
The Roboze double solution
Given the criticalities illustrated above, Roboze’s 3D printing solution is twofold. First, the Xtreme Series printers: these have been incredibly successful, finding a home in many industries as a reliable and cheap method to produce tooling and spare parts on-demand and just-in-time. Thanks to its patented beltless system, integrated dryer, automatic build plate levelling and filament loading systems, and choice of several techno polymers, it has proven to be a popular choice for a wide range of applications.
Second, the Xtreme Series now come with an extra advantage designed specifically for when speed is of the essence: the UltraFast printing profile. As discussed, Carbon PA is an extremely stiff material, with an elastic modulus of 9.3 GPa and a flexural modulus of 7 GPa, that is ideal to produce tooling. Therefore, Roboze has seen fit to develop the UltraFast profile for Carbon PA for the quick production of parts on the Xtreme 3D printers. The UltraFast profile guarantees high quality 3D prints while minimising the print time, resulting in lighting fast tooling production times at a fraction of the cost of traditional manufacturing. Digitalizing the warehouse also means that there is no need to store spares, which can instead be printed on-demand.
Roboze UltraFast printing compared to other solutions
The main factors that affect the time that a print job needs to complete include:
- Resolution: this depends on the number of layers and nozzle diameter. A model with thin layers will naturally take longer to print than one with thicker layers. Connected to this is the diameter of the nozzle; a larger nozzle can deposit more plastic, thus speeding up the print;
- Size of print: it goes without saying that a large-sized model takes longer to print as compared to one that is small. For example, a small cube will take less time to print as compared to a large-sized vase;
- In-fill: the greater the in-fill, the more plastic that needs to be deposited, and therefore the longer the print time will be;
- Travel speed: faster extruder movement between extrusions significantly speeds up the printing process;
- The complexity of the model: Simpler models are faster to print as compared to intricate designs. For example, a block will be printed faster than a detailed jewellery piece.
The UltraFast profile for Carbon PA uses a very wide 0.8 mm nozzle with 0.36 mm layer height to produce parts as fast as possible while maintaining an extremely high level of quality and mechanical performances.
To demonstrate the speed of the UltraFast profile, parts with different sizes, complexities, and amount of in-fill have been sliced using the Roboze Xtreme Series and Carbon PA to obtain a printing time, which was then compared to similar fast printing FFF methods. The results can be seen in Table 1.
| Picture | Size (mm) | 20% in-fill | 80% in-fill | 100% in-fill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gripping fingers
| 61x104x14 Simple | Roboze Other -6% | Roboze Other -27% | Roboze Other -30% |
Gear
| 140x140x43 Complex | Roboze Other -25% | Roboze Other -38% | Roboze Other -40% |
Tool
| 260x215x45 Medium | Roboze Other -29% | Roboze Other -35% | Roboze Other -36% |
When considering the entire table, Roboze’s solution is always faster than what is available on the market independently of the part size, complexity, and in-fill. Except for small, simple parts that have 20% in-fill, the UltraFast profile combine with Xtreme 3D printers print parts at least 25% faster, reaching a peak of almost twice as fast in the case of parts with more in-fill. Also, Carbon PA’s mechanical properties result in extremely strong parts that are printed with Roboze’s trademark accuracy and repeatability.
Contact us today for a tailored consultancy. Our experts can recommend the best Roboze solution for your production needs.