Omegasonics has upgraded its ultrasonic cleaning equipment. According to the Californian company, the equipment would make 3D printed prototypes faster and more precise.
The ultrasonic cleaning requires the use of ultrasound (typically 20 to 40 kHz) to agitate a fluid. The process can be used with water only, but using a solvent appropriate to the object to be cleaned and the type of soil present enhances the effect.
In this case, the materials used to make the parts often include plastics such as ABS or nylon, but it may also, depending on the machine, use metal.
Once some very technical parts are printed, they require careful preparation and cleaning. This officially manual process can be laborious and require heated circulation washers to clean the parts, which can take up to 24 hours for larger parts.
Newly developed ultrasonic cleaning technology from Omegasonics reduces this 24 hour turnaround time to allow customers to get their parts printed faster without sacrificing quality. This is done through a cleaning process that removes materials from the support structure of ABS, Polycarbonate, Nylon 12, and PCABS, among others.
In addition to returning products faster, ultrasonic technology d’Omegasonics also aims to allow customers to focus on the next step in their manufacturing process. This is possible because ultrasound technology requires a fraction of the previous labor costs, allowing those resources to be allocated elsewhere.
This updated ultrasound technology is part of a larger plan to support its customers in 2021. The company will also launch several new product offerings to remove soluble support materials from FDM-made parts, which will speed up cleaning times. and reduce warping, as well as a thermal dyeing station for 3D thermoplastic products that reduces dyeing times.
Armen Boyajyan, Product Finishing Manager, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, shared his experience working with Omegasonics. ” It used to take a whole day to manually remove the backing material from some 3D parts. Now we just put the parts in the ultrasonic cleaner and do something else while they are being cleaned. After three hours we have nice clean rooms.”
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