Dear All,

Welcome to August's edition of 'Solutions from Outside the Box'. In case you wonder about July we have gone bi-monthly with random bulletins as appropriate!

As a result, lots of things have changed so here goes:

• We now take credit cards (sorry not American Express) driven by two factors. Firstly feedback from many smaller companies that to pay this way is easier, and secondly, for some large companies this can be a way of bypassing the delays associated with becoming an approved supplier.
• We now have access to a range of nylon 11 materials and flame retardants for laser sintering. Nylon 11 offers increased impact resistance, in effect toughness, over the more common nylon 12 based materials.
• We can now exclusively offer high resolution Stereolithography from our 'Associate' Fineline Prototyping in the US - more opposite.
• Another successful low volume injection mould tooling project reaches conclusion with a very happy customer.
• Design can now be addressed through a number of partners and Associates covering the spectrum of low and high volume production.
• The new technology from Sintermask gets closer to our shores, if you are interested in evaluating this technology there are still opportunities, please call Tim on 01452 862309.

There will be more to follow in due course, so please keep track of the website at www.plunkettassociates.co.uk or call if you have a topic to discuss.

High Resolution Stereolithography (HRSLA)

In the last month Plunkett Associates has signed an exclusivity deal with Fineline Prototyping that means we can now talk far more about where some of your HRSLA parts are being made.

Fineline was set up by Rob Connelly, who has been involved with SLA since 1989, to maximise the potential that the high resolution, or Viper technology offers. Now running 7 Viper machines, tuned to the highest level, and a range of resins from the ceramic filled Nanotool (extremely hard) to the ductile 9120 (PP like) they are able to meet most requirements.

If you want to see what HRSLA can do then visit the HRSLA page on our website where you will find a link to the technology comparator that gives a visual demonstration of how different technologies handle specific features.

New Flexible Material Available

Vacuum casting has long been the standard route to prototype flexible parts. It allows various material hardnesses to be evaluated and offers a good surface finish, if the effort is put into the master. The downside is that this inevitably becomes the critical path when the balance of the project is being laser sintered.

How often have we all wished that we could just put a different material in the sintering process and carry on! Technically this was possible with materials like Somos 201 and now Duraform Flex. The issue was finding someone to run the material and obtaining a sensible price point.

Into this fray now comes a new material TPE210S, available as a material to those running machines, and sintered to your geometry for those wanting parts. This offers a better surface finish than has previously been available and even better elongation to break. A full datasheet can be downloaded from the flexible SLS page on our website.

Properties are still anisotropic, so orientation needs to be specified if seeking the maximum performance, but colour and hardness can be controlled by the post build infiltrant.

Parts are typically built at 0.1mm layers and due to the nature of the material, post processing to remove layers is not feasible. That said the results have to be the best flexible laser sintered parts I have seen to date!

For solutions to your prototyping requirements, both simple and challenging, please visit the website or call Tim Plunkett on 01452 862309, email tim@plunkettasociates.co.uk