week 14

Composites

Design and make a 3D mold
Produce a fiber composite part in it

This week we have to make a 3D model and produce a fiber composite part in it. I'll be design a channel for the LED strip i used in output devices, for test it will be useful for my "Portable product photography studio" final project.

Design and make a 3D mold

For designing i used Rhinoceros, generating the top and bottom molding.

And mechanized in the shopbot with PartWorks 3D.In the images you can see the steps to use PartWorks 3D.

I also mechanize in triplay because when i make my first composites in the foam the pieces were glued together be separated at the time of demolding.

Produce a fiber composite part in it

I tested three differents materials for make my composites; cotton fabric, natural jute and synthetic jute.

The first try, i used car wax as release agent, but in the foam it don't work well, for this reason in the second try i change the car wax to film plast.

I used de resine Pox Bac 1206 and also tint it with the urethane color system of Smooth-on. Decide use white color because it help me to diffuse the LED strip light.

Cotton Fabric-Composites
Natural Jute-Composites
Synthetic Jute-Composites
Comparative Table
Composites Advantage Disadvantage
COTTON FABRIC Best suited to the mold Haven't enough rigidity
NATURAL JUTE Good plastic finish Dificult to tint
SYNTHETIC JUTE (triplay model) Good plastic finish With triplay model don't permit more than 2 layers

Download all files here!

Light Background.3dm
mold1-2.stl