3-D printed tooling project bands together technology and design

Detroit — Continuing its effort to connect with the industrial design community, PolyOne Corp. returns this year to the annual conference of the Industrial Designers Society of America with a new project showcasing how manufacturing feasibility can be tested with 3-D printed plastic tooling.

The material supplier is exhibiting thermoplastic elastomer Apple Watch bands, injection molded using 3-D printed acrylic mold inserts, during the IDSA's annual conference in Detroit, Aug. 18-20. The project, from PolyOne's in-house industrial design group IQ Design Labs, was designed to better understand how 3-D printing technology can be used to help PolyOne's customers during the product development process.

Leading the watch band project was Brian Everett, associate design director of IQ Design Labs.

“We knew that we had a printer that had the capability in-house to make those molds, so we set out to test it,” Everett said, adding that TPE was selected because it flows well and has a low mold temperature. “Our end goal is to also eventually use this in our process for prototyping products for people.”

After initial plans to print the watch band itself from TPE didn't prove feasible, the team shifted to printing a mold for injection molding. They tested the idea by copying an existing mold for a sample chip, and were successfully able to mold various grades of TPE materials. The mold for the watch band was printed on a 3D Systems Projet 5500X, the design optimized so the more fragile acrylic wouldn't fracture during the molding process. A few different grades of TPE were processed using a dry film mold release and the team moved forward with the best result.

Everett sees advantages in using the technology to produce something as close as possible to the final product and seek feedback with a real-world item.

“I think there's a lot of people that get so cornered into 3-D printing,” he said. “They see it as a solution-driven aspect, whereas just because you can 3-D print something doesn't mean you can mold it or even create it. So it's very critical to keep your head kind of grounded and understand what the ultimate manufacturing process will be.”

Everett said he's seen the design community pay increased attention in recent years to better understanding the manufacturing process, and more manufacturers reaching out to designers. That idea of comprehensive knowledge is at the core of IQ Design Labs.

“[The watch band project] helped us learn a lot of things. But it's also a good way to understand what your customers have at their fingertips before they invest in final tooling and have to go down that path of spending a lot of money to see their first iteration,” Everett said. “And of course production material isn't really truly available within 3-D printing at this time, so replicating it with the 3-D printed tool gives a better way to test multiple designs and select one that you want for using in your production vs. what's available on your 3-D printer.

“It's just a better advantage for everyone overall if they understand the products you're designing for, what are the materials, how's it going to be made. Understanding all that from the beginning is pretty powerful.”

PolyOne has exhibited at IDSA's annual conference for more than 10 years, part of that time as GLS, a company PolyOne purchased in 2008. Russell Danielson, industry manager of PolyOne's consumer division, said the company's aim has been to showcase the variety of materials available within the plastics family, especially as PolyOne is a formulator of specialty products.

“The most important thing is making sure the designers are aware of what's available,” he said. “Yeah, we want to make sure people are aware there's hard plastic, there's soft plastic — but really the possibilities are endless, and we want to make sure designers know that when they're designing products that they don't have to stay confined to their current ideas of what plastic can and can't do.”