3D Printed Tooling, Jigs, and Fixtures

Manufacturers today are under immense pressure when it comes to economically producing and delivering new products. Jigs, fixtures, and tooling are vital components of the conventional manufacturing processes. Custom-made jigs guide and control essential machining tools, while fixtures hold the machined component firmly in place. These components work together to ensure accuracy and reproducibility during manufacturing.

LuxCreo offers an integrated solution with industrial-grade 3D printers, industry-leading resins, and intuitive software that reduces the cost of creating highly complex and accurate tooling, jigs, and fixtures while eliminating multiple barriers in getting a final product to market.

Augmenting Manufacturing with 3D Printed Tooling, Jigs, and Fixtures

Created from some of the best tough resins on the market, jigs, fixtures, and tooling designed using LuxCreo’s integrated smart factory 3D printers are highly accurate and durable. When incorporated into a manufacturing line, 3D printed tooling, jigs, and fixtures provide various production benefits. 3D printing offers increased customizability and geometric complexity, making the final product far superior to traditionally created parts.

Tooling

Unlike traditional manufacturing, 3D printing allows for unique and complex designs in the creation of tools without the need for extensive planning or time-consuming labor. 3D printed tooling provides several advantages as compared to traditional tooling manufacturing, including:

  • Provides digital design which enables rapid iteration of highly accurate molds without the need for additional labor
  • Introduces mold innovation and the ability to create durable, disposable molds for injection molding and thermoforming
  • Creates uniquely textured, elastic end-of-arm tooling with complex designs that can grip products easily without damaging them
  • Rapidly produce composite molds with smooth surface finishes and complex geometries, which are unattainable in traditional manufacturing

Jigs

Additive manufacturing creates jigs faster with increased design capabilities and access to optimized materials well-suited for jig production. By eliminating the need for extensive planning, highly skilled labor, and specialized tooling required for conventional methods, 3D printing presents the following advantages to jig creation:

  • Creates jigs for highly specific operations within a day, unlike the days to weeks required for traditional processes.
  • Consolidates multi-part configurations into a single layout to print one individual piece instead of multiple pieces that must be manually assembled.
  • Uses more flexible materials, without sacrificing durability.
  • Significantly reduces material waste for increased sustainability and reduced cost.
  • Creates durable jigs that can withstand an industrial environment without damaging machine tooling.

Fixtures

Streamlining the production process with additive manufacturing offers the following advantages to printing fixtures:

  • Creates easily customizable, ergonomic fixtures for highly specialized production applications
  • Uses industry-leading materials to print lightweight designs without compromising functionality or durability
  • Lowers production time to eliminate manufacturing delays and accelerate product release
  • Reduces the production cost of accurate fixtures by eliminating the need for highly specialized labor and materials associated with CNC milling

LuxCreo’s Unrivaled 3D Printing Solutions 

LuxCreo’s high throughput industrial Smart Factory 3D printers allow manufacturers to scale easily and meet changing market demand.

iLux Pro

The iLux series consists of integrated smart factory desktop 3D printers with industry-leading printing speeds. These compact printers are powerful enough to create the same appliances as the Lux 3+ series but can be used for smaller in-house machining production.

The iLux Pro 3D printer prints high viscosity materials to support functional prototyping and production. It offers a slightly larger build platform and prints at a higher resolution. The jigs and fixtures printed through SLA 3D printing are highly isotropic and viscous, displaying stronger XYZ properties and have high dimensional accuracy. This eliminates the need for finishing, polishing, and smoothing the parts (post-processing steps that prolong the manufacturing process).

Compared to anisotropic and heavier FDM prints, the isotropic SLA-printed parts behave more similarly to their injection-molded counterparts. LuxCreo’s patented LEAP platform and Smart Factory services bring all these advantages to desktop 3D printers. With iLux Pro and LuxCreo’s high-performance resins, smaller businesses can manufacture jigs and fixtures in a cost-effective way with lower price points.

Lux 3+ Series

The Lux 3+ series 3D printers offer flexible, high-volume production for small and large manufacturing companies. The printer’s large format enables large volume production of multiple appliances in a single print — allowing labs to scale up production when needed quickly and achieve production agility and speed never seen before.

The Lux 3+ printer is a large-format 3D printer that offers fast and accurate high-performance tooling, jigs, and fixtures. The printer has a build volume of 11.5 in (293 mm) x 6.5 in (165 mm).  It's suitable for prototyping and production.

The Lux 3Li+ printer is the newest industrial production 3D printer that offers fast and accurate printing of high-performance tooling, jigs, and fixtures. It has a build volume of 15.1 in (384 mm) x 8.5 in (216 mm). It's suitable for prototyping and production.

Integrated Smart Factories

Compared to both in-house 3D printing and traditional manufacturing, LuxCreo’s integrated Smart Factories offer flexible, agile, and distributed production capacities on-demand and at scale. Smart Factories simplify manufacturing and easily support both low- and high-volume production. Designers gain access to a network of cloud-connected 3D printers, multiple options of high-performing resins, and the ability to quickly and accurately produce design iterations for rapid prototyping at a local facility. After finalizing designs, manufacturers retain control over production scaling and can easily implement full-scale production without additional tooling costs or redesign setbacks.

Benefits of 3D Printing Tooling, Jigs, and Fixtures

Using 3D printing solutions for tooling, jig, and fixture creation upgrade conventional manufacturing methods and helps expand production capacity. 3D printing offers the following advantages to creating support tools:

High Precision

3D printing produces objects with extremely high dimensional accuracy and precision. Jigs and fixtures must match the geometry of the parts they’re designed to work with. 3D printing offers the level of accuracy required to produce highly detailed surfaces and precise feature locations to ensure jigs can adequality guide tools that are durable enough to secure products without damage.

Production Efficiency

3D printing tooling, jigs, and fixtures offer a streamlined, efficient production process that creates high-performing products. It eliminates material waste, minimizes labor requirements, and greatly reduces production time. These advancements lower machining costs for more economical processes with environmentally friendly benefits. It also increases usability by creating lightweight, ergonomic products that augment productivity.

LuxCreo’s Materials and Software

LuxCreo offers industry-leading resins and intuitive software that helps manufacturing companies leverage innovative designs and product performance. Combining our resins and software with LuxCreo’s smart factory 3D printers introduces exceptional printing speed and agility without sacrificing quality.

Materials

LuxCreo's high-performance resins provide exceptional mechanical properties, including toughness, resilience, flexibility, and stiffness. The strong mechanical properties of LuxCreo resins reduce post-processing waste and increase output without increasing costs. Their benefits range from easily controlled model size to fast component molding, excellent resolution, and more.

Learn more about LuxCreo’s high-performing resins

Software

LuxCreo's software streamlines the design process without compromising accuracy or control. LuxFlow, LuxAlign, and LuxGen allow LuxCreo’s Smart Factory 3D printers to work more efficiently and intuitively, whether they are used in a smart factory setting or an individualized in-house production process. Our software allows for high customizability, high throughput, and high yield at a large scale.

Learn more about LuxCreo’s highly intuitive software 

Upgrade Your Machining Workflow With LuxCreo

LuxCreo offers industry-leading materials and integrated printing solutions capable of manufacturing industrial-strength products without the cost, and time, or quality constraints. Seamlessly implement additive manufacturing for tooling, jigs, and fixtures to improve existing manufacturing processes. Companies can also easily transition scaling processes and implement high-mix, low-volume manufacturing of highly customizable products. Whether utilizing our proprietary Smart Factories or industrial-grade printers for in-house production, companies can streamline production and reduce manufacturing costs to optimize ROI.

LuxCreo's integrated smart factory 3D printing products and services offer a versatile and agile production process to accelerate market entry. To learn more about the benefits of our Smart Factory cloud-connected 3D printers, materials, and software and how they can work for you, contact us or call (650) 336-0888