PrintAdditive manufacturing (AM) and micro 3D printing has disrupted the way micro-sized parts are designed and manufactured for engineers worldwide. Advances enable faster prototyping, faster production, more complex geometry, and smaller sizes.
The continuous development of materials and technology has created distinguishable tiers within the AM market. Large industrial uses include the printing sea-worthy boats or buildings down to microfluidic devices or biopolymer scaffolds printed on the nano scale. The need for smaller and smaller components is rapidly growing across several industries, especially in microelectronics, optics, and medical, leading to investment in micro additive manufacturing (µAM).
Micro 3D printing, also called micro additive manufacturing (µAM), refers to printers, materials, and processes that produce printed parts at the micron level. Micro 3D printing options commercially available today can produce complex parts in various polymers or metals utilizing unique methods of vat polymerization, micro laser sintering, and an innovative lithography-based metal manufacturing technique.
Micro 3D Printing Advantages
Our R&D team at Accumold is actively developing micro additive manufacturing technologies, but our current focus is vat polymerization. Micro 3D printing is capable of printing parts at a resolution of 1.9µm in X and Y and at layer heights of 1 – 5µm. Most parts we print are sliced at 5µm layers, but we have had several projects that required printing at 1µm layers.
µAM technology is not as a replacement for micro injection molding presently, but a complement to existing manufacturing processes. The incorporation of this technology to design and manufacture micro injection molds and tooling, for example, generates great value in the form of optimizing final part design and reducing time to mass production.
Faster Prototyping
With micro 3D printing, engineers can now design and print prototypes of micro sized parts that will be molded with steel tooling at a later date. These prototype parts are manufactured within micron dimensional tolerances in days. This makes complicated design iteration more efficient and cost-friendly without sacrificing quality standards.
The ability to evaluate multiple design iterations in a significantly smaller amount of time enables engineers to quickly understand the fit and form of a part and thus more quickly optimize its design. This cadence produces optimal designs faster with more evidence before cutting steel.
Faster Production
One exciting application of micro 3D printing is printing micro molds to mold thermoplastic prototype parts. This enables engineers to assess parts in their end use material in a matter of days. Before this µAM technology, development timelines were mostly driven by the production of steel prototype molds which may take six to eight weeks. Once the mold was complete it may be one or two weeks between evaluating designs due to the lead time of modifying a steel mold.
Evaluating molded prototype parts from printed molds is a significant leap forward because molded part designs can be subject to functional tests to simulate their use in the field sooner in a project timeline. These evaluations may find functional design flaws or that the desired thermoplastic is not ideal for the application. Again, engineers can finalize their design sooner with more evidence to prove it is optimal.
Increased Part Complexity
Micro 3D printing molds also enables novel mold designs not possible with traditional manufacturing processes. The layer-based method of printing molds allows for innovative mold shapes and features.
For example, free-form channels can be printed within the mold to provide conformal cooling or innovative venting designs. This can also allow engineers to quickly evaluate different gate and/or runner designs while molding with the desired thermoplastic. Value is created here in the reduction of cycle times, better mold yields, and in some cases these innovative mold design features make infeasible part designs feasible.
Micro 3D Printing vs Nano Printing
Micro 3D printing manufacturing can produce incredibly small and precise part geometries, not possible in the past. While our current focus is directed toward micro 3D printing, there are some exciting developments being made in nano printing as well.
This tier of additive manufacturing is lead by two companies, Nanoscribe and UpNano. Both companies produce printers that fabricate parts using Two-Photon Polymerization or 2PP. These 2PP systems are capable of printing parts with features sizes down to 100nm in a variety of materials.
As of today, manufacturers do not have a great need for parts produced on the nanoscale. Parts produced on 2PP systems are predominately used in the academic and industrial research of microfluidics, micro-optics, life sciences, integrated photonics, among others.
Outside of Accumold, these 2PP printer OEMs recognize the gap between nano and micro 3D printing and have started to develop materials and print functionality to fabricate micro sized parts on their printers. This is a prime example of how the AM market is growing and driving further development AM technologies and capabilities.
It is exciting to see how far additive manufacturing has grown since its inception and it is even more exciting to see how users are utilizing this technology to produce amazing products and services never seen before. Accumold will benefit from the further development of µAM coming from established AM companies who specialize in printing on the macro scale and those leading the way in nano 3D printing.
As the world’s leading provider of micro molding, Accumold is pushing the limits of micro 3D printing by offering prototype and production volumes of micro-sized parts, rapid tooling for micro injection molding, and developing novel solutions to customer problems utilizing µAM technologies.