EnvisionTEC and Covestro Collaborate on 3D Printing Applications

EnvisionTEC and Covestro have announced their collaboration on material + printer solutions to accelerate adoption of industrial 3D printing. Together, the two companies aim to lower the entry barriers for companies looking to adopt 3D printing for producing molds for low volumes or parts with detailed features faster and more economically.

The combination of Covestro material expertise and EnvisionTEC printer technology resulted in a complete industrial manufacturing solution for 3D printing injection mold tooling. Until now, no solution was available that met the stringent industry-required properties in dimensional stability and minimal warpage.

The material formulation from e-PerFORM, optimized for EnvisionTEC’s equipment, brings the benefits of Somos PerFORM to a faster, more economical printer technology.

This tool used for injection molding glass-filled nylon gears is 3D printed on EnvisionTEC’s Perfactory P4K series printer using the e-PerFORM resin. Image courtesy of Business Wire.

To bring customers a workable and demonstrated material+printer solution, EnvisionTEC and Covestro optimized print parameters and verified Covestro’s new DLP resin e-PerFORM on EnvisionTEC’s Perfactory P4K series printer. EnvisionTEC further tested e-PerFORM resin with key molding institutes to validate the material’s performance.

Completed mold trials demonstrate that e-PerFORM resin, with high stiffness and high temperature performance, behaves similarly to stereolithography resin Somos PerFORM for injection molding tooling.

Tests Confirm Suitability for Rapid Mold Making

Tests done by Polyvia, the French Federation of Plastics and Composites, confirm the suitability for rapid tooling.

"We tested the new e-PerFORM resin printed on the EnvisionTEC P4K printer and demonstrated that we could achieve very good results in part fidelity and in the number of shots molded in both polypropylene and glass-reinforced nylon," says Guy Chrétien, process project manager at Polyvia. "With the cost effectiveness and print speed of the P4k platform and with the properties of the e-PerFORM resin, this creates additional opportunities for rapid tooling." 

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.