rapid prototype china
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China [CN] Rapid prototype in China offers low volume manufacturing by vacuum casting (or Room Temperature Vacuum casting) for your plastic parts.
Vacuum casting is a most common uses rapid prototyping technology , when you need a short run of your 3d cad model. The parts are made out of a PolyUrethanes with properties close to real injected plastics such as ABS,PA, POM ,PA or TPE's or TPR rubbers.
Usually series of 5-100 pieces will be run using this casting technology. Each Silicone mold can make maximum 20 to 25 pieces.
The main advantages of this process are a much lower tooling costs and a quicker turn-around than traditional steel mould making. the lead-time to create casted models is around 7-10 days. The products have an exceptional detail and accuracy which comes close to the final injected plastic parts. Flexible silicone moulds allow significant undercuts, simplifying mould-making and containing costs.
The first step of vacuum casting process involves encapsulating/enclosing a master model in a liquid Silicone rubber. This model is usually made by 3d printing, SLA stereo lithography or CNC machining.
Then a vacuum is applied to the mould. The mould is then cured in an oven at around 70°C.
Once cured the mould can be split up in 2 or more parts, at which point the master model is removed leaving a mould cavity perfectly replicating the master model.
We can make double or triple shot products, we can cast rubber or TPE or TPR like materials. (with 20-80 shore A hardness)
We can vacuum cast optical clear plastics ( same like PMMA) and we can use Inserts in the products.
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