Gallery

About Project

These tiny "soft nails" are made with PolyJet technology and rubber material. This soft elastic rubber has a durometer of 50A to give it a firm surface with a fair amount of pliability. It could be bent easily and return to the former shape quickly.

Solution

The PolyJet process begins by聽spraying small droplets of liquid photopolymers in layers that are instantly UV cured. Voxels (three-dimensional pixels) are strategically placed during the build, which allow for the combination of both flexible and rigid photopolymers know as digital materials.

PolyJet uses a print head equipped with multiple jets to spray tiny droplets of liquid photopolymer 42 microns (0.00167聽in.) across, forming layers just 30 microns (0.00118聽in.) thick. These layers are then rapidly cured by an ultraviolet light source. Support material is printed at the same time, so PolyJet parts are self-supporting. When the build is complete, the part gets a quick bath in a chemical solution, dissolving the supports and leaving surfaces that are smooth and聽accurate.

One of the coolest things about PolyJet is its ability to mimic various polymers, including liquid silicone rubber (LSR) and ABS. What鈥檚 more, those materials can be printed in a range of hardness levels, making PolyJet a perfect choice for prototyping an overmolded electronics case, for example, or a housing cover with a built-in gasket, and doing so in a single build or run of the聽machine.