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09-07-2016, 11:27 AM #5
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- May 2016
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Yeah. As answered this is not only possible, but is a standard practice in some portions of the industry. Steel is used to print intricate cooling channels within a tool (really only used for high performance applications), while plastic (with SLA machines) is used to produce cavity blocks for rapid prototyping. The life expectancy of the tool is only a hundred or so shots, but the goal is to produce test parts with the actual plastic they are intended to be molded with and evaluate tool/part design for molding.
You do still need a steel mold base to insert the cavity blocks into, and you will not be able to run cooling in these blocks which leads to a long cycle time. That said, it is upwards of an 80% reduction in cost over traditional prototype tooling.
Small volume production is certainly possible.
I think this thread otherwise has covered the bases though.
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