In the event you’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 functions, has offered challenges to the additive manufacturing business through the years regardless of many makes an attempt to adapt the expertise for the fabric and vice versa. Solely prior to now few years have actual options offered themselves, although the expertise has nonetheless remained area of interest (you possibly can learn extra about improvements within the subsegment right here).
That’s the place Axtra3D is available in. With its Hybrid PhotoSynthesis (HPS) expertise and new TrueSilX50 materials, the corporate just isn’t solely making pure silicone 3D printing attainable, but additionally aiming to make it much more accessible. The resin is made up of pure silicone (your entire spine of the polymer includes silicone, free from acrylates and urethanes) with added picture initiators to allow the photopolymerization course of. When it comes to 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 functions in healthcare and shopper items. Axtra3D emphasizes that not like another 3D printed silicone supplies available on the market, which may embrace epoxies, acrylates, urethanes, or catalysts, its TrueSilX50 materials has a pure formulation.
What in regards to the picture initiators, you surprise? They are often faraway from 3D prints utilizing a particular post-process that ends in 100% pure silicone components. This helps obtain biocompatibility necessities extra simply and in addition makes the fabric appropriate for functions 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 in response to 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 just some years in the past, is an modern method that mixes components of SLA and DLP to appreciate excessive throughput print charges and effective characteristic 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 expertise, which delivers higher course of stability and quicker printing speeds by extra carefully controlling layer thickness and minimizing delamination between cured layers. In line with the corporate, with HPS and TruLayer applied sciences built-in within the Lumia X1, the {hardware} is able to printing detailed, high-resolution components with isotropic conduct at charges 10-20 instances quicker than commonplace SLA or DLP.
The Lumia X1 is appropriate 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 Comfortable 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, for the reason that expertise’s scalability and throughput make manufacturing functions attainable. “These improvements make TrueSilX50 not simply printable but additionally 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 could 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 more durable components, extra elastic restoration and wider practical 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 lots of functions 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 elements like buttons, keys and digital connectors. Different use instances that Axtra3D highlights for industrial customers are automation-focused elements, in addition to silicone molds and customized casings or holders. Additionally it is attainable to create geometries that will be difficult if not unattainable to realize utilizing extra typical silicone manufacturing strategies.
Within the medical sector, the fabric’s biocompatible properties in addition to its flexibility and sturdiness make it supreme for personalized options, like surgical coaching aids, anatomical fashions and orthotics. Different use instances on this sphere embrace casings for wearable gadgets, beauty applicators and child care or feminine hygiene merchandise. Custom-made merchandise are additionally a key draw from the dental and audiology industries, the place TrueSilX50 gives 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, an increasing number of sectors and customers will be capable of profit from its precision and excessive throughput. To accommodate the assorted wants of this various buyer base, the corporate gives two versatile enterprise fashions: a turnkey ecosystem often known as Axtra Options™, which incorporates pre-validated print profiles (together with for TrueSilX50) and knowledgeable utility help for plug-and-play printing; and Axtra OpenAccess™, which provides customers extra flexibility when it comes to experimenting with third-party resins and utility growth, good for R&D.
In the end, silicone represents the cutting-edge of photopolymer supplies at present and Axtra3D is true there on the forefront with its TrueSilX50 resin and Lumia X1 platform.
