The development of a direct metallic rapid prototyping system

Rapid Tooling (RT) refers to the rapid creation of molds in much the same way as Rapid Prototyping which means the rapid creation of models. Rapid Prototyping is a method that offers both designers and manufacturers some advantages such as time compression and cost reduction. In recent years, Rapid Tooling has become more important because of the requirement of rapid manufacturing. Rapid Tooling can be used to produce temporary mold, even permanent mold in mass production. Rapid Tooling makes more benefit from design stage to mass production. The objective of this paper is to develop a metallic Rapid Prototyping System and form a complete set of important parameters of laser cladding. The software technique includes slicing algorithm with bucket sorting and tool path generation algorithm. The hardware architecture includes 500 W Nd-YAG laser, metallic powder feeder, coaxial nozzle, shielding gas (Ar) supply system, CNC milling system and linear planar motor based working table. The system controller is a PC-based control system which includes 3-axis AC servo motor driver and I/O control card. The system control software is written by Visual Basic language. The prototype system has been constructed and demonstrated.