The purpose of the research presented in this paper is to investigate the capability of a soft tooling process chain employing Additive Manufacturing (AM) for preproduction of an insert with micro features by injection moulding. The Soft Tooling insert was manufactured in a high temperature photopolymer by Digital Light Processing (vat photopolymerization). The mold cavity was formed by two insert halves, by design; both inserts have four angled tines, with micro holes (Ø200 µm, 200 µm deep) on the surface. Injection molding with polyethylene was used with the soft tool inserts to manufacture the final production components. The diameter and height of the pillars that were replicated on the molded components were characterized by means of a 3D profilometer. The influence of the injection molding parameters on the replication was evaluated using a 2-levels DOE of three factors. The uniformity of the pillars are also evaluated regarding the diameter and height.

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The purpose of this paper is to present the method of a soft tooling process chain employing Additive Manufacturing (AM) for fabrication of injection molding inserts with micro surface features. The Soft Tooling inserts are manufactured by Digital Light Processing (vat photo polymerization) using a photopolymer that can withstand relatively high temperaturea. The part manufactured here has four tines with an angle of 60°. Micro pillars (Ø200 µm, aspect ratio of 1) are arranged on the surfaces by two rows. Polyethylene (PE) injection molding with the soft tooling inserts is used to fabricate the final parts. This method demonstrates that it is feasible to obtain injection-molded parts with microstructures on complex geometry by additive manufactured inserts. The machining time and cost is reduced significantly compared to conventional tooling processes based on computer numerical control (CNC) machining. The dimensions of the micro features are influenced by the applied additive manufacturing process. The lifetime of the inserts determines that this process is more suitable for pilot production. The precision of the inserts production is limited by the additive manufacturing process as well.