Video: Periscope Case Shows 3D Printing for Niche Manufacturing
Manufacturing without mold tooling allows the production quantity to be tailored to the market size.
One of the ways 3D printing will transform manufacturing is by enabling nicheyness. This video shows one example. Since the Periscope Case is produced through 3D printing, no investment in mold tooling is needed and the production quantity can be scaled to the market size. Learn much more in our article about the case.
Transcript
Additive will change manufacturing in lots of ways. One of the changes is going to be nichyness. Products can make it to market that never would have been viable before. Here is one we just wrote about: the Periscope case. It lets you use your phone like a GoPro camera, because a periscope mirror changes the angle of the camera. As a result, your phone films along its length; it films while it’s laying flat.
There’s a market for this case, but not a huge one, and in the past a product like this would have needed injection molding. But with 3D printing — and this was done on HP’s multi jet fusion system — with 3D printing, no mold tooling is needed. That changes the economics.
Related Content
-
How to Build 10,000+ Shot Molds in Hours
Rapid tooling isn’t so rapid when it takes days to 3D print a metal mold, and then you still must machine it to reach the necessary tolerances. With Nexa3D’s polymer process you can print a mold in hours that is prototype or production ready and can last for more than 10,000 shots.
-
AM 101: Digital Light Synthesis (DLS)
Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) is the name for Carbon's resin-based 3D printing process. How it works and how it differs from stereolithography.
-
Airless Basketball Shows Promise of 3D Printed Lattices: The Cool Parts Show Bonus
Successfully matching the performance of a standard basketball demonstrates the control possible over the mechanical properties of digital materials.
