Rapid prototyping is a technology used to rapidly construct solid objects using three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) data. The first technique in prototyping, stereolithography, was develop in the late 1980′s to produce prototype parts and models. In todays rapid prototyping techniques, parts can be manufactured in near production-quality in relatively small numbers, sometimes eliminating the use of injection molded parts.
Among the obvious advantages of rapid prototyping are:
- costly faulty designs can be reduced early in the development stage,
- effective communications between marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and purchasing,
- development time can be reduced,
- minimize engineering changes
These advantages greatly benefits the product development process in terms of cost, quality, and lead-time.
Rapid prototyping process:
- 3D CAD model is converted to Stereolithography (.STL) format.
- The Rapid Prototyping machine processes the STL file layer by layer.
- Manual finishing and cleaning.
