For the majority of our customers the prototyping phase is only the beginning of the journey towards production.  A word of caution if you are using aluminum tooling (soft tooling) for your prototypes then the journey starts anew once you head into the development of “hard tooling”.  However, if you had used SICAM’s Bridge Tooling the move towards production is a smooth transition.

In a perfect world, every mold would be built and the first shots would be ready for production. Yet as anyone who has designed products, built tooling or purchased molded parts knows it is never that simple. Changes are going to occur during at some point and modifications will be required.

The STL file format has become recognized as the standard for RP machines. Note that STL files are produced by CAD systems that are based on surface and/or solid modeling only. 2-Dimensional and Wireframe CAD systems do not output STL files.