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Silicone elastomers are versatile materials with high-performance properties making them attractive for a wide range of applications, from consumer products to medical devices, to industrial parts for automotive and manufacturing sectors. There are several processes for manufacturing silicone parts, including casting, injection moulding, and compression moulding. These techniques have design limitations and typically involve reduced design flexibility, long lead times, and high costs. Because it eliminates tooling, reduces labour, and improves flexibility, 3D printing is a powerful solution to help alleviate these challenges. Formlabs is transforming the industry by launching the first accessible 100% silicone printing resin, Silicone 40A Resin
End-use parts production
HGM Automotive Electronics is a specialty manufacturer that designs and supplies leading-edge electronic systems for automotive aftermarket use. Because they work with vintage cars, connectors and other electrical components become challenging to find as the original production of these items phases out.
Soft silicone is commonly used for automotive connector seals. The options for producing these parts are limited. Injection moulding is expensive for low-volume production, and traditional silicone casting is time-consuming. HGM Automotive turned to 3D printing for prototyping and low-volume production because it is the best option to fabricate parts on demand, in house.
With the introduction of Silicone 40A Resin, Guy Cardwell, Director of Research and Development at HGM Automotive Electronics, says they found “exactly the right stuff.”
HGM Automotive succeeded with electrical connectors and therefore explored making custom seals. These seals are hard to find and usually of a low quality when available. Developing them was a challenge due to the lack of a suitably pliable elastomeric material. They considered using an injection mould with soft urethane but the downside is that this mould would cost between £5,000 and £8,250 just to get started. The cost would be justified if they needed 10,000 of these parts, but the reality is a volume between 100 and 1,000 pieces a year. Moreover, once the mould is made, design changes are almost impossible.
For a production volume of 100 units of connector seals, HGM Automotive reduced their costs by 98% and their lead time by 90%.
Cardwell adds: “I remember just handing some sample parts out to the various employees in the company and everybody's jaw just dropped, ‘Wow, how did you do this?’ So, it's exciting for us as a material. And you don't know until you actually use it, to really understand what the future applications are going to be, but I don't anticipate we're going to stop with connectors. There's going to be a bunch of other stuff we do with this. There's just no question in my mind.”
Dorman Products, a manufacturer of aftermarket automotive products, used Silicone 40A to make custom gaskets: reducing lead time from 2 weeks per set to only 3 hours.
Find out more about their success story, and further possible applications with Silicone 40A.
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