Services

Rapid Manufacturing

Dinsmore & Associates uses cutting edge rapid manufacturing technology to create the final parts, items, or any components. Traditionally, rapid prototyping has been used for making parts that are used in the design or testing phase. Rapid manufacturing means taking that one step further – making the finished item that will be used by the customer.

This form of manufacturing can be incredibly cost-effective and the process is far more flexible than conventional manufacturing. Manufacturing may involve custom parts, replacement parts, short run production, or series production.

Typically this rapid manufacturing has a short production run, from a single piece, to a few dozen pieces, to a few hundred items. Rapid manufacturing is sometimes known as on-demand or J.I.T (just in time) manufacturing.

Dinsmore & Associates has used rapid manufacturing to create components in the automotive, motor sports, jewelry, dentistry, orthodontics, consumer electronics, medicine and collectibles industries.

Benefits of Rapid Manufacturing

  • Eliminates the creation of any tooling and tooling costs, which are usually high.
  • Low production cost overhead
  • Production speed
  • Decreased time to market

3D CAD Prototype Modeling

The process begins by creating a 3D representation from a customer's blueprint or sketch to create the initial model.

Creating the Stereolithography Part

Once a 3D representation has been created, it is transferred to the heart of the process – 3D Systems'®' Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA®). This is the machine that creates the prototype model. This step of the process can take anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on the height, volume, and complexity of the part. Tolerances as tight as ±0.005 inches can be maintained.

Going into Short-Run Production

When the prototype has been built and approved by the customer, it can be used as a master pattern for creating an RTV mold. This mold is used to create many urethane castings, up to one hundred or more, in one of any number of urethanes that mimic the properties of plastic injection molding plastics.

The prototype can also be used in the fabrication of precision-made metal castings. For low quantities of metal parts, patterns can be fabricated directly using SLA® protypes. For higher quantities, wax patterns can be produced with RTV molding.

For plastic parts, hard tooling can be created to create thousands or millions of copies of the original prototype.

Pages: 1 2