3D printing for automated equipment

DeWys Engineering, is a Michigan-based company with a staff of designers with years of practical experience in designing custom-built automated equipment for sectors ranging from automotive and aerospace to agriculture and forestry.

DEWys Engineering has begun to establish a strong business relationship with many manufacturing companies, helping them with design and engineering work. In addition to design services for companies, DE has begun to offer 3D laser scanning services to support customers’ efforts in reverse engineering and part inspection.

DeWys Engineering is located in the same building as its sister company, Forerunner 3D printing. As a result, DE is able to offer its customers not only 3D laser scanning and engineering services, but also 3D printed parts using SLA, FDM, SLS, CLIP and Metal Printing, as well as rapid investment casting models.

Into to 3D technology

DeWys Engineering, needed a tool to attach to the end of the arm of one of their automated equipment and this had to be designed and built quickly. After careful consideration of the tool requirements and the various options available for manufacturing the boom end components, the solution was 3D technology. In fact, to produce some of the most cumbersome and tortuous parts of the tool arm end, it was concluded that the potential of 3D printing would lead to a better solution.

The new 3D grippers have been printed in Nylon with the HP Multi Jet Fusion 4200. This has resulted in very robust, wear-resistant parts that can withstand temperatures of up to 300 degrees Celsius. At the end of the test it was found that the final version of the new part at the end of the arm would use as many 3D Multi Jet Fusion components as possible, in fact thanks to the excellent functioning of the test parts, the lower cost and the shorter delivery times compared to traditional production, such as CNC and EDM equipment.

3D Printed Nesting Detail

After this first test, DeWys Engineering’s designers started thinking about using 3D printing as the best solution for automated equipment. Over time, they have continued to test many other applications for using 3D printing for automated equipment, and here are some examples of their success:

These 3D-printed nesting details are perfect for parts that have complex geometries and need to be safely preserved while the automated machine performs other tasks such as:

• clip guide,
• degradation,
• inspection, etc.

These 3D molded nests can achieve an accuracy of +/-,010″ over a length of 6 inches and the reference holes used to place the nest on the machine can be molded directly into the part. The use of 3D molded nests to contain “A” class parts is also a possibility when one of these nests is combined with a process called flooking which will prevent the nest from scratching the part when it is loaded into it.

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