In this job we were tasked with reverse engineering a punch and place mechanism and retrofitting it to an old machine. The previous design of this mechanism relied on being able to gun drill down the center of the rod of a large cylinder so that a smaller cylinder could act co axially through the centre of the larger cylinder. It also required that that smaller cylinder be gun drilled in a similar fashion to allow a vacuum line to pass coaxially through that.

Although this would be perfectly possible to achieve this would be both expensive to machine and tricky to keep the larger cylinder air tight while having another cylinder rod acting through it.

Instead, we decided to consolidate all the complexity into one 3D printed part (shown in red). The design freedom that 3d printing gives us allowed us to manufacture a part that was able to “snake” in through the side of the tool in order to position itself where it needed to be. We were then able to design a pneumatic line through the printed part. 

The printed part was manufactured from carbon fiber reinforced nylon and cost only £35 to make. The cost savings were able to be passed on to the customer.

In recent planned maintenance the part was inspected after being cycled 15,000 times. The printed part had shown no signs of fatigue.