Rapid Prototyping

Before tooling commences Rapid Prototyping can confirm aesthetics and design configuration at a fraction of UK competitors costs.

Rapid prototyping takes virtual designs from computer aided design (CAD) or animation modeling software, transforms them into thin, virtual, horizontal cross-sections and then creates each cross-section in physical space, one after the next until the model is finished. The resulting process makes the virtual model and the physical model correspond almost identically.

The most common method we use to prototype products is SLS (Selective laser sintering) is an additive rapid manufacturing technique that uses a high power LASER (e.g. a carbon dioxide laser) to fuse small particles of plastic, metal, ceramic, or glass powders into a mass representing a desired 3-dimensional object. The laser selectively fuses powdered material by scanning cross-sections generated from a 3-D digital description of the part (for example from a CAD file or scan data) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness, a new layer of material is applied on top, and the process is repeated until the part is completed.