Smart Molding International 4-2021

moldmaking 30 smart_molding international 4/2021 E nvisionTEC and Covestro today announced their collaboration on material+printer solutions to accelerate adoption of industrial 3D printing. Together, the two companies aim to lower the entry barriers for companies looking to adopt 3D print - ing for producing molds for low vol - umes or parts with detailed features faster and more economically. The combination of Covestro mate - rial expertise and EnvisionTEC printer technology resulted in a complete in - dustrial manufacturing solution for 3D printing injection mold tooling. Until now, no solution was available that met the stringent industry-required properties in terms of dimensional stability and minimal warpage. The patented material formulation from e - Pe r FORM TM , o p t i m i ze d f o r EnvisionTEC’s equipment, brings the benefits of Somos® PerFORM to a faster and more economical printer technology. To bring customers a workable and demonstrated material+printer solu - tion, EnvisionTEC and Covestro opti - mized print parameters and verified Covestro’s new DLP resin e-PerFORM on EnvisionTEC’s Perfactory P4K se - ries printer. EnvisionTEC further tested e-PerFORM resin with key molding institutes to validate the material’s performance. Com - pleted mold trials demonstrate that e-PerFORM resin, with high stiffness and high temperature performance, behaves similarly to stereolithography resin Somos PerFORM for injection molding tooling. Tests confirm suitability for rapid mold making Tests done by Polyvia, the French Federation of Plastics and Compos - ites, confirm the suitability for rapid tooling. Guy Chrétien, Process proj - ect manager at Polyvia confirmed: “We tested the new e-PerFORM resin printed on the EnvisionTEC P4K printer and demonstrated that we could achieve very good results in part fidelity and in the number of shots molded in both polypropylene and glass-reinforced nylon. With the cost effectiveness and print speed of the P4k platform and with the prop - erties of the e-PerFORM resin, this creates additional opportunities for rapid tooling.” Al Siblani, EnvisionTEC CEO com - mented: “The combination of our P4K printer and Covestro e-PerFORM op - timized for our printers enables fast, cost-effective production of injection molding tooling. Our collaboration has resulted in a new and much-needed solution.” Hugo da Silva, Head of Additive Manufacturing at Covestro comment - ed: “By working closely with our part - ner EnvisionTEC, we developed a ma - terial that meets critical needs voiced in the market: improved dimensional stability and minimal warpage for op - timal functionality. The validation and proven solution with their P4K print - ers will help accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing of injection mold tooling.” The combined solution of Covestro DLP resin e-PerFORM on EnvisionTEC’s Perfactory P4K series DLP 3D printing were first presented during RAPID+TCT in Chicago this September. EnvisionTEC www.envisiontec.com EnvisionTEC and Covestro collaborate on material and printer solutions for DLP 3D printing tooling applications. New resin e-PerFORM, based on SLA resin Somos PerFORM, has been optimized for EnvisionTEC 3D printers. Tests confirm suitability for rapid mold making Perfactory P4K Series: the only DLP-based 3D printers utilizing a true 4M pixel projector with UV optics tuned to 385nm wavelength (Picture: EnvisionTEC)