Motorola Rapid Prototyping Center

04/09/2015

09/12/2013

See Motorola Rapid Prototyping Services live and in person at WESTEC, October 15-17th at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Sponsored by the Society of manufacturing Engineers, this is a substantial conference and exhibition. We will be in booth 3332, right in the middle of the action. For more on Westec: http://www.westeconline.com/2013/public/enter.aspx

08/23/2013

It may not look like much, but this is one of the reasons why we acquired a new mixing technology. This photo shows the path of a few milligrams of colorant travelling through 100 grams of a clear LIM silicone mixture after two seconds of acceleration on a high-speed, compound-axis mixer. Within thirty seconds the colorant is perfectly dispersed throughout the silicone.

One of the typical problems with these types of materials is that in small quantities they are difficult to mix and dispense. We have developed and adopted several dispensing solutions, but this recently implemented mixing solution works well for small quantities of our most difficult materials, including LIM and RTV silicones and high durometer urethanes for casting. A more uniform mixture provides more uniform curing and more uniform final properties in a cast or molded part. This lets us provide our customers with more consistent elastic modulus and hardness (durometer), as well as more uniform color and efficient process times.

For specialty materials, where mix ratios can be very high (50 to 1
or more), it provides confidence that the dispersed component is well mixed with the base material. For some catalyst systems that is not only a matter of part quality, but of whether you are able to manufacture the part in the first place.

So it may not look like much, but the physics behind it, and the resulting improvement in part performance are not trivial, and they are representative of the things the MRPS does to ensure the best possible parts for our customers.

06/28/2013

One last image of Luna - this is a close-up of the ridge of the nose and the right eye. It gives a good idea of the level of detail that structured light scanning can provide. Each individual cell is about 2.2 mm across. The crevices between the cells are obviously much smaller.