Common resin for pacifiers? 8

[Theophilus]

Here's another project in which I need to work with resins with which I'm not familiar. I'm working on a pacifier design in which the nipple will be formed with a sort of silicone, but I'll also have some molded hard plastic parts. I think I can find the silicone grade (although help on this would be great), but I'm wondering what to use for the harder structural parts. These need to be bonded to one another (hard piece to hard piece) with solvent or adhesive and will need to withstand high temperatures (boiling in water, dishwasher heat, etc.).

Any ideas which direction to move? I'll need something that's food-grade (minimally) and don't know what sorts of restrictions of which to be aware regarding solvents/adhesives for the rigid structural members.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[Pud]

Jeff,

How's the widget design/production(!) going?


Cheers


Harry

 

[Theophilus]

Great, so far. We've simplified the design concepts and will soon choose one to develop into production-engineered pieces. We'll get some prototypes in similar materials to test and then move toward tooling. With so many other projects on my plate, this will probably not be wrapped up until a month from now.

Thanks for asking!



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[Demon3]

You mentioned prototypes. That made me think that I should mention that Stratasys have machines (called Titan I believe) that can make prototypes from polyphenylsulfone, polycarbonate or ABS.


There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
- James Branch Cabell

 

[Theophilus]

Hey, that's cool--I hadn't heard they had those sorts of materials available (only ABS). We'll probably need to create a master for the silicone part, create a mold (RTV) and then cast parts in a silicone from that mold. For the plastic bits, I may use a new SLA resin that resembles polycarbonate for the "hard" pieces (nice resolution with this machine/material).



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[dgowans]

Jeff,

Regarding prototyping, you may want to check out

http://www.redeyerpm.com

if you don't already have a relationship with a bureau that can do the PPSF / PC materials. I've used them and wouldn't hesitate to do so again.

 

[Theophilus]

Thanks--I haven't used or heard of them before, but I'll check them out. I do a lot of work with folks locally, but since we're about to move out of state, I'll open up my options a bit.

I like that they have the SolidWorks plug-in for getting quotes and placing orders--might be quite handy.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.