Blog

Casa> Blog > 5 fattori per la scelta del metodo di prototipazione rapida professionale nel 2020

5 fattori per la scelta del metodo di prototipazione rapida professionale nel 2020

2020-06-07

Prototipazione rapida professionale: 5 fattori di selezione della tecnica

Un produttore professionale di prototipazione rapida comprende appieno il fatto che il fallimento o il successo del prototipo dipende in gran parte dalla selezione delle tecniche di prototipazione. Quando si tratta di prototipazione rapida, sono disponibili diversi modi per creare il design del prodotto.

Puoi andare con i semplici modelli in cartone o con il prodotto assemblato a macchina completamente funzionale. Per i prodotti moderni, la prototipazione è diventata un imperativo. Questo è fondamentale per lo sviluppo di nuovi prodotti.

Rapid prototyping offers the facility to validate your design. It provides you with a rough model, thus allowing you to test its functionality. Moreover, you would get a précised idea of how your product would look, feel, and work in a real-time environment.

In this blog post, we are going to talk about part-base prototypes. In simpler words, we will tell you how you can use individual parts to create a system-level prototype.

Five Key Factors for Professional Rapid Prototyping Process

Since every product is unique, thus it will offer unique prototyping experience. The difference in every product, project, and product design elements, needs proper consideration.

A certain prototype that worked well for an XYZ product, might not generate the same effective results of your product. Therefore, you need to consider the five key factors below to make the right decision.

  • Purpose
  • Qualità
  • Quantity
  • Complexity
  • Costo

Let’s look deep into these factors and understand why they are important for choosing your next prototyping process.

Professional Rapid Prototyping

Purpose

According to Ulrich and Eppinger, there are four reasons for creating a prototype within the engineering and development of product design as well as the product.  These four reasons include communication, learning, milestones, and integration.

The purpose of prototyping varies depending on the development stage of the product. Generally, there are four different product development stages. Every stage of product development has its own features as well as the functionality required to eliminate any sort of risk.

This would give away the fidelity type of the prototype i.e. low-fidelity or high-fidelity. The first aspect of the project prototype purpose would depend upon either the risk mitigation exercises or the planned tests.

For instance, customer interaction feedback, or test types, etc. In case, the prototype is going to go through rigorous testing, then it is important to focus on the material. After all, the material would be a deciding factor in choosing the rapid prototyping technique.

Next, you need to focus on the functional aspect of the prototype. The selection and assembling would greatly depend upon the functional expectations of the prototype. Such as, do you want any moving part of your plan to perform functional testing.

It is highly less likely that your prototype becomes successful without any tweaks. Thus, you need to consider the changes and modification factors in your mind. It is important to consider how easy or difficult it would be to make changes to the prototype.

Doing this would also aid in deciding the right prototyping technique.

The Product Development States

Product Clarifying and Planning Task

This is the stage where you will have to provide early proof of concepts. Use industrial design prototypes, demonstrations or mock-ups.

Prototyping Technique

  • 3D Printed Parts
  • Carboard Mockups
  • CNC Machined Foam Models
  • Assemblies (SLS, SLA, FDM, etc)
Conceptual Design

At the conceptual stage, you generally require scaled parts. In some cases, you would need assemblies of the design as well as limited functionality and user interface.

To get the shape, and feel of the product, you can use the FDM part. In case, you want more accuracy, you would have to move to the next level of 3D printing. Either choose the SLS, or go with the SLA. You also have the option of poly jet parts.

In case, you want metal parts, then using CNC machine at this stage would be an excellent thing to do. Furthermore, you can even consider sheet metal fabrication. However, sheet metal fabrication works in limited situations.

Embodiment Design

In questa fase esplorerai la piena funzionalità del prototipo. Un produttore professionale di prototipazione rapida ne esaminerebbe l'adattamento, la forma e le funzioni. Pertanto, concentrarsi sui dettagli è fondamentale. In questa fase, i prototipi sarebbero il più possibile simili al prodotto finale.

Conterrebbero diverse parti. Inoltre, la fase di test si espande qui. Non puoi limitare te stesso a una singola tecnica di test. Al contrario, avresti bisogno di unità diverse per scopi di test diversi.

Dovresti anche considerare la tecnica finale per la produzione in questa fase. Il motivo è che alla fine dovresti stimolarlo. Inoltre, concentrati sulla stampa ad alta risoluzione come SLA e SLS per le parti in plastica.

Anche prestare attenzione alla fusione sotto vuoto è importante. Entrambe le DMLS e SLM sono perfette per simulare parti di fusione.

Design dettagliato

Qualsiasi prototipo sviluppato in questa fase andrebbe per il test funzionale. Inoltre, verrebbe utilizzato per le corse pilota di pre-produzione.

La produzione professionale di prototipazione rapida utilizzerebbe la colata sotto vuoto per prototipare parti di stampaggio a iniezione. Nel caso di parti in plastica lavorate, utilizzerebbero la tecnica di stampa 3D.

Qualità

Come accennato in precedenza, l'accuratezza e la fedeltà del prodotto richieste determinerebbero il tipo di post-elaborazione o processo necessario per il prototipo. Devi concentrarti anche sulla qualità del tuo prototipo.

Although, high-fidelity prototypes are expensive, however, professional rapid prototyping manufacture consider them as a return on investment. For instance, you want to have a thread feature, we recommend using SLA in instead of the FDM. Unfortunately, SLA would cost you more.

Prototype Usage

The type of technology you use would also depend upon prototype usage. For example, if you plan to use the parts frequently, you should not consider self-tapping holes or 3D printed threaded holes. On the contrary, it would be used to opt for the metal inserts or machined inserts.

Material Selection

The quality of the prototype greatly depends upon the raw material. So, you need to pay close heed to the material selection aspect of the development phase. We would not recommend additive manufactured parts, especially when there is a link between the certain material properties and the functional elements of the prototype.

See the table below for the basic material choice for different manufacturing techniques.

 

Stampa 3D in CNC Colata sottovuoto
 

TPU, ASA, ULTEM, ABS, PLA, Nylon

PEEK, Polycarbonate, Nylon, ABS Nylon HT, ABS

ABS, Nylon Nylon HT

Inconel, Titanium, Stainless Steel, Aluminum Brass, Titanium, Stainless Steel, Aluminum N/A

 

It is important to consider the tolerance of prototypes parts especially when a certain prototype compromise of more than one. Tolerance consideration will also offer ease of integration.

Quantity

Another important factor that plays a vital role in deciding the type of prototyping technology is quantity. There are certain techniques that would be cost-effective for smaller quantities and vice versa.

See the following rules that apply.

Plastic Parts

Prototype processes
Plastic parts Quantity
Low (1's) Medium (10's)
Taglia Large Stampa 3D in CNC Machining

Vacuum Casting

Small Stampa 3D in CNC machining (simple)
3D printing (complicated)

 

 

Metallic parts

Prototype processes
Metallic Parts Quantity
Low (1's) Medium (10's)
Taglia Large Lavorazione CNC Lavorazione CNC
Small 3D Printing

Lavorazione CNC

Investment Casting

Lavorazione CNC

Complexity

The complexity of the product would help aid the rapid prototype process selection process. Different processes offer different complexity. You just need to focus on the one that would suit your prototype requirement.

Costo

Lastly, you need to focus on the resources available. After all, the prototype and the resources go hand-in-hand.  You need to consider the man-hours, the money, and the time you would require to create a high-quality prototype.

Focusing on these aspects would also help you choose the right prototyping technique.

Professional Rapid Prototyping in china

Porta via

As a professional rapid prototyping manufacturer, we keenly focus on the above 5 key factors. We fully understand that choosing the right prototyping technique would yield high-quality results. Therefore, we pay close attention to the purpose of your prototype.

In addition, we would pay close attention to the quality especially when it needs to be performed in a real-time environment. Our state-of-the-art technology helps us in handling prototyping of all sizes and shapes.

We have the ability to handle low-volume prototyping as well as mass production without having any difference in terms of quality and perfection. What more is that we choose the prototyping technique while keeping in mind the cost and the complexity of your design.

After all, every technique cannot produce high-quality, sophisticated, and complex designs. To learn more about us click here.

mail top