Should you’d introduced up pure silicone 3D printing a decade in the past, you’d doubtless have been met with a wholesome quantity of skepticism. The thermoset materials, widespread in client, healthcare, and industrial functions, has introduced challenges to the additive manufacturing business through the years regardless of many makes an attempt to adapt the know-how for the fabric and vice versa. Solely up to now few years have actual options introduced themselves, although the know-how has nonetheless remained area of interest (you’ll be able to 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 (your complete spine of the polymer contains silicone, free from acrylates and urethanes) with added photograph 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 power 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 client items. Axtra3D emphasizes that not like another 3D printed silicone supplies available on the market, which might embody epoxies, acrylates, urethanes, or catalysts, its TrueSilX50 materials has a pure formulation.
What in regards to the photograph initiators, you marvel? They are often faraway from 3D prints utilizing a particular post-process that leads to 100% pure silicone components. This helps obtain biocompatibility necessities extra simply and in addition makes the fabric appropriate for functions in healthcare or audiology. Apart from increased flexibility and elasticity, the resin outperforms all different low viscosity 100% silicone photopolymer formulations in key properties like tear power and meets biocompatibility requirements in keeping with 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 progressive method that mixes parts of SLA and DLP to appreciate excessive throughput print charges and nice 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 know-how, which delivers larger course of stability and quicker printing speeds by extra intently 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 habits at charges 10-20 instances quicker than customary SLA or DLP.
The Lumia X1 is appropriate with a variety 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, akin 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, for the reason that know-how’s scalability and throughput make manufacturing functions 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 variety of viscosities (as much as 30,000 cPs, on the excessive finish of what may be processed utilizing photopolymerization applied sciences available on the market), however it’s working to develop the vary even additional, which can permit extra silicone-based supplies to be printed. “This implies more durable components, extra elastic restoration and wider useful ranges,” the corporate provides.
From gaskets to wearables
As we refocus on the present potentialities utilizing Axtra3D’s Lumia X1 and new TrueSilX50 materials, there are numerous 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 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. It is usually potential to create geometries that might be difficult if not inconceivable to attain utilizing extra standard silicone manufacturing strategies.
Within the medical sector, the fabric’s biocompatible properties in addition to its flexibility and sturdiness make it supreme for custom-made options, like surgical coaching aids, anatomical fashions and orthotics. Different use circumstances on this sphere embody 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 assorted wants of this numerous 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 software assist for plug-and-play printing; and Axtra OpenAccess™, which provides customers extra flexibility by way of experimenting with third-party resins and software growth, excellent 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.
