Technical Papers
Liquid Silicon Rubber Molding: High or Low Viscosity—Which is right for your program?
The first example of silicone rubber was produced as early as 1872. The substance
was very viscous oil, developed by reacting diethoxydiethysilane with water and trace
amounts of acids. The first commercial grades were produced in 1943, only high-consistency rubbers (HCRs), by the Dow Chemical Company, with many other companies
following shortly after. It was not until the late1970's that a "pumpable" silicone rubber
was developed and available to fabricators. Since then, LSR's have continued to evolve
and have surpassed use of HCRs for injection molding. Liquid Silicone Rubber has come
a long way and today, is utilized by a variety of industries, from automotive to medical.
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Comparative Analysis of Current SLA Resins
Rapid prototyping service bureaus are often the first to hear the new marketing claims
of the resin suppliers, all claiming to offer the latest and greatest resins. They all sound
great at the onset, but many resins don't quite live up to the marketing claims. At the
same time, you as a customer count on rapid prototyping service bureaus to be experts
at Stereolithography, and frequently ask your rapid prototyping provider to make SLA
resin recommendations for your applications.
And so it's of vital importance that a real-life, objective test be developed. A test used
to learn about the relative performances of the resins, so recommendations based on
personal experience, rather than the hearsay of a resin salesman, or numbers on a spec
sheet. Following are the results of the test we developed.
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