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2023年07月

In High Production and Long Runs, Rough Boring Beats Helical Interpolation

Using helical interpolation to open holes is common practice. And in shallow holes or one-off projects, it’s a fine choice. But when production levels and volume increase, or when holes get deeper, rough boring will deliver higher productivity and repeatability.

Comparing Processes

Helical interpolation relies on the machine tool axes to produce output. A milling cutter, smaller than the desired bore size, is run along a helical path to open up the bore. In this approach, radial forces are constantly CNC Inserts exerted on the spindle, so increased wear on the bearings can be a concern, as well as tool stability for longer tools.

With a twin rough boring approach, the tool is only plunging axially, creating a more stable operation. The radial cutting forces are balanced, and the result is axial force back into the machine spindle. This is also the case when deeper bores require longer tool lengths. As tool length increases, the deflection of a milling cutter will decrease its productivity much faster than if using a boring tool. And when that productivity difference is amortized over a long production run, boring becomes increasingly valuable.

Related Economy

When looking at productivity and tool life, the main concern is typically the associated costs. Evaluating related tooling costs requires a look at the Surface Milling Inserts cost of perishable tooling, and the cost savings tied to a decrease in setup time and an increase in machine utilization. While the initial investment in precision boring tools may seem off-putting, below are a few key points to justify the investment and payback of boring versus milling:

  • In a roughing operation, the tool is set once with no need for presetting after an insert change. Helical interpolation will require length setting and runout checks every time an end mill needs to be replaced.
  • A twin rougher has fixed tool lengths and diameter scale, requiring no special equipment for set up.
  • The roughing cycle time will be longer with an end mill.
  • The machine will experience less wear when boring.
  • Axial feed rates for boring are faster, especially at smaller diameters.
  • Shanks and boring tool bodies can be used for other operations such as chamfering and back facing.
  • Our?Series 319 ‘SW’ twin cutter boring heads?are designed for ultimate performance and versatility. A unique design feature allows the 319 to perform balanced or stepped cutting without additional accessories or adjustments simply by switching the mounting locations of the insert holders that have varied heights. This gives our system one more distinguishing feature – less components than our competition when switching between different roughing methods.

    Watch this video?to learn more about KAISER 319 twin cutter boring heads.

    For more detailed information,?click here?to view the product page for the SW twin cutter boring heads.


    The Carbide Inserts Blog: http://besttools.blog.jp/

    Methods and Benefits of Designing for Additive Manufacturing

    Additive techniques can create parts in a wide variety of shapes, many otherwise impossible to manufacture. However, users must leverage design tools and strategies that compensate for AM’s quirks. Image courtesy of Desktop Metal

    In a webinar from August 2021, Ethan Rejto, technical marketing manager at Desktop Metal, said design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) can be broken into two categories: leveraging design features to take full advantage of additive manufacturing (AM), and following rules to be successful with the process. He also discussed tools that support DFAM, drawing from examples of technology offered by Desktop Metal and its partner companies.

    Additive Geometries

    Complex geometries have been possible through traditional manufacturing methods, but Rejto points out that they resulted in narrower design spaces, increased cost and increased manufacturing complexity. AM has greater design flexibility, requires less material — thereby lowering costs — and does not increase in manufacturing process complexity with increased part design complexity. Rejto went so far as to say that additive manufacturing can “create parts that would take decades of knowhow for traditional manufacturing in the push of a button.”

    Lightweighting is a notable advantage stemming from increased geometric complexity. Even basic optimizations can greatly reduce costs and print times, but the most significant advantages come from advanced lattice-work (which often requires dedicated topology optimization software). Lattices can further drop the weight and cost of optimized parts, while creating geometries impossible or unfeasible for traditional manufacturing.

    Traditional manufacturing has always been able to handle straight holes, but additive manufacturing enables more shapes. This benefit comes into play most often when working with manifolds or designing conformal cooling channels with untraditional shapes. Cycle times for parts decrease, and the daily production capacity for parts in question increases drastically.

    Non-circular holes are also simpler to create with additive manufacturing. Rejto showed off an atomizer for a liquid natural gas tanker where the fuel efficiency increased by 67 percent after a change from a traditional atomizer design to one with internal pathways and teardrop-shaped outlets.

    Modern printers can also accomplish high-resolution printing, printing layer-by-layer at micron heights to create fine details or textures. Print-in-place assemblies can also use links, hinges and gear sets to join sections on a single assembly.

    Rejto pointed to the GE Leap nozzle as an example of most of these improvements. Through DFAM, GE consolidated the assembly from 20 parts down to one, reduced its weight by 25 percent, lowered cost by 30 percent and reduced inventory by 95 percent. The nozzle proved five times more durable with the additively manufactured construction, and facilitated deployment time savings over 80 percent. GE shipped 30,000 parts over three years, which Rejto said is high-volume for laser powder bed fusion, but less than is needed for mass-production — and less than additive manufacturing technology can handle today. Certain printing methods now enable individual printers to manufacture tens of thousands of parts per year, and with printer farms and efficiency upgrades, manufacturers could print millions of parts per year.

    Long bridges and overhangs, large holes and steep angles require supports for successful printing. Clever use of ribs or different hole shapes can circumvent this requirement, however. Image courtesy of Desktop Metal.

    Designing for AM’s Process Capabilities

    Every form of manufacturing requires working around  certain constraints. Examples might include? tool access and cavity depth for machining; uniform wall thickness or shrinkage issues in castings; and ejector marks or undercuts in metal injection molding. Additive manufacturing can bypass some of these design constraints, but others also come to the fore.

    Rejto identified additive manufacturing’s largest process concerns as tolerances, sintering success, support strategies, maximum and minimum wall thicknesses, aspect ratios and depowdering strategies.

    Tolerances are especially an issue when AM processes that involve sintering furnaces. Parts shrink roughly 20 percent in the furnace, which can lead to difficulties holding geometric tolerances. Rejto said Desktop systems are able to predict dimensional capabilities to about ±0.8 percent, but for critical dimensions, he recommended secondary processing — be that CNC machining, EDM, grinding or any other method. AM parts are also fully compatible with traditional finishing operations, heat treating and welding.

    Manufacturers also must plan to correct for the forces the part will experience during the sintering process. These include gravity drop, shrinkage pull, density warp, friction trip-up and centroid rotation. Large unsupported overhangs can cause additional problems, while large variations in mass can induce cracking due to sections of the part shrinking at different rates. Edges should also have a radius (fillet) of at least 0.5 mm to avoid issues at the sintering oven.

    Supports may need to be designed into parts with long bridges or overhangs. In general, overhangs greater than 60 degrees require support. Large, circular holes can also require supports, and Rejto recommended changing the shape of the hole to a teardrop or diamond in these circumstances. Adding a rib can also remove the need for a support.

    Ensuring parts have a workable aspect ratio is another important design aspect for additively manufactured parts. Tall, thin features run the risk of toppling or warping during sintering. The particular ratio of height to thickness required for proper sintering varies based on the equipment. Hand-in-hand with this issue is the maximum and minimum wall thickness AM parts can handle. A minimum wall thickness ensures parts are structurally sound and can be handled in the fragile green state. The maximum wall thickness ensures that parts can release all binder during sintering. This is important because unsintered binder can crack the part.

    For binder jetting, parts need to be excavated from their build box after the printing process. During this depowdering stage, parts are in a green state and are quite fragile, so effective depowdering requires access via a brush or compressed air. The need for radii on edges is particularly important here, as thin “knife edges” are prone to chipping and breaking during depowdering. In contrast to some other types of additive manufacturing, complex inner channels can cause problems for binder jetting during the depowdering process if users can’t reach inside them to remove loose powder.

    Tools for DFAM

    Traditional CAD software can do much for DFAM, but other, specialized pieces of software can explore the wilder possibilities of AM.

    Traditional CAD is capable of basic assembly consolidation, changing hole shapes to increase supports, adding fillets or chamfers and even performing simple lightweighting. Once the user is experienced Milling inserts with CAD software, performing these tasks may only take between five and 15 minutes.

    Generative design creates organic forms that can be impossible to machine. These forms are optimized for specific load requirements while using the minimum material required. Image courtesy of Desktop Metal

    Generative design takes an organic approach: after inputting part objectives and some basic parameters, the software grows a part by adding material where stresses are high and removing material where stresses are low. Rejto pointed to Desktop Metals’ Live Parts as an example of this sort of software, and showed a part the software generated into an organic shape that would be hard or impossible to fabricate through traditional manufacturing methods, but simple with AM.

    Topology optimization can set loads, boundary conditions and Cemented Carbide Inserts constraints to optimize material usage. As with generative design, the resulting geometries are typically extremely difficult or impossible to produce via regular manufacturing methods. Lattice generation software takes this same approach, transforming thick geometry sections into lattices and adjusting cell size, thickness and structure to create the desired lattice. This dramatically reduces weight while retaining structural integrity. Rejto pointed to nTopology as an example of both topology optimization and lattice generation software.

    Nesting and support generation software automatically prepare supports for parts when necessary and nest parts into the build box. This simplifies the printing of end-use parts. Rejto said Desktop uses its in-house Fabricate MFG software to accomplish this for metal parts, while its subsidiary EnvisionTEC uses its Envision One RP software to do the same for polymers.

    Rejto also discussed Live Sinter, a Desktop Metal-developed piece of software that simulates the forces a part will experience during sintering to generate a pre-distorted geometry for printing. After sintering, this geometry will emerge from the furnace straight. The goal is to control deformation and shrinkage, reduce stress concentration and improve density uniformity.


    The Carbide Inserts Blog: http://yyds.blog.jp/

    Cutting AM Parts from Build Plate Turns Wire EDM Upside Down

    Wire EDM machines are a common choice for removing additively manufactured parts from build plates, but traditional wire EDM machines pose a number of challenges. GF Machining Solutions developed the CUT AM 500, a wire EDM machine that is specifically designed for this task. 

    Metal additive manufacturing (AM) users have two main options when it comes to removing their parts from the build plates onto which the parts were printed: sawing using a band saw and electrical discharge machining (EDM). Because neither of these machines was specifically developed for the purpose of removing parts from build plates, each has its Cermet Inserts own set of pros and cons.

    As a supplier of EDM equipment, GF Machining Solutions wanted to know more about how manufacturers were using wire EDM to cut metal AM parts from build plates, so it began reaching out to those who were using the company’s EDM machines for this application. “We did a survey of those customers, asking them what their main issues were using EDM. And we collected quite a bit of data from that,” says Eric Ostini, head of business development at GF Machining Solutions.

    Using the results from this survey, the company developed an EDM machine that is specifically designed for build plate removal. The CUT AM 500, which was released in late 2019, can handle parts made via any powder bed fusion process, as long as the material is electrically conductive. In developing the machine, TCGT Insert GF Machining Solutions found it had to modify nearly every aspect of the traditional wire EDM machine in order to handle the challenges of this single application.

    Survey Says…

    The survey results highlighted a number of issues with using traditional vertical wire EDM machines for removing parts from build plates. According to Ostini, one of the major problems customers brought to the company’s attention was the difficulty of mounting build plates in a vertical wire EDM machine. Because of the orientation of these machines, the build plates have to be loaded into the machine and held essentially on-end relative to the way they’re held in the additive manufacturing machine. These build plates are typically 10-inch by 10-inch steel plates that are between an inch and an inch-and-a-half thick, so they’re heavy on their own. “Right away, just the build plate alone is awkward to hold sideways, and it’s awkward to clamp it to the table,” he says. “Let alone, you have something attached to the build plate, something you’ve grown, so that throws off the center of gravity of the part and makes it even tougher to put it into the machine vertically instead of horizontally.” Customers reported using overhead cranes to load the machines, and a number of methods, including C-clamps, to hold the build plates in position. Not only is this time-consuming, but it also posed safety problems. And these problems are only expected to increase as build plates get larger and heavier.

    Another major issue pertained to how parts detached from the build plate in a vertical wire EDM. As the wire cuts, the flushing of the dielectric fluid can cause parts to wiggle and touch the wire, or start bouncing off it. If the part bounces on the wire, the machine goes into a protection strategy that slows the cut. And if the part comes into contact with the wire, the machine eventually short circuits. Users would slow cutting speeds in order to prevent these issues.

    The orientation of the build plate in a vertical wire EDM machine also means that parts with delicate features, such as thin walls, are prone to damage as they detach. Parts would fall on top of one another, or hit the bottom of the machine’s tank. “Users would put a lot of thought into how to stagger the parts on the build plate so that when they dropped, they’d drop in between parts instead of dropping on top of each other,” Ostini says. Some users also reported fixturing delicate parts with magnets, or gluing rubber bands to parts so when they fell away from the build plate, they wouldn’t hit the lower arm of the machine.

    Users can mount a build plate right-side up into the CUT AM 500, and the machine flips the plate upside down to remove the parts with a horizontal wire. This helps protect the users, the machine and the parts. 

    Turning Wire EDM On Its Head

    Looking at the issues users reported in the survey, it seemed to GF Machining Solutions that a horizontal wire EDM machine would be a natural fit for cutting parts from build plates. “As you cut with a horizontal wire, the parts fall away from the wire,” Ostini explains. “They don’t short circuit, you don’t have to have those protection strategies kicking in, and therefore you can cut much quicker.” However, this would require the build plate to be mounted in the machine upside down. According to Ostini, this proved to be the biggest challenge in developing the CUT AM 500.

    The company eventually developed a system for the mounting. Users place the plate on the machine’s table right-side up, and clamp down using the same screws that hold the plate in place on the additive machine, or toe clamps, a chuck or another clamping system. Once the plate is clamped to the table, the machine rotates the table to flip it upside down. “As far as health and safety, it’s very simple,” Ostini says.

    With the table upside down, the wire moves into position and cuts across the build plate horizontally, from front to back. The parts are sliced from the build plate and gravity pulls them down, away from the wire. Ostini says most customers don’t require parts to be supported as they’re separated from the build plate, so it’s more common for users to allow parts to just fall into the bottom of the tank. For catching fragile parts, the company developed a basket that can be customized to the application. Users can use set screws to clamp parts to the basket, preventing them from falling entirely. The basket can also be configured with channels to separate parts. The basket then functions like a wine crate, with slats protecting parts from touching.

    Need for Speed

    The layout isn’t the only feature that distinguishes the machine from traditional wire EDM. It’s also faster, for various reasons. Having the parts fall away from the wire without bouncing or making contact means that users no longer have to slow cutting speeds to prevent these issues. And because the machine doesn’t encounter these issues, it doesn’t automatically go into protection mode.

    The CUT AM 500 uses a 0.008-inch diameter molybdenum wire. It’s thinner than traditional EDM wire, allowing a smaller “sacrificial area” for the AM parts, and the wire is stronger, enabling faster cutting speeds.

    The choice of wire also helps increase cutting speeds. The machine uses a 0.008-inch diameter molybdenum wire, which is stronger than traditional EDM wires. According to Ostini, it’s less prone to breaking and users can put more power into it, increasing cutting speeds.

    The dielectric is also specially formulated for speed. Instead of using distilled water, a common dielectric in traditional EDM machines, the CUT AM 500 uses distilled water with additives to increase conductivity. Ostini says that while the conductivity of dielectric for a standard wire EDM application is typically between 20 and 5 microsiemens per centimeter, the conductivity of the CUT AM 500’s dielectric is almost 2,000 microsiemens per centimeter. “We are thousands of times higher than what a standard wire EDM machine is,” he says. “That adds to the ability to cut fast in the machine.” This enables the machine to use wire speeds of 20 meters per second, siginificantly faster than the wire speed of a traditional wire EDM, which moves at about 13 meters per minute. This speed is essential to the cut. “We don’t use any flushing like standard wire EDM machines use in their machines,” Ostini explains. This is because it’s difficult to flush dielectric into the cut when removing parts from a build plate. There are multiple cuts occurring at the same time, and the parts can block the nozzles from flushing dielectric towards some of the cuts. Ineffective flushing can slow the EDM process and make it more prone to wire breakage. However, GF Machining Solutions determined that by drastically increasing the wire speed, the wire drags fresh dielectric into the cut, creating a flushing action. As a result of avoiding that slowing, “what we’re seeing is not just a little bit faster, but we’re looking at almost 300% faster [cutting] than a lot of the other wire EDM machines,” he says. “A part that would take 8 hours in a standard wire EDM machine to slice off the build plate, we’re doing it in 1 hour and 20 minutes.”

    “What we’re seeing is not just a little bit faster, but we’re looking at almost 300% faster than a lot of the other wire EDM machines.”

    Battling the Band Saw

    When developing this machine for AM, GF Machining Solutions knew it wasn’t just competing with vertical wire EDM machines. The machine also had to be able to compete with band saws, which are another common option for removing parts from build plates.

    The advantage of EDM generally over band saws for removing parts from build plates is that EDM requires a smaller “sacrificial area.” When a metal AM part is grown on a build plate, the very bottom of the part that’s attached to the build plate is considered sacrificial because it’s cut away when the part is removed from the plate. The size of this sacrificial area depends on the method of removing the part. Traditional wire EDM uses wires from 0.010 to 0.012 inches in diameter, so the sacrificial area needs to be slightly larger than that, in the 0.014-inch range, Ostini says.

    Although band saws can cut faster than EDM machines, they’re less precise. The blades dull as they cut, and they don’t always cut in a straight line. This means that parts removed from the build plate with a band saw require a larger sacrificial area, typically between 0.030 and 0.060 inches, according to Ostini. This larger sacrificial area could add significant cycle time in the AM machine. “You’re adding hours to the build time in order to cut faster with a band saw,” he says. “That doesn’t make sense.”

    Because the CUT AM 500 uses a 0.008-inch diameter wire that’s thinner than traditional wire EDM machines, it requires a smaller sacrificial area, typically 0.010 or 0.012 inches. “You’re reducing the time it takes to make the part in the additive machine, and yes, it is not as fast as a band saw machine,” Ostini explains, “but because of the extra growth you need to do for the sacrificial area of the build, it outweighs it.”

    The accuracy benefits over band saws will increase as build plates get larger, Ostini notes. “You’re only able to put so much tension onto the band before it will start to bow more in the center. That means your sacrificial build area has to be even bigger in order to keep the blade of the band saw from digging into your part as it’s cutting through,” he explains. “Whereas with a wire EDM machine, the wire is very light, and only needs a little bit of tension to keep it nice and straight in the cut.”

    The company also developed the machine to be closer to a band saw in terms of costs. The CUT AM 500 only has two axes (a y-axis, so it can go front to back, and a z-axis to go up and down) compared to the four axes on a traditional wire EDM. Consumable costs are also low because the machine re-uses the wire. As the wire cuts through the part, it goes from one spool to another, where it’s reversed and cuts through the part again. “Instead of a typical EDM machine, where you use the wire once and it gets thrown into a basket for recycling, we are actually re-using the wire back and forth, kind of like a knife cutting through bread,” Ostini says. The increased cutting speeds also reduce the amount of wire used, further reducing costs.

    Designing a Machine for the Future

    Additive manufacturing technology is rapidly advancing, so the company developed the machine to work with the next generation of equipment. For example, although most additive machines use 10×10-inch build plates, the CUT AM 500 can handle plates as large as 20×20 inches (specifically, 500×500 mm). “We already know the next size up of build plates are going to be somewhere in the 18- to 20-inch size, so we built the machine for the near future of what we saw from additive during that survey,” Ostini says. “And of course, we have the ability to make it bigger as the industry makes bigger machines.”

    The machine is also ready for full automation, even though powder bed AM isn’t there yet. According to Ostini, robots don’t yet have the ability to reach into the AM machine and grab the build plate through all of the loose powder. In the meantime, the CUT AM 500 can be incorporated into what Ostini calls a “semi-automatic process.” This process uses tooling from System 3R (part of GF Machining Solutions). The tooling system consists of smaller squares that sit on top of a build plate and act as mini build plates onto which the parts are grown. When the parts on these “mini build plates” come back from heat treat, they can be attached to a pallet, making them easy to load for secondary operations, including EDM. “As additive grows and we figure out a way to use a robotic system to remove the build plates from the additive machine and bring them to the secondary operations, we’re ready for it,” he says.


    The Carbide Inserts Blog: https://charlesbar.exblog.jp/

    Translucent and Transparent Parts: Choosing the Right Method for Making

    Transparent and translucent are two terms widely used in physics. Basically, these two words can be used to describe some physical properties of a material. Light can pass through translucent objects, while transparent objects not only allow light to pass through but also allow imaging.

    Transparent and translucent materials also have many industrial applications. In order to choose the right way to make transparent and translucent parts, it is crucial to have a good understanding of the concepts of both material properties.

    What is Transparent Material?

    Transparent material allows light to pass through(light passes fully, not pass partially, or scattered) them. Transparent media includes air, glass, water, and plastics. In most materials, unlike translucent, electrons are not above their available energy level in the visible range, which prevents significant absorption, and certain materials will become transparent.

    Of course, transparent materials also follow the law of refraction. Transparent materials have a clear appearance and an overall appearance of the same color. But they may also have a combination of colors, making a brilliant spectrum of each color.

    In fact, many liquids are highly transparent due to the absence of molecular structure and defects (voids, cracks). Diamond, cellophane, Pyrex, and soda-lime glass are said to be popular demonstrations of transparent materials.

    Different materials allow most of the light shining on them to be transmitted and hardly reflected. Such materials are said to be optically transparent not translucent. Flat glass and clear water are examples of optically transparent materials. More examples are as follow:

    • Spectacle
    • Glass
    • Sand timer
    • Window
    • Computer screen
    • Prism
    • Fish tank
    • Camera Lens

    What is Translucent Material?

    Translucent materials allow light to pass through, but not exactly like transparent materials, translucent materials do not always follow the laws of refraction. Translucency occurs when a change in the refractive index of either of the two interfaces encounters the scattering of photons.

    Translucent materials do not look as clear as transparent materials. When light encounters a material, it can interact with the material in several different ways. The wavelength and properties of the material dictate this. Photons interact with materials that combine reflection, transmission and absorption. Translucent materials absorb more light than transparent materials. Frosted glass, tinted glass, wax paper, and ice are translucent. More examples are as follow:

    • Colored plastic bottle
    • Tracing paper
    • Jelly
    • Paper cup
    • Cloud
    • Colored Balloon

    The difference between translucent and transparent

    While both transparent and translucent materials allow light to pass through. There are differences between them.

    1. Transparent materials allow more light to pass through them than translucent materials.

    2. Transparent materials follow the law of refraction, but translucent materials do not necessarily follow the law of refraction.

    3. Transparent materials are clearer than semi-transparent materials.

    4. Transparent materials allow imaging, but translucent materials do not allow the formation of a clear image.

    5. In transparent materials, the number of structural defects is less than in translucent materials.

    Why use transparent and translucent parts?

    Transparent housing allows a free and clear view of the various reactions occurring inside the part, helping to solve many unknown problems. Different transparency can be used for different needs to meet the designer’s purpose.

    Processes for realizing transparent and translucent parts

    Stereolithography(SLA)

    Stereolithography stands for “SLA”, which is a three-dimensional light-curing molding method. Meaning a laser of a specific wavelength and intensity is focused on the surface of the light-cured material, causing it to solidify sequentially from point to line and from line to surface, completing the drawing of one layer, and then moving the lift table in the vertical direction to the height of one layer, and then curing another layer. This way the layers are stacked to form a 3D entity.

    The biggest advantage of 3D printing transparent parts is the timeliness; this process can print Cast Iron Inserts a CAD model design into a transparent solid (some degree in translucent contact) in a few hours, with post-processing requiring only the removal of brackets and the removal of burrs.

    However, due to the material and process, SLA parts are less strong than parts from other processes and often cannot be used in life as finished products. Hope you get it. Transparent 3D printing is often used in the dental and jewelry industries for transparent orthodontic models and aesthetic products.

    Materials: thermosetting polymer resins.

    Advantages: high timeliness, suitable for making various complex structures, low cost at the hand-printing stage.

    Disadvantages: low strength, fragile, products are translucent after processing and require post-processing to reach full transparency. Not suitable as a mass RCMX Insert production process, poor material, and color options.

    CNC machining of transparent parts

    CNC machining is one of the most preferred processes for rapid prototyping service providers. Through milling and lathe processing, transparent materials are machined from a sheet to the customer’s desired look.

    One of the most commonly used transparent CNC materials is acrylic. Acrylic is easy to mill, and CNC machining can achieve good surface roughness while maintaining accuracy. Machined acrylic surface is also translucent state (light absorbed), and the surface has a knife pattern, after hand grinding and polishing, can reach a high transparent state or even optically transparent state or directions.

    Therefore, acrylic is often used for the production of headlight parts. Other CNC transparent materials are PC, PS, etc. As with all machined parts, clear machined parts are often more robust than comparable 3D printed parts and therefore have a variety of uses.

    However, CNC machining is more expensive than some processes, and there are no economies of scale.CNC transparent machined parts are more robust than SLA transparent processes and are therefore used in more industries. But CNC machining is more labor-intensive and time-consuming, and often less economical than SLA. It is also more restrictive to the structure of the part, and for more complex parts, the only option is to disassemble the part and bond it.

    Material: PMMA PC, PS.

    Advantages: high material strength and good performance. Close to the final product effect.

    Disadvantages: more expensive than other processes.

    Injection molding transparent parts

    Injection molding is also known as injection molding, which is an injection-cum-molding molding method. Molds need to be made before injection molding, and molds are expensive to make and have long lead times, so injection molding is rarely used for one-off prototypes.

    With the development of technology, aluminum material is now also used in mold making, which reduces the production cost and improves the production cycle. The combination of aluminum and steel molds is a widely used rapid prototyping service.

    Transparent injection molding materials such as PC, PET, and PMMA can be used to produce transparent products that are consistent with the design quickly and can be produced in different transparency parts as needed. However, injection molding often has various defects such as flow marks, shrinkage, etc., which require more professional engineers to deal with.

    Material: PC, PET,PMMA, etc.

    Advantages: fast and efficient production, high quality, similar to end-use parts. A variety of material and surface effects to choose from, from simple to complex structures can be injection molded.

    Disadvantages: long cycle times, high level of expertise required, not suitable for small batches.

    Vacuum Casting of Clear Parts

    Vacuum injection molding is an excellent option for low volume production, which can significantly reduce budgets, increase production speeds, and produce parts with excellent results. Vacuum casting uses silicone molds instead of expensive metal molds, and one silicone mold can reproduce about 20 parts and can be matched to the desired color. However, the injection material is polyurethane, so the strength cannot be compared with the finished product, and is often used for display prototypes or for the housing of various types of equipment.

    Material: PMMA-like, PC-like polyurethane, etc.

    Advantages: it is suitable for small batch production, short cycle time, low cost, good effect of parts, can match colors.

    Disadvantages: low strength, not suitable for high volume production

    Other methods

    Besides these methods, laser cutting and water jet cutting are used to make parts. Either method can be used to create parts though are too expensive.

    Post Finishing of transparent and translucent parts

    Among the above processes, SLA transparent parts and CNC transparent parts often require post-treatment processes such as grinding, polishing, fumigation, painting, and sandblasting.

    Sanding

    Sanding, a surface modification technique is a processing method that changes the physical properties of the material surface through friction with the help of rough objects (sandpaper with higher hardness particles, etc.), mainly for the purpose of obtaining a specific surface roughness. This process is used very frequently, polishing, fumigation, painting, sandblasting before the basic need for sanding.

    Finishing and sanding are both appropriate for complex shapes. Although getting total transparent objects is difficult with this method yet you can transparent objects with a maximum effort like glass as described earlier.

    Polishing and fumigation

    The process of polishing cannot improve the dimensional and geometric accuracy of the workpiece; its main purpose is to obtain a smoother surface finish. Polishing is applicable to SLA transparent parts and CNC acrylic transparent parts. After polishing, it can greatly increase the transparency and finish of the parts and is often used for products with high requirements for appearance. polished PC and PS parts made by CNC do not achieve a more translucent effect, and acetone fumigation can achieve a very good transparent effect.

    Spray paint or spray coating

    There are transparent headlight parts, there are red transparent ones, there are good-looking textures, and there are multiple colors on one part. In fact, in addition to the mass adoption of the injection molding process, the hand board stage also has a lot of methods to achieve these effects, the most applied is the spray paint process.

    By controlling the location of the paint, the color of the paint, and the thickness of the paint layer, different effects can be achieved. Spray coating is an easy and fast way to make opaque objects clear. It gives shine to the transparent material which is hard to get by sanding and polishing molecules. It helps to conceal layers, and UV exposure, if you really want with respect to visible, reflected and opacity-free parts.

    Resin Coating

    This method is used when you need very clear and transparent material parts and work best on flat surfaces, not opaque materials and surfaces. Resin coating brings a very smooth finish.

    Briefly, just apply the resin to the part with the syringe and it absorbs the drops that fall from the syringe. The resin will cover with respect to all scratches and uneven surfaces and smooth out the surface. Apply as a thin and dense layer as possible.

    Coloring

    Apart from polishing, coloring can also use to clear parts. Mostly for an aesthetic look. During molding, stage self-texture can be used for other additives and colorants. Color techniques for CNC Machining parts, tinting, sandboxing, and texture painting are used for coloring. Mostly include primary coloring red, green, and blue, other secondary colors also used.

    Conclusion

    As an ISO9001 certified prototyping company with over 20 years of experience, WayKen specializes in metal and plastic prototyping. We are experts in making clear and translucent products and have worked on many clear parts such as headlights, displays, etc. We are confident that can provide expert advice on the realization of your part and surface needs.


    The Carbide Inserts Blog: https://williamnan.exblog.jp/

    Selection Criteria for Small/Moderate vs. High Production

    Machinery tooling and equipment that get parts produced the fastest is always the best choice, right? Given batch quantities of tens or hundreds of thousands of parts, the answer is obviously yes. But what else needs to be considered when choosing equipment for low- to mid-range production volumes

    Versatility

    When tool holders are needed for several existing jobs (and for those unforeseen), it’s likely that collet chucks will often be selected due to the wide range of shanks that can be held, especially considering drills, where reinforced-shank tools are not always common, so in-between sized shanks are the norm. Holders with higher clamping forces, such as milling chucks, can also be sleeved to accommodate multiple shank sizes.?

    Modular systems, commonly used for boring tools, are another way to allow tooling components to be re-used in the production of multiple part types. Fully modular systems, consisting of a base holder and several different “building block” components allow for the highest number of assembly configurations while utilizing the least number of overall components. Boring heads, usually the most expensive piece of the assembly, which feature multiple insert holder sizes and types, ensure that these heads won’t be obsolete if the scope of jobs changes outside of a narrow window.?

    Fixtures that hold parts on the machine table are still usually custom-made to rigidly hold the part for effective machining but indexing those fixtures into and out of the machine envelope doesn’t have to be a huge time drain thanks to zero-point clamping systems that palletize the fixtures for quick changeovers. Air and manually operated systems exist to get fixtures mounted in minutes or even seconds and offer repeatability within microns. ?

    High-volume production emphasizes lowest cost per part

    Given that most of the tooling costs over time will be in the perishable realm, tool holder selection is driven by what can be run at the highest speeds and feeds and hold the cutters securely and accurately to maximize their life. Shrink-fit, hydraulic and high-accuracy milling and collet chucks are generally selected. ?

    While shrink-fit solutions can offer challenges with handling due to the high temperatures involved, their one-piece design offers a very rigid solution that is easy to balance. Hydraulic chucks have an often-unrealized benefit of vibration damping, as the fluid inside of these holders helps to absorb cutting vibrations, leading to superior surface finishes. Milling chucks designed for high cutting speeds typically have a smooth profile on the clamping nut to eliminate the vibrations that can be caused by spanner wrench flats when rotated at high speeds. The clamping nut also makes face contact with the chuck body to provide rigidity on par with a solid holder. Collet chuck systems vary greatly in price depending on the manufacturing processes and tolerances used. ?

    Higher-end systems offer smaller steps between collet sizes and superior surface finishes on all critical contact surfaces. Seemingly small details like bearing nuts for clamping the collet into the chuck have a big effect on clamping accuracy and component life since they do not exert torque to the collet face, which can cause distortion and lead to higher runout.?

    Processes change as well to reduce cycle times. For hole-making, a transition usually occurs moving away from circular and helical interpolation with milling cutters to plunge cutting with rough boring tool. Semi-modular boring systems have several shank options for lengths and connection sizes to provide assemblies that allow necessary boring depths without an excessive number of assembly VNMG Insert components. Fine boring heads for high-volume production feature integrated counterweights to compensate for tool unbalance as diameter adjustments are made. ?

    Machine considerations

    In any case, if the machine tool is part of this selection process, don’t let the spindle type become a detail that is either overlooked or limited to what a certain builder offers or has available in the showroom during times of short supply. This can lead to limitations down the road when it turns out that taper is available from only one or two sources, is more commonly offered with metric holder sizes when you’re heavily invested in inch tooling or is just a more costly alternative to other taper types, which may hinder your ability to invest in the quantity and quality of the tooling that you need. ?

    Most machine builders today Carbide Grooving Inserts offer some type of dual-contact interface for higher rigidity and repeatability of the machine spindle/tool taper interface. Be sure to do research to determine which dual-contact system will be best for your applications. While some are more tailored for heavier cuts, others excel at lighter high-speed operations.?

    Rather than making the decision based on speed alone, using these guidelines when selecting equipment for varying levels of production volume, will pay off not only now but also in the future.?


    The Carbide Inserts Blog: https://williamisi.exblog.jp/
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