Sustainable Plastics -March/ April 2021 - 20

Q&A
continued from page 19
Even aluminium moulds are
sometimes called soft, simply
because they are not as strong
as other metal moulds - which
is why they are less expensive. But instead of lasting for
millions of shots, we're talking
thousands.
Instead of printing a product, we are printing an enabler
- the tool in which to inject the
required material to mould the
final product.
You said the idea came from
the market. Why would the
market want a 3D printed
mould instead of a steel one?
There are various reasons, why
the industry would want this.
One, with 3D printing, there are
no limits: the freedom-of-design is possible. This is far more
complex if CNC machining, or
EDM technologies are used, as
with machining, it is sometimes
impossible to get the right fit.
The second thing is the price.
Our customers tell us they pay
$30-50 thousand for a conventional steel mould. We can
print a mould for, let's say, $20.
And while it won't last for millions of shots, you can easily
print, instead of just one, a few
moulds. But more to the point, a
customer may not want or need
millions of shots. An expensive
steel mould simple does not
make sense when a product
is so complex and so tiny, and
only very small batches - say 10
pieces - are required.
Third is the lead time. Conventional tooling can take
weeks, usually even months,
to produce. And if, after it has
finally been delivered, the customer asks for a modification, it
means more weeks of waiting -
and even higher costs.
With an additive manufactured mould, you get it all: affordable, on demand, easily
modified plus tiny features and
complexity.
What's possible with direct
tooling and how far along is
Nanofabrica with this development?
When we started working on
this technology, we realised
that there is actually a huge demand, and that we were looking
at a very big market. We also
soon realised that, given what

P019_P021_SP_20210427.indd 20

We have developed a special material called
'Performance N900' to print the moulds - a
photopolymer enhanced with ceramic particles to
give it strength and endurance. It's this material that
enables us to help our customers to use their material.
Avi Cohen
Nanofabrica
we do, our biggest advantage
was the fact that, in addition to
precision and throughput, we
were creating something and
bypassing the problem of material in a very elegant way.
We have developed a special material called 'Performance N900' to print the
moulds - a photopolymer enhanced with ceramic particles
to give it strength and endurance. It's this material that enables us to help our customers
to use their material.
We've experimented with
moulding PE, PP and ABS,
and in future we will be able to
mould components made from
high-performance engineering
plastics - polycarbonate, Ultem,
PEEK, for example - as well.
Until now, if a customer wanted

a small, ultraprecise component
printed in Ultem, I would have
to say: " It's not on our roadmap,
not today. "
Direct tooling, and our ceramic-loaded material, open the
door for this and other 'difficult'
materials.
So far, we've printed moulds
that can last for 100 shots. But
we are improving. Our shortterm goal is 300 shots per
mould and longer-term, we are
looking at 1000 shots from a
single mould. By printing a few
small moulds on the same plate,
it would be possible for a customer to produce a few thousand parts - injected moulded
in the selected material. Fast,
with short lead times and at
far lower cost. That's down the
road on our roadmap.

Are we still talking only about
microcomponents?
No, not necessarily. The
machine's build volume is
50x50x100 (mm). So, one can
take an advantage of the complete printing envelope advantages. Note that this next-generation technology features 1
micron-layer thickness and a
pixel size of 1.9 microns; that
means that the mould surfaces (regardless to the mould
size) are super-smooth, and of
course, very accurate.
So, no - it doesn't always
have to be microscopic, it's
just that, yes, we can do micro-parts and micro-size features and details.
Once again: buying moulds
made of steel makes sense for
runs of millions of shots. With

March/April 2021

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Sustainable Plastics -March/ April 2021

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