Additive manufacturing and its influence on the international tool and mould-making industry

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Combining AM and toolmaking

The potential of combining additive manufacturing and toolmaking will be demonstrated at Formnext by Swiss company Ecoparts. It has specialized in additive manufacturing of molding inserts, supplying to mold manufacturers across Europe and overseas, according to managing proprietor, Daniel Kündig. “Combining both technologies allows us, for example, to further reduce the cycle times in injection molding,” says Kündig. “Besides this, additive manufacturing has a great advantage in that we can produce competitively also on the high-wage island of Switzerland as most of the processes are operator free. Kündig also expects demand for additively manufactured mold inserts to increase further in the future due to the rapid advancement of technology that boosts speed and precision.

New additively manufactured applications for tool and mould-making will also be shown by Fraunhofer IPT. The VentOpt project involved using a laser to place vent ducts in an injection molding tool, whereby component quality was increased within a shorter cycle time. This tool will be presented for the first time at Formnext 2015.

Writing instruments manufacturer Lamy has relied on additive technology it its tool-making for around five years and will present its corresponding know-how at Formnext. “We use it to manufacture mold inserts with conformal cooling or to prepare cores,” explains Bernd Hirth, Sales Manager for tool-making at Lamy. Hirth also sees significant potential for tool and mould-making, particularly through the further development of new materials and alloys.

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