Sika make custom 3D printing filaments with 3devo
Sika Automotive, a leading OEM supplier for automotive components, needed to streamline prototyping and pre-series productive for their innovative heat-expandable acoustic inserts. They incorporated the 3devo Composer 350 filament maker into their in-house 3D printing and manufacturing process which was capable of extruding heat-reactive, low-temp materials.
Background
Sika Automotive manufactures bonding, sealing, damping and reinforcing solutions for the automotive industry with lightweight, robust and customised chassis components for OEMs across Europe. Thier acoustic inserts and precision engineered with proprietary materials. Using the 3devo Composer 350, Sika are able to process heat-reactive, highly expandable thermoplastic material into 3D filament, streamlining their manufacturing and prototyping processes by being able to additive manufacture prototypes in the same material in production.
The Challenge
Sika’s cavity sealers typically go through 5-10 design iterations and as their products are injected molded, prototypes were costly to produce and design cycles were lengthy waiting on molds to be produced, tested and re-iterated, so they wanted a cost effective solution to be able to prototype materials and needed a solution that could process medium melt flow index polymers without changing its chemical composition.
The Solution
To be able to 3D print their cavity sealers, they needed a filament maker that could sucessfully process their SikaBaffle material, which was already available in its pellet form. With alow melting point of 90 degrees, this made it incompatible with most extruders, except for the 3devo Composer 350, which is sucessfully able to extrude the material and create filament.
By creating their own filament, Sika are able to reduce the lead times by 90% being able to get the saame process done in 2-5 days instead of 4-8 weeks.
About Design Consulting
Design Consulting are providers of 3D CAD software, 3D Printers, Plastic Shredders, Filament Makers, IT equipment, Web Configurators and a range of Professional Services and Consulting.
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