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Additive Manufacturing 22 MoldMaking Technology —— MARCH 2018 By Christina Fuges Images courtesy of Avante Technology, LLC. This proprietary, high-precision desktop 3D printer has automatic print bed contour profiling and spring-loaded pins to measure the exact height of 25 points on the print bed. B ob Zollo believes we have been doing it all wrong: using the wrong materials, building inaccurate machines and improperly designing parts for additive manufacturing (AM). Rather than selecting these parameters from existing options, Zollo has actively developed 3D printing materials, technology and design guidelines specifically for 3D-printed injection molds. Zollo is a founder and CEO of Avante Technology LLC (Cheyenne, Wyoming), which focuses on assisting companies seeking to incorporate desktop fused depo- sition modeling (FDM) 3D printing as part of their process. He started out as a field application engineer for Pfizer's industrial division, developing custom proprietary plastic formulations. He then launched a design and integration firm focused on custom projects for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in business-to-busi- ness and business-to-consumer industries, which has been in business for 26 years. One such project in 2012 involved an OEM customer looking to get into build- ing desktop 3D printers. Zollo was asked to develop the controller and software stack for the machine. Before he began the project, he recommended a technical audit of their machine design as well as others on the market to see if their expectations were realistic. The audit revealed 22 issues related to the quality and precision of the part produced, of which the most glaring was materials. Democratizing 3D Printing of Injection Molds Full-service design and mold delivery, moldmaking materials and a low-cost, high-precision printer minimize the technical risk of 3D-printed mold tryout. "Back then, there were limited material choices. For exam- ple, PLA, ABS and a little bit of nylon were available, none of which were exactly the materials typically used to produce precise extrusions or useful parts," Zollo says. So, he decided to recommend new materials with better mechanical and print- ing performance. The customer said, "It's only plastic; what's the big deal?" And that was his "eureka" moment.