Rapid prototyping service sets up in South East
1 min read
Manufacturers in the South East are being offered new rapid prototyping facilities by the University of Greenwich.
Engineering staff at the Medway campus in Kent are combining IT expertise with fusion deposition machines, and the university’s Ian Cakebread says that as a result companies will find they can develop new products in days rather than months.
Says Cakebread: “We can make a prototype of a machine part, or a toy for instance, in hours. The manufacturer can take it away, test it, come back to us for fine-tuning and have it in production in days.”
Delphi Diesel Systems’ Technical Centre in Gillingham has used the facility. Its centre manager Paul Charman says: “We have been associated with Greenwich for some time and have recently worked closely on rapid prototyping projects. The availability of a local centre where we can develop models of new components in a few hours is a significant advantage and has allowed us to shorten our own lead times.
“We have used models produced by Greenwich to make aluminium castings for our prototype pumps and these are now on test vehicles throughout Europe.”
Cakebread says: “Before, an engineer would produce drawings of the new product and then a modeller would manufacturer it using conventional machine tools. The development process could last months. Now we can offer local manufacturers not just the machinery but the expertise in IT and engineering to help them develop products quickly and cheaply.”
Companies can either provide CAD files or physical models for scanning to a virtual model. Cakebread says staff will also convert drawings into STL (standard technical language).