Ken,
My apologies for taking so long to respond, but I was at the Euromold show
all last week where we were introducing these new technologies.
Sand or bead blasting can certainly be used for quickly and easily smoothing
the surfaces of SL parts and I think that many users do this. However one
needs to be aware that the longer you blast, the more material you remove
and therefore the part accuracy is influenced.
The difference with our new method for direct metal laser-sintered parts is
that the surface is compacted or densified by the shot peening, rather than
removing material. The surface is lowered by a fixed amount depending on the
material and porosity and then does not change, even with continued shot
peening. Because the material and porosity are known factors, this constant
lowering of all surfaces can be accurately compensated. We build the parts
with added material on all external surfaces corresponding precisely to the
level of compaction by the shot peening, similar to adding a machining
tolerance. As a result we achieve not only good smoothing but also high
dimensional accuracy. I am not sure whether this principle could work with
SL resins.
Regards,
Mike
> ----------
> Von: Foamcaster@aol.com[SMTP:Foamcaster@aol.com]
> Gesendet: Montag, 30. November 1998 16:12
> An: Shellabear@EOS-GmbH.de; rp-ml@bart.lpt.fi
> Betreff: Re: New Rapid Tooling Products from EOS
>
> In a message dated 11/30/1998 3:42:57 AM Mountain Standard Time,
> Shellabear@EOS-GmbH.de writes:
>
> << Micro Shot-Peening - Improved Surface Finishing for DMLS
> EOS is also introducing a new post-processing method for quickly and
> easily
> improving the surface finish of DMLS parts. This is based on a two-step
> shot-peening process using special jets and materials. The first step
> cleans
> the surface and smooths the surface topography, while the second step
> compacts and seals the surface, resulting in a surface quality better
> than
> Rz 20 microns. Additional polishing can increase this to better than Rz 3
> microns. The entire shot-peening process is much faster and easier than
> manual finishing and can be used even for detailed structures such as 1mm
> slots. This method is well suited to both DirectMetal and DirectSteel
> parts
> and can significantly improve the time and cost-effectiveness of the
> entire
> Rapid Tooling process. >>
>
> Could this process, with some modifications, be used to economically and
> quickly finish SL parts?
>
> Ken Miller
> Miller Technologies
> 395 South 1100 West
> Farmington, UT 84025
> (801)451-7997
> foamcaster@aol.com
>
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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