JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #111 - March 2017 - Special JEC World - o - 44

MANUFACTURlNG 3D printing

Manufacturing tools using
large-scale additive manufacturing systems

JASON SUSNJARA
Vice President of Marketing
Thermwood Corp.

In various industries, the biggest issue with tools, moulds, masters, plugs and fixtures can be the process of producing them. High
material costs, time and labour are just some of the problems with
producing industrial tooling.
3D printing tools using a mix of thermoplastic pellets with carbon
fibre can now be used on a manufacturing level.

ducing large tools, this filament method
does not work (and metal is too slow).

he evolution of the 3D printer has
reached enormous potential over
the last 10 years. Printing plastics,
metals and even food for multiple purposes has been a major focus in many industries. After researching with multiple
composite companies, it became clear that
the production of tools, moulds and masters almost always has a huge cost in both
labour and materials.
As a manufacturer of CNC routers for over
40 years with a background in thermoforming and injection moulding, the step
into 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) initially seemed easy for Thermwood
Corp. After purchasing an extruder to use
with 80% ABS and 20% carbon fibre, a
dryer system and a few other items, the
company started to print. However, it took
two years of testing, development and numerous ideas and changes, until they finally arrived at a superior method of 3D printing tools for the aerospace, automotive,
boating and foundry industries: LSAM
(large-scale additive manufacturing).
Methods that some of the smaller 3D printers use combine filaments that are heated
and laid upon each other until a part is
formed to the final shape. This works well
in smaller applications, and shows promise
to improve over time. However, when pro-

LSAM printing software
On the software side, producing programs
for 3D printers to create a bigger bead size
sounds great and wonderful but there is actually not a single piece of software on the
market for this size of bead. Thermwood's
LSAM Print3d software utility operates
within Mastercam and is used to generate
the CNC print program. Because of the
larger bead size, a "near-net-shape" approach is used for printing. In this approach,
parts are printed layer by layer to a size that
is slightly larger than needed. The software
must not only accommodate relatively larger bead sizes, whose size can be dynamically
changed by programming, but also print to
a size that provides sufficient trim stock for
the final machining process. As with other
smaller 3D printers, the system does not re-

Thermwood LSAM Printing Solid Structure

jec composites magazine / No111 March 2017

Thermwood LSAM servo-controlled compression wheel

quire only STL files (stereolithography) but
can use a multitude of standard solid, surface
or mesh file formats.
LSAM printing process
The printing process consists in heating carbon fibre-reinforced thermoplastic material
until it is soft and pliable. The additive head
then lays a continuous bead layer by layer
until the part shape has been generated. The

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #111 - March 2017 - Special JEC World - o