Contents
Introduction
Five Things You Will Learn
About Silicone
Method One: Quick Silicone Casting for Gasket Prototypes
Introduction
Materials and Equipment
Step-By-Step Method
Best Practices
Method Two: Two Stage Wax Casting
Introduction
Materials and Equipment
Step-By-Step Method
Best Practices
Method Three: Silicone Overmolding for Customer Beta Prototypes
Introduction
Recommended Materials and Equipment
Optional Materials and Equipment
Step-By-Step Method
Best Practices
Preparing for Manufacturing
Conclusions
Introduction
Soft components are a ubiquitous part of most commercial goods, from rubbery feet on a laptop to the ergonomic grip on a pair of scissors. Rubbery materials like polyurethanes, silicones, neoprene, and latex enable product applications from roofing materials to medical devices.
Casting of silicones specifically allows us to expand the properties of 3D printed parts to include bendable and stretchable components using materials readily accessible from hardware stores, art and jewelry supply resellers, and other common retailers.
This report includes case studies from companies OXO, Tinta Crayons, and Dame Products, illustrating three different implementations of silicone molding for product design and manufacturing. These techniques include:
Casting of silicones specifically allows us to expand the properties of 3D printed parts to include bendable and stretchable components using materials readily accessible from hardware stores, art and jewelry supply resellers, and other common retailers.
This report includes case studies from companies OXO, Tinta Crayons, and Dame Products, illustrating three different implementations of silicone molding for product design and manufacturing. These techniques include:
- Compression molding of silicone putty for gasket prototypes.
- Two-stage casting of wax or other hard media for part replication. Silicone casting is used as an intermediate step in the production of a product.
- Overmolding for complete silicone encapsulation of prototype hardware.
These three techniques can be used directly, or elements of each borrowed for custom applications. In addition to step-by-step processes, our partners provided industry-proven best practices to execute these techniques with Formlabs Low Force Stereolithography (LFS) printing as a critical step.
Five things you will learn
- Selecting silicone for your application.
- How to use a compression mold for gasket prototyping.
- The best way to replicate a 3D printed master with a flat side.
- How to encapsulate hardware using overmolding.
- Best practices for designing critical features of 3D printed molds
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