CN110641010A

CN110641010A - Method for 3D printing of thin-shell workpiece

Info

Publication number: CN110641010A
Application number: CN201910910974.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 周佩吟
Original assignee: Interface Optoelectronics Shenzhen Co Ltd; Cheng Cheng Technology Chengdu Co Ltd; General Interface Solution Ltd
Current assignee: Interface Optoelectronics Shenzhen Co Ltd; Cheng Cheng Technology Chengdu Co Ltd; General Interface Solution Ltd
Priority date: 2019-09-25
Filing date: 2019-09-25
Publication date: 2020-01-03
Also published as: TW202112530A

Abstract

The invention discloses a method for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece, which is characterized in that before the thin-shell workpiece is formed, a support is formed in a forming groove of a forming jig, then the thin-shell workpiece is formed on the support, and the thin-shell workpiece is separated by utilizing the hydrolyzable characteristic of the support, so that the problems of deformation, various derived dimensional tolerances, inconsistent curvatures, uneven thicknesses, optical anomalies and the like caused by the fact that the printing and forming direction is influenced by gravity tension can be avoided.

Description

Method for 3D printing of thin-shell workpiece

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a 3D printing method, which is applied to various printed and formed workpieces, and more particularly, to a method for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece by using a pre-forming support to prevent the thin-shell workpiece from deforming during the forming process.

Background

In recent years, with the maturity of 3D printing technology, 3D printing technology has been widely applied to various industries, and especially, electronic products with extremely high replacement speed are replaced by more than one, especially 3D printing technology is mainly applied to printing a required product in a way of stacking molding materials layer by layer. The 3D printing has no trouble, and the printing production can be carried out by directly modeling by computer software, so that the process and the cost of the conventional mold opening are saved, and the adjustment and the change on the subsequent design are more flexible and convenient.

Currently, 3D printing technologies can be broadly divided into three 3D printing technologies, i.e. hot melt lamination, photo-curing molding and laser powder sintering, according to the forming technology and material. Among them, the photo-curing molding method mainly uses a photo-curing material as a raw material, and uses a light source such as a UV laser to irradiate the material to cure the material layer by layer for stacking molding, and thus, is very suitable for precision or complicated and tiny parts.

However, in general, the state of the finished workpiece is affected by the printing and forming direction, the characteristics of the photo-curing material, the geometric shape design and other factors. For example, if a soft resin is used as the light curing material, referring to fig. 1A, during molding, the molded workpiece 10 is deformed by gravity due to the molding sequence, especially for a thin-shell curved workpiece, the thickness is usually about 0.55-1.1 millimeters (mm), and the curvature of the curved surface is deformed due to the gravity. As shown in fig. 1B, it is obvious that the curvature of the curved surface deviates from the predetermined design curvature due to the influence of gravity, which not only affects the appearance of the workpiece, but also affects the problems of abnormal dimensional tolerance, non-uniform shape curvature, non-uniform thickness, abnormal optics, and the like in the subsequent assembly.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the present invention is directed to a method for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece, which can effectively reduce or eliminate the abnormal deformation of the thin-shell workpiece caused by the influence of gravity, so as to solve the related problems, thereby increasing the production yield.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention provides a method for 3D printing of a thin-shell workpiece, which comprises the following steps of firstly providing a forming jig with a forming groove; then, forming a support material in a forming groove; then, forming the thin shell workpiece on the supporting material in the forming groove of the forming jig; after the completion, the supporting material is removed continuously, and the thin shell workpiece is obtained.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the thin-shell workpiece has at least one curved surface.

According to the embodiment of the invention, the thin-shell workpiece only contacts the supporting material, but not contacts the forming fixture.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the support material is made of a hydrolysable material, such as SUP706 soluble material.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the step of removing the supporting material is to put the forming fixture together with the supporting material and the thin shell workpiece into water to dissolve the supporting material.

Therefore, the thin-shell workpiece can be supported by the supporting material in the forming process and cannot be pulled and deformed under the influence of gravity, so that the problems of deformation of the thin-shell workpiece in the 3D printing process and subsequent derivation can be solved.

The purpose, technical content, features and effects of the present invention will be more readily understood through the detailed description of the embodiments below.

Drawings

Fig. 1A is a schematic diagram of a conventional 3D printed thin-shell workpiece.

Fig. 1B is a schematic diagram of the curved surface deformation of a conventional 3D printed thin-shell workpiece.

Fig. 2 is a schematic step diagram of a method for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a forming fixture for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece according to the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a schematic view of a forming jig for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece according to the present invention, which shows a supporting member formed in a forming groove.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a forming jig for 3D printing a thin-shell workpiece according to the present invention, which illustrates the thin-shell workpiece formed in a forming groove.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a forming tool of the method for 3D printing thin-shell workpieces according to the present invention, showing a state of removing the supporting material.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a thin-shell workpiece according to the present invention.

Reference numerals:

10 formed workpiece

30 forming jig

31 forming groove

40 support material

50 thin shell workpiece

Detailed Description

The present invention discloses a method for 3D printing thin-shell workpieces, please refer to fig. 2, which is a flow chart illustrating steps of the method for 3D printing thin-shell workpieces according to the present invention.

First, a forming fixture 30 having a forming groove 31 is provided, in step S201, referring to fig. 3, the forming fixture 30 has a forming groove 31 at a substantially central portion. As shown in the drawings, the forming jig 30 is generally square, however, the shape is only schematic, the workpiece obtained mainly is prepared by the shape of the central forming groove 31, and the size and shape of the outer part of the forming jig 30 are not limited.

Subsequently, the supporting material 40 is formed in the forming groove 31 of the forming fixture 30 by 3D printing, as shown in fig. 4, in step S202, the supporting material 40 is formed by using a hydrolytic material as a raw material, such as a SUP706 soluble material, which belongs to polymethyl methacrylate (Acrylic compounds), and can be dissolved in water and easily removed, which will be described in detail later.

Next, the thin-shell workpiece 50 is formed on the supporting material 40 in the forming groove 31 of the forming fixture 30 by 3D printing, in step S203, as shown in fig. 5, for the convenience of detachment, the thin-shell workpiece 50 only contacts the supporting material 40, but not the forming fixture 30; the thin-shell workpiece 50 is attached to the supporting material 40 and formed, the thickness can be 0.55-1.1mm, and the material can be formed by VeroGray850 (Plastic resin), although the material is actually used according to the requirement, and this is only for example.

After the forming is completed, the supporting member 40 is removed, in step S204, to obtain the thin shell workpiece 50 to be formed, in step S205. In the method of removing the supporting member 40, as described above, since the supporting member 40 uses a hydrolyzable material as a raw material, the forming fixture 30, the supporting member 40 formed thereon and the thin-shell workpiece 50 are placed in water, as shown in fig. 6, and the supporting member 40 is dissolved, so that the thin-shell workpiece 50 is separated from the supporting member 40 and the forming fixture 30, and the thin-shell workpiece 50 is obtained. The removal method of the supporting material 40 is not limited to the hydrolysis method, and the material is selected according to the material, so long as the material is different from the material of the thin shell workpiece 50 and is easy to remove.

Therefore, referring to fig. 7, the obtained thin-shell workpiece 50 is supported during the forming process and includes the underlying supporting material 40 and the forming groove 31 of the forming fixture 30, so that the thin-shell workpiece is not pulled and deformed by gravity, and at the same time, the thin-shell workpiece completely conforms to the shapes of the supporting material 40 and the forming groove 31 of the forming fixture 30, so that the problems of tolerance and the like are avoided, and the derived cost in subsequent processing fine adjustment or assembly can be saved; and because this form is particularly suitable for thin shell products having curved surfaces, the thin shell 50 workpiece preferably has at least one curved surface.

In summary, the method for 3D printing a thin shell workpiece according to the present invention is to form a thin shell workpiece by a co-printing method, and is particularly suitable for designing 3D or biaxial curved products, and can reduce deformation caused by printing direction or gravity, and can quickly print a thin shell product with a thickness t greater than 0.6mm, and further, the problems of no tolerance and inconsistent dimension are solved, and post-processing is not required, so that time and additional cost are saved.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. Therefore, all the equivalent changes or modifications according to the features and the spirit described in the scope of the application of the present invention should be included in the scope of the application of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method of 3D printing thin shell workpieces, comprising the steps of:

providing a forming jig, wherein the forming jig is provided with a forming groove;

forming a support material in the forming groove of the forming fixture;

forming a thin shell workpiece in the forming groove of the forming fixture and on the supporting material;

removing the support material; and

obtaining the thin-shell workpiece.

2. The method of 3D printing a thin-shelled workpiece as recited in claim 1, wherein the thin-shelled workpiece has at least one curved surface.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the thin-shell workpiece is only contacted with the supporting material and not contacted with the forming fixture.

4. The method of 3D printing a thin-shelled workpiece recited in claim 1, wherein the support material is a hydrolyzed material.

5. The method of 3D printing a thin-shelled workpiece as recited in claim 4, wherein the support material is SUP706 soluble material.

6. The method of 3D printing a thin shell workpiece as claimed in claim 4, wherein the step of removing the supporting material comprises dissolving the supporting material by placing the forming fixture together with the supporting material and the thin shell workpiece in water.