Hi chaps,

I am trying to locate a company that can make some stereolith models for me from some drawings that i have.

Anyone suggest anywhere that can do this for me?

Thanks

A lot of the universities do rapid prototyping using SL. Here at Warwick they do it for industrial companies...some interesting products been done (some for ann summers a while ago...)

You know its expensive though...?

We are getting a scale model of our project table made. It will be 100mm high, and thats costing £200.

The liquid they use in the machines costs around £2000/litre. So you can work out the material cost, plus labour.

Here's a co offering SL in the UK:
http://www.jhmay.com/rapidprototyping/index.html?referrer=rp_ad

Cheers,
David

[Edited on 31/1/05 by flak monkey]

holy shit!

Its only about an inch long and half an inch wide by half an inch deep

and its for work so i aint paying for it

Just got in touch with a chap who owes me a favour at Wolverhampton Uni and he said he will take a look at it for me

a lad in my uni is making a 10 ft x 2 ft low loader trailer in sections in out stereolithography machine. apparently it will cost ~£5k to make, and all he is using it for is analysing/optimising stress concentrators.

quote:

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Originally posted by tom_loughlin
a lad in my uni is making a 10 ft x 2 ft low loader trailer in sections in out stereolithography machine. apparently it will cost ~£5k to make, and all he is using it for is analysing/optimising stress concentrators.

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I use a Stereo Lithography in my day job as a design engineer. We get prototypes made up in a day or so, using CAD geometry created in Solidworks. It's a damn good way of getting a real model to see how it fits in a clients device (we make digital sensor modules to fit in various products like switchgear). A CAD screen is all well and good, but it doesn't compare to a real model.

We use a 3D systems Viper SLA machine, (have a look ad the 3D systems website for some good info). using a couple fo different resins. Most of the stuff uses a clear (ish) resin call Si-10, which costs about £80 per kilo. This is just yer basic UV cure epoxy resin base. Another resin we use for the higher temp stuff is a silica filled epoxy resin called Bluestone. This sells for about £120 a kilo.

As my boss frowns upon me doing stuff for "outsiders" on the machine (he frowns at a lot of stuff), I can't say for definate if I can do a part for you, but if you are stuck, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. For a couple of beers I'm sure I can turn your drawings into a 3D cad model and STL file (STL file is the format for most Stereo lithography machines)

If you need to know anything else about the SLA process, then let me know, and I'm sure I can explain it in as much detail as you want!

Cheers
Andy

Hi Andy,

I have got drawings from my supplier in Jpg format and i also beleive in some other cad format but they are in .rar format at the moment which if google serves me right is a compressed version similar to zipped?

I need to find a rar un zipper to open the folder to see whats inside, can anyone suggest a programme - free of course!

Col

Can seem to post attachments. Email me and ill send you WinRAR. alternatively google it.

Cheers,
David

got winRAR and opened the folder, it contained STp and STL files so i should be onto a winner

Thanks for the help lads.

Col

Try 'STYLES'. Based in Cleveland. Did a lot of work fot the Black & Decker industrial engineers.

01642 769930 (biz card is few years old so no. may need to be checked.

MD is called Gordon Styles