3D printed molds with Polypropylene 30% short glass fibers

logo referentie CEAD RAPID prototyping

About Rapid Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping is an Hungarian based large-format prototype manufacturing company with over 20 years of experience in the industry. With their CNC-machine, they build molds for the yacht industry, maritime industry, custom trucks manufacturers, and other related industries.

logo referentie CEAD RAPID prototyping

The challenge

Rapid Prototyping was building molds using CNC machined polyurethane foam and hand layup glass fiber-reinforced plastic. This resulted in high-quality products, but with high costs for both material and labor, and too much waste. In addition, the urge to work with recycled material grew and the time to market was – because of the amount of hand labor involved – not optimal. The challenge György Juhász, owner of Rapid Prototyping, was facing, was to improve on all these levels while maintaining a high quality end product.

The Robot Extruder solution

CEAD’s robot extruder provided the ideal solution for all the above. “I already had a 5-axis CNC machine,” tells Juhász in an interview with Composites World, “so we just bought the Robot Extruder print head and attached it.” Where Rapid Prototyping used to mill the molds from thermosetting polymer, they now use additive manufacturing to build molds with thermoplastic polymer. The milling part of the machine is still used, but only for a smooth finish of the product.

Result

As a result, Rapid Prototyping is now able to meet the demands of the fast developing market they operate in, with a number of benefits:

  • Faster production
  • Less waste of material
  • Lower material costs
  • Reduced hand labor
  • Environmentally friendly production
  • Better time to market

“We are now 3D printing molds using 30% short glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene and cutting our labor time by 50%.” concludes Juhász in the interview.

Market:

Transportation

Material:

Polypropylene 30% short glass fibers

CEAD Solution:

Date:

2020

Would you like to know more about the solutions we offer? Have a look at our solution page or go directly to our Robot Extruder.

Why CEAD

CEAD is one of the few companies world-wide offering a light weight, stand-alone extruder, which you can easily integrate with your CNC machine or robotic arm.