Product category:
Fast prototyping equipment, pattern-making and services
News Release from: EOS Electro Optical Systems | Subject: Selective laser sintering
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 26 August 2005
SLR produces custom lighting products
Belgian domestic lighting company is now using selective laser sintering to produce customised domestic plastics lighting directly from CAD data - eliminating moulds.
Innovative domestic lighting has entered commercial production at the Belgian headquarters of Materialise, Leuven, using plastics laser-sintering machines supplied by the German company, EOS Electro Optical Systems Originally a leading method for rapid prototyping, laser-sintering has matured to a technology for batch-sized, optimised production, including end products and spare parts
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 1 Nov 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Laser-sintering saves time and money for prototyping during product development, but can now also be used in production too. EOS will show how at the K 2001 show in Duesseldorf, Germany.
The process creates parts directly from CAD data, without the need for moulds.
Based on CAD models created by British designer, Lionel Theodore Dean, the proprietor of FutureFactories, the lights can be customised to suit a customer's individual requirements by mutating the electronic data on-screen.
A unique model is then frozen for downloading to Materialise's EOSINT P 380 and P 700 laser-sintering machines, the latter capable of producing parts up to 700 x 380 x 580mm - over one metre across the diagonal.
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German rapid prototyping systems maker is bringing a wealth of rapid manufacturing technology and experience based on laser-sintering machines and metals, plastics and sands powders.
Said Dean, "This is the first step towards widespread customisation of products to suit individual preferences.
It is revolutionising the way that interior decorators and designers assemble their collections and create limited editions to satisfy their clients' wishes.
"The ultimate goal is to unleash a new era of mass-customised designs in which we are able to meet and exceed the customer's wildest dreams." He is currently extending his use of plastics laser-sintering to furniture projects and commented that the level of complexity that he is able to design into all his products could not be made a physical reality using conventional manufacturing techniques such as moulding and machining.
There are a number of different rapid prototyping and manufacturing techniques available, but Dean has identified laser-sintering as the best method for producing his products.
Several years ago he started using a relatively crude 3D paper system and moved on to thermojet printing to produce patterns for investment casting of complex metal parts.
With lighting, however, translucency of the material is paramount and laser-sintered plastics has proved to be ideal.
Continued Dean, "Materialise also has stereolithography machines, but my lights have proved to be more functional when produced using the laser-sintering process, which has greater flexibility as support structures are not needed.
I can achieve half-millimetre wall thicknesses that are robust enough for practical use.
So I do not have to beef up sections, which would compromise on light transfer through my products, and clip mountings are sufficiently strong to hold sections together without breaking.
EOS in the UK was a big help in researching the best material to use, which was identified as 50 micron polyamide (nylon) powder.
It has the extra advantage of high resistance to heat as well as to mechanical stress.".
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