Development of Micro-molding and Casting Process Using Ink Jet Printer with Ceramic Slurry

Abstract

  Micro-casting process was developed based on the RP technique using a three dimensional ink jet printer for the fabrication of micro-machine parts as for the final goal of this research. As a substitute of the ink jet printer ink, we prepared a ceramic slurry for fabricating the micro-mold, by mixing 6 volume percent of 0.5μm diameter spherical silica powder in aqua-alcohol solution.

  This printer, equipped with a piezo ink-jet driver, an X-Y stage positioner, controlled by personal computer, and a manual controlled Z stage positioner. The slurry was shot out from an ink jet glass nozzle of 0.1mm inside diameter at 400Hz for the fabrication of ceramic mold without patterns. The fabricated molds were embedded with dental plaster and heated at 700℃ for drying and sintering, then, were cast at 500℃ with Sn-10%Cu alloy at 0.35MPa using a dental casting machine. Micro castings of 5 to 10mm in size, were successfully made by this process.