For those who’d introduced up pure silicone 3D printing a decade in the past, you’d probably have been met with a wholesome quantity of skepticism. The thermoset materials, widespread in shopper, healthcare, and industrial purposes, has introduced challenges to the additive manufacturing business over time regardless of many makes an attempt to adapt the know-how for the fabric and vice versa. Solely previously few years have actual options introduced themselves, although the know-how has nonetheless remained area of interest (you may learn extra about improvements within the subsegment right here).
That’s the place Axtra3D is available in. With its Hybrid PhotoSynthesis (HPS) know-how and new TrueSilX50 materials, the corporate is just not solely making pure silicone 3D printing potential, but in addition aiming to make it way more accessible. The resin is made up of pure silicone (the whole spine of the polymer includes silicone, free from acrylates and urethanes) with added picture initiators to allow the photopolymerization course of. By way of its properties, TrueSilX50 is a medium-hard silicone with a shore A hardness of 48A, elongation at break of 330% and a tear energy of twenty-two N/mm.
Like conventionally manufactured silicones, the printable materials is characterised by its sturdiness and biocompatibility, which make it appropriate for a variety of purposes in healthcare and shopper items. Axtra3D emphasizes that in contrast to another 3D printed silicone supplies available on the market, which might embrace epoxies, acrylates, urethanes, or catalysts, its TrueSilX50 materials has a pure formulation.
What in regards to the picture initiators, you marvel? They are often faraway from 3D prints utilizing a selected post-process that leads to 100% pure silicone elements. This helps obtain biocompatibility necessities extra simply and in addition makes the fabric appropriate for purposes in healthcare or audiology. Moreover larger flexibility and elasticity, the resin outperforms all different low viscosity 100% silicone photopolymer formulations in key properties like tear energy and meets biocompatibility requirements based on ISO10993 for non-cytotoxicity and non-skin irritation.
Lumia X1, an ideal match for silicone
TrueSilX50 was engineered for Axtra3D’s Lumia X1 3D printer, which relies on its HPS course of. HPS, which was launched by Axtra3D only a few years in the past, is an modern method that mixes parts of SLA and DLP to understand excessive throughput print charges and high-quality function resolutions. Extra particularly, the Lumia X1 integrates each an SLA laser and a DLP projector for this twin efficiency.
The Lumia X1 platform additionally integrates Axtra3D’s TruLayer Clever Layering know-how, which delivers better course of stability and quicker printing speeds by extra carefully controlling layer thickness and minimizing delamination between cured layers. In accordance with the corporate, with HPS and TruLayer applied sciences built-in within the Lumia X1, the {hardware} is able to printing detailed, high-resolution elements with isotropic habits at charges 10-20 occasions quicker than customary SLA or DLP.
The Lumia X1 is suitable with a spread of industrial-grade resins, together with Henkel’s Loctite 3D IND3380 and Ahead AM’s ceramic-filled Ultracur3D RG 3280, in addition to medical- and dental-grade resins, similar to Keystone’s KeyModel Extremely and KeySplint Tender Clear (amongst others). TrueSilX50 straddles each segments, providing sturdy mechanical properties and 100% biocompatibility.
As Axtra3D provides, customers cannot solely profit from 3D printing silicone prototypes on its Lumia X1 platform, because the know-how’s scalability and throughput make manufacturing purposes potential. “These improvements make TrueSilX50 not simply printable but in addition scalable and manufacturing prepared,” Axtra3D says.
Furthermore, TrueSilX50 is simply the primary of many silicone merchandise that Axtra3D plans to introduce. As the corporate states, its platform is already able to processing supplies in a spread of viscosities (as much as 30,000 cPs, on the excessive finish of what might be processed utilizing photopolymerization applied sciences available on the market), however it’s working to broaden the vary even additional, which is able to enable extra silicone-based supplies to be printed. “This implies harder elements, extra elastic restoration and wider purposeful ranges,” the corporate provides.
From gaskets to wearables
As we refocus on the present prospects utilizing Axtra3D’s Lumia X1 and new TrueSilX50 materials, there are numerous purposes that producers can now exploit. Within the industrial sphere, the silicone resin has broad potential for the manufacturing of sealants, gaskets, grommets and bellows, in addition to tactile parts like buttons, keys and digital connectors. Different use circumstances that Axtra3D highlights for industrial customers are automation-focused parts, in addition to silicone molds and customized casings or holders. Additionally it is potential to create geometries that might be difficult if not not possible to realize utilizing extra standard silicone manufacturing strategies.
Within the medical sector, the fabric’s biocompatible properties in addition to its flexibility and sturdiness make it preferrred for personalized options, like surgical coaching aids, anatomical fashions and orthotics. Different use circumstances on this sphere embrace casings for wearable gadgets, beauty applicators and child care or feminine hygiene merchandise. Personalized merchandise are additionally a key draw from the dental and audiology industries, the place TrueSilX50 provides advantages for customized listening to aids, dental guards, orthodontic trays and extra.
Adopting Axtra3D options
As the fabric choices proceed to develop for Axtra3D’s 3D printing platform, increasingly sectors and customers will be capable of profit from its precision and excessive throughput. To accommodate the varied wants of this various buyer base, the corporate provides two versatile enterprise fashions: a turnkey ecosystem generally known as Axtra Options™, which incorporates pre-validated print profiles (together with for TrueSilX50) and skilled utility help for plug-and-play printing; and Axtra OpenAccess™, which supplies customers extra flexibility when it comes to experimenting with third-party resins and utility growth, excellent for R&D.
In the end, silicone represents the cutting-edge of photopolymer supplies at the moment and Axtra3D is true there on the forefront with its TrueSilX50 resin and Lumia X1 platform.
