Rapid Prototyping & Alternative Manufacturing Techniques or how to get it done differently than we told you yesterday

Outline Welding Waterjet EDM Stereolithography & 3-D printing Casting Forming Injection Molding Thermoforming

Outline Welding Waterjet EDM Stereolithography & 3-D printing Casting Forming Injection Molding Thermoforming

Welding Fabrication method that joins metal by melting the base materials & adding a filler Needs protective clothing, masks, special equipment STRONG welds take practice and experience, otherwise get a professional to do it weld Heat affected zone Base material

Waterjet Cut material using high- pressure water and an abrasive powder No Heat-Affected Zone Can cut almost anything –No tempered glass, some ceramics

Waterjet - DFM Planar geometry Kurf – part won’t have straight edges

EDM – Electrical Discharge Machining Must be conductive material Great for cutting very hard material easily Expensive & hard to find shops that do it Intricate detail Non-contact machining

Stereolithography & 3-D Printing Go straight from CAD to part Material is often brittle, although new polymers are being developed Can have undercuts, long holes, high depth-width ratios

Stereolithography & 3-D Printing

Sand Casting Interesting part geometries Can be pretty cheap Not good surface finish Not good accuracy Need to make pattern Need draft angles Shrinks on cooling (not predictable) Local (Burlington, MA)

Forming Can bend or punch sheet metal Cheap, fast, easy Not very accurate

Injection Molding Melt plastic pellets and presses melted plastic into molds Molds have to be machined, expensive, time-intensive Good for high-rate production

Thermoforming Thermoplastic heated to a rubbery consistency and then stretched over a mold and allowed to cool Not high precision or accuracy Good for moderately complex geometry