I was informed today that DTM has announced a new family of materials for their
Sinterstation 2000 RP machine. The first product in the family is called
TrueForm PM (for Pattern Material) designed for investment casting and soft
tooling (e.g., silicon rubber tooling) applications. Parts produced from the
material have sharp edges, fine features, and a smooth surface finish. I saw a
sample of it a few weeks ago and it looked quite good, although they wouldn't
say much about it then.
DTM is using small (30 micron), spherical particles -- versus large,
irregularly shaped ones -- which is why they are seeing improved feature
definition and surface finish. They discovered this when developing the
RapidSteel material for their RapidTool metal sintering process. The small,
round particles also help to improve dimensional accuracy, according to DTM.
Detailed information on the TrueForm PM material will be available tomorrow
(Tuesday) on their web page: http://www.dtm-corp.com/home.html
Hope this new information is of interest to everyone.
Terry Wohlers
Wohlers Associates
twohlers@cis.compuserve.com
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