Patrik Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 Question for the educated, hopefully right forum. And of course great apology if it has been discussed before and in my ignorance, I was unable to find it. Direct 3D print of resin moulds for shortrun plastic kits. Feasible or pure science fiction? The print would have to be of absolute top quality, with no necessity for manual interaction or mould cleaning, as there must be an option to make another identical set when the first one wears off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bootneck Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 It can be done with Fusion 360 for printing resins, check this tutorial, so it is probable it can be achieved with other programs. Fusion 360 is a very powerful modelling program and is free to download. I would think that metal moulds would be needed for hot plastics that are needed for IM parts. Cheers. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICMF Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 There's a big difference between being able to print something that looks like a mould, and printing an actual, usable production tooling. It's probably not feasible at any realistic pressure/temperature for injection moulding, but you would need to experiment with different resins and your own particular equipment. Generic, cheap resins almost certainly won't cut it, so you'd have to research engineering grade options. Also, it would depend on what you deem as 'acceptable' quality. For higher quality, you'll be extremely limited in terms of build size, or else looking at much higher end machinery. TL;DR: technically feasible, with a lot of caveats, but in reality probably more science fiction for modelling purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrik Posted June 15, 2021 Author Share Posted June 15, 2021 Please do not misunderstand me, I have never been planning to do it. And I was definitely thinking about high end industry standards. The question was more or less out of academic interest, and in this sense thanks a lot for both your answers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3DStewart Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 There are companies that claim to be able to do this for industrial components, but I'm not sure about kits. Here's an example, note the tools are still part steel. https://plmgroup.lv/3d-printing-dops-the-tooling-price-for-injection-molding-by-95-percent/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albergman Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 I use a slicer called CURA for most of my prints and interestingly it has the ability to create a mold from whatever part you give it. So, design your part in Fusion 360 or whatever software you like then give it to CURA and it will "reverse" it and generate the Gcode to make a mold. Under Preferences/Settings/Special modes. The usual caveat here ... I've never used it so I can't vouch for the results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICMF Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Again, converting your digital file into something that looks like a mould is easy. Doing it at "absolute top quality, with no necessity for manual interaction or mould cleaning" is very hard and doing it with the manufacturing requirements and at the budget a limited run manufacturer would have is borderline impossible. Yes, Cura lets you print moulds, but a.) FDM prints are terrible quality and not what the OP is looking for, b.) moulds would explode at the required pressure needed for moulding and c.) given the temperature needed to inject plastic, the moulds would melt before they even had a chance to explode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albergman Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 Yes, of course, not suitable for the original poster. I just thought that since the topic was moulds then I would mention that it can be done through a slicer. My son prints them and pours some kind of urethane(?) parts into them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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