See how 3D printing leads the mold industry

Mold industry has developed into a mature and stable industry in the past decades. And new forming technology and processing technology constantly emerge, also changing the face of the mold industry; Especially with the emergence of 3d printing technology, it is constantly refreshing the speed, and the mold industry will change itself in this trend.

Mold industry status

According to the different materials, the mold can be divided into metal mold and non-metal mold, metal mold mainly casting mold and stamping mold, non-metal mold is mainly plastic mold. Plastic mould and stamping mould are the main kinds of moulds. Plastic mould is mainly used for pressing and forming of plastic products, and stamping mould is mainly used for cold stamping and forming of metal materials. Mold is an important process equipment in the forming process of parts, and IT is an important basic equipment in the manufacturing industry of automobiles and motorcycles, electrical machinery and appliances, IT electronics, OA office equipment, transportation facilities, building materials and sanitary ware, and medical devices. Due to the high precision, good consistency and beautiful appearance of products formed by moulds, they are increasingly used in the manufacturing of structures and interior trim parts of aircraft, ships, high-speed trains and other equipment. In addition, the production process can achieve high efficiency, large quantities and material saving, energy saving, so the mold is often known as the mother of modern industrial production.

Mold design and manufacturing has become an important field in the manufacturing industry because of the important role of mold in the manufacturing industry. Due to the characteristics of mold itself, modern mold enterprises mostly reflect the characteristics of technology intensive, capital intensive and high-quality labor intensive and high social benefits, mold manufacturing has become a part of the high-tech manufacturing industry. Die technology level, has become a measure of the level of a country's manufacturing industry an important symbol.

Affected by the financial crisis, at the same time, there are a large number of mold factories in China. The intensified competition among them is also reducing the profits brought by molds. The increase of various expenses and the rise of human costs are affecting the development of the mold industry. In addition, with the aging of the population, in the future development, the mold key personnel have the possibility of constantly missing.

The application of 3D printing

The mold industry in the manufacturing industry is a basic industry across the whole industrial chain of the manufacturing industry, which is closely related to all branches of the manufacturing industry. In a more intelligent and connected age, manufacturing and molds are highly interdependent. Countless products in our daily life are made by moulding (injection, blow molding and silicone) or casting (investment molding, sand turning and spinning). Whatever the application, manufacturing the mold can improve efficiency and profit while ensuring quality. CNC machining is a practical and commonly used technology in the manufacture of molds. It can provide highly reliable results, but it is also very expensive and time-consuming, which also restricts the development of the mold industry, so many mold manufacturers have begun to find more effective alternative. Making molds through additive manufacturing (ALM, namely 3D printing) has become a very attractive method, because molds are generally produced in small quantities and have complex shapes, which are very suitable for 3D printing. Therefore, the popularization of 3D has brought a big impact on the mold industry. Once the continuous development of 3D printing materials, more suitable materials for printing mold parts appear, and the continuous progress of 3D printing technology, the improvement of precision and accuracy is higher, and may subvert the status quo of the mold industry.

3D printing technology can be used in the following aspects of mold manufacturing:

Molding (blow molding, LSR, RTV, EPS, injection molding, pulp mold, soluble mold core, FRP mold, etc.);

Forming (hot forming, metal hydraulic forming, etc. );

Casting mold (investment mold, sand mold, spinning, etc. );

Machining, assembly and inspection (fixed fixture, moving fixture, modular fixture, etc. );

Robot end effector (gripper).

Advantages of 3D printing

1. Mould design improves the terminal product to provide more flexibility. 3D printing can add new functions and improve products in the continuous testing of product models, while increasing product diversity without increasing costs.

2. Reduced manufacturing costs. When the materials used are very expensive and the scrap rate of materials is high due to traditional mold manufacturing, 3D printing has cost advantages. The ability of 3D printing to produce accurate molds in a short time will also have a positive impact on manufacturing processes and profits; Sometimes it is often necessary to modify the mold after the production starts. The flexibility of 3D printing enables engineers to simultaneously try numerous iterations and reduce upfront costs due to mold design modifications.

3. Shorten mold production cycle. 3D printing molds shorten the entire product development cycle and become the source of driving innovation, enabling enterprises to afford more frequent mold replacement and improvement. It can make the mold design cycle with the pace of the product design cycle.

4. Optimization tools are more consistent with the characteristics of people and things. With the application of 3D printing technology, enterprises can renovate any tool at any time, not limited to those that have been scrapped and do not meet the requirements. Because of the small time and initial cost, 3D printing makes it economical to optimize tools for better marginal performance. Technicians can then design with more ergonomics in mind to improve its operational comfort, reduce processing time, and make it easier to use and store.

5. Customized molds help realize the customization of final products. Shorter production cycles, the ability to produce more complex geometrics, and the ability to reduce the final manufacturing cost allow companies to produce a wide range of personalized tools to support the manufacture of custom parts. 3D printing molds are very conducive to customized production, such as medical equipment and medical industry.

For example, in the medical industry, now our tissue and bone and tooth models have realized the printing of biological tissue activity, and human organs can be printed. Do you think our current medical means will change?

Combined with 3D printing

At present, in view of the shortcomings and advantages of 3D printing technology and traditional processing technology, let them be compatible and complementary to the current development direction of 3D printing technology. For example, when developing new products, enterprises can use 3D printing technology to make samples, while traditional manufacturing technology can be used for mass production. Because it not only can get rid of the traditional die manufacturing do mould first, through the mould making sample, again modified many times, finally make a satisfactory sample step, also can make the traditional mass production make up for the slow speed of 3 d printing, production of high end products cost disadvantage, thus speeding up the product time to market, improve the economic efficiency.

The research and development of 3D printing materials should also analyze the production methods of industrial materials and combine with the instant connection technology in traditional manufacturing to develop high-quality and cheap materials for industrial production and 3D printing. The combination of processing machinery, 3D printer and CNC machine tools, to create a higher technology content of machinery, polymerization of more advantages.

To sum up, the 3d printing technology in China is still developing slowly, and it will take some time to replace the traditional mold manufacturing. This is also an opportunity for the mold industry to take advantage of this time to develop the transformation, and seize the 3D printing technology. Traditional mold industry can be done from the following aspects:

1. Mold industry in the efforts to develop their own, at the same time, can train their own 3D printing technology talents, so that more key positions of the staff to master the 3D printing system knowledge; At the same time, to some product modeling development, open samples, modify the model, analysis of product performance can continue to practice.

2. Mold companies should also train their own employees to be aware of the crisis, and drive their own continuous research on new technologies and methods, so that 3d printing can better penetrate into employees. Enterprises should also purchase 3d printers to better serve themselves when they have sufficient capacity.