Heatsinks for led lighting

April 2010

With the new developments in led lighting, there is an increasing demand for heat sinks.

It is very important to investigate the heat transfer and the functionality of the parts before series production is starting.

 

The heat sinks do also play an important role as housing or as decorative or constructive design part. In that case a great freedom of form and a short delivery time is very important.

 

Recently, protometals has manufactured a variety of aluminium heatsinks for different customers. Not only as a prototype, but also batches for different purposes like exhibitions, marketing and pre production.

 

 

 

Prototyping for lighting industry

January 2010

 

Unfortunately, most nice examples of Protometals’ possibilities can not be shown on this website because they are confidential. This confidentiality sometimes expires when a product has come to market.

 

Picrure of lamp as it is sold now

This is the case for the lamps from the Dutch company Industria. Two years ago Protometals got the order to make some aluminium prototype castings for the lamp housings. The aluminium prototyping was needed for functional testing and exhibition purposes.

Top: Silicon mold with wax model    Down: Aluminium prototype

This order is a nice example of Protometals’ added value for the industrial manufacturer: to make prototypes of aluminium castings without sky-high mould costs and with a short lead time. So the time to market can be shortened.

 

 

 

 

Aluminium prototyping for high pressure die-casting parts

June 2009

 

 

Customers who want to do functional testing before they order a precious die, more and more find their way to Protometals. Not only for one aluminium prototype, but also when a trial or 0-series is wanted.

Last two years Protometals has delivered trial series from 20 to nearly as much as 100 pieces to the following branches: Automotive (passenger cars, trucks an electrical cars), Lighting (housings as well as heatsinks), consumer products, bicycles, industrial design and fittings (locks and hinges)

Protometals can manufacture zinc prototypes in the same way as the aluminium prototypes. The properties of the prototypes are in general good comparable with those of the series product. Those zamak prototypes are often delivered to manufacturers of fittings.

 

 

 

 

 

Prototyping automotive parts

23-08-2006

This example is representative for the use of our investment casting process for prototyping of pressure die cast products. Our customer needed some thin-walled aluminium parts for functional testing. Therefore they sent us the appropriate STL-file of the product. By a rapid prototyping technique called stereolithography, the master model has been made. (Picture left)  The black colour is the master finish of the SLA.

 

From the master we made a silicon form. See right hand picture.  In order to achieve a clean mould without any air inclusions, the silicon and the mould are degassed in a vacuum chamber. The wax models are then made by vacuum casting of molten wax in the silicon mould.

The aluminium parts are then cast by the lost wax casting process. Both the investment and the metal casting process use a vacuum technique. In this way we can make parts which normally spoken only can be made by pressure die casting, without the enormous costs of dies. The left-hand picture shows a wax model together with a cast metal part. The right-hand picture shows the backside of the aluminium prototype. As a finish, the parts have been powder coated.

 

 

 

 

 

New steam organ (calliope) for steamship

2005

It is not a daily order to make a number of different flutes for a steam organ. Because of the complexity of the bases of the flutes, our customer decided to let the bases cast by Protometals.

Because of the flexibility of our silicon moulds, we could arrange the split planes of the moulds in a horizontal way. So the flute base should be vertically seamless, which was very important for the sight. Also the inner part of the flute base had severe undercuts, which was no problem for the silicon mould.  

 

Top picture: The flute bases as we delivered to our customer

Bottom picture: The flutes mounted and nearly finished.