Norck, a leading digital manufacturing company, provides extremely reliable, and top quality rapid prototyping services for a wide range of industries including aerospace, defense, robotics,  industrial, automotive, electronics, energy, hardware, and consumer products. Our team of highly qualified engineers and cutting-edge facilities will provide you with quality products with the quickest turnaround time at a competitive price. Whether you have high volume production projects or rapid prototyping needs, Norck can manage it with the results better than expectations.

Click here to get a quote for your next rapid prototyping projects.

Let’s now give you some insight how Norck manufactures parts with rapid prototyping.

Rapid prototyping is a set of fabrication techniques with a quick turnaround. It helps turn designs into scaled prototypes as close to the designed model. It is used in the preliminary stages of product development.

Rapid prototyping can be used in conceptual models, functional prototypes, tooling, electronics, and medical industries.

The most used techniques for Rapid prototyping are 3D printing, selective laser sintering (SLS), CNC machining, and sheet metal fabrication.

Rapid prototyping is used to:

- Validate the functionality of a part/assembly before launching the mass production

- Demonstrate the aspect and features of a product and gives firsthand user experience

- Reduce the cost of a product by minimizing the time of development and production drastically

Rapid prototyping techniques can be divided into two categories:

- Compressive manufacturing: by forming a base material into a shape such as 3D printing

- Subtracting manufacturing: by removing material such as CNC machining and sheet metal fabrication

Norck offers three types of rapid prototyping, 3D printing, CNC machining, and sheet metal fabrication.

The most used process is 3D printing which is an additive manufacturing process. In 3D printing, there are types such as:

a. Fused deposition modeling (FDM):
FDM is the most popular and most cost-effective of the 3D printing processes. It uses a filament of a thermoplastic material such as PLA AND ABS. The filament passes through a hot nozzle that melts it and using a computer-controlled system, the nozzle moves along two axes and deposits the melted material on a platform. When a whole layer of the desired shape is deposited, the nozzle moves up to deposit the next layer. Once the 3D printed model is finished, it can be removed from the platform, any excess material or burrs is removed, and surfaces are smoothed.

b. Stereolithography (SLA):
SLA 3D printing uses a bath of UV-sensitive liquid resin and an ultraviolet laser beam to solidify the liquid layer by layer. The laser beam is computer controlled. The solid layer is pulled up, and the next layer is processed. Once the 3D printed model is finished, it can be removed from the platform and submerged in isopropyl alcohol to remove any excessive resin. Then the model gets exposed to passive UV light. SLA models are less rigid than FDM printed models.

c. Selective laser sintering (SLS):
It uses a laser to sinter a bed of powder-based materials (Metal, resin, or polymer) to turn the powder into solid products. Materials used in SLS are more fragile than those used in FDM or SLA. Printed models can be finished using sanding, polishing, or spray coating. SLA parts have higher accuracy and smoother surfaces than SLS and FDM.

Comparison between the four techniques can help you narrow your choice, or contact us to get more information:

Parts and assemblies should follow specific design rules to be cut properly. Norck offers engineering services that will help you confirm your design for 3D printing.

CNC machining designates a subtractive process in which operations like milling, turning, and drilling is performed to produce the designed parts by removing layers of material from the primitive material shapes. The advantage of traditional machining is that CNC machining uses computer-controlled machines, which means more accuracy, higher fabrication speed, and low labor cost.

Refer to the CNC machining and Design rules for further information.