APPLICATION

What is jigs & fixtures?

The terms of “jig” and “fixture” are always used together as jigs & fixtures, which is referred to a kind of manufacturing aids or tools that help facilitating production. The main difference is that jigs are used to guide the tool, while fixtures are used to locate the tool.

It is basically necessary to use jigs & fixtures in manufacturing process. Traditionally, they are made of metal like steel or bronze by CNC machining. Because the materials, used to made jigs & fixtures, are required to be hardened to resist tear and wear. So, normally jigs & fixtures are quite expensive to fabricate and heavy.

What is the advantages of 3D printed Polycarbonate jigs & fixtures?

But now, 3D printing technology offers a new solution to make customized jigs & fixtures in real time and at a low cost. And the polycarbonate is a suitable material that can meet the rigid requirements of jigs & fixtures.
Utilizing polycarbonate 3D printing solution will help minimize tool development time, reducing development cost and giving freedom to print customized light-weight jigs & fixtures.

Schneider Electric is the leading company in electric industry globally with a long history, and it has a wide diversification of products. 

In manufacturing process, Schneider needs a large amount of jigs and fixtures. By 3D printing the jigs and fixtures, Schinder electric can produce more lightweight jigs which are easily transported around the factory floor. With customized pneumatic clamps in high demand for its non-standard machines. But making customized pneumatic clamps usually takes a lot of time which is ineffective for manufacturing.

After thorough research and investigations, Schneider decided to adopting 3D printing technology to make jigs and fixtures with polycarbonate. And then, the engineers started to use 3D printers to make and check the produced jigs and fixtures quickly with hardly any cost. At the same time, the printed parts usually have a better integration structure which makes the jigs & fixtures perform better. And the designing and testing process becomes much easier and more efficient.

PC material that has a high strength can tolerant the temperature as high as 110°C, the made parts can be used for a long term for non-standard machine.

The pneumatic clamps printed using PC materials. They are easy to install, and their strength is way beyond Schneider’s expectation.