Optics 3D Printing
Optical 3D Printing is a new business area for Elimold. We offer rapid prototyping and volume manufacturing of optical design and lighting optics for lighting design and engineering. From CAD to optics, in one step, we offer prototypes and volume manufacturing of fully functional optical plastics in a short time frame without the burden of expensive upfront tooling and minimum order quantities! Contact us now for a free instant quote.
Professional Optical 3D Printing Services
Optical 3D printing technology has evolved from prototyping to production. Elimold understands the needs of both areas. From early product development to functional finished parts, you can be assured of your choice of materials and technologies, and we will use them to take your parts to the next level. Whether you need to showcase a prototype design sample, or make some minor modifications to the design before manufacturing the final product, finding the right optical 3D printing service company is the best solution. At Elimold, we offer optical 3D model printing services and optical 3D printed prototype services to ensure that your part design meets the standards of the best matching additive manufacturing technology used to produce it. Since prototyping can be an iterative process, having a knowledgeable 3D printing and design service as an extension of your process can really help you deliver the final product. We offer high-quality custom 3D printing services, as well as the expertise we use to build your parts using best practices for your specific files. We have a range of cutting-edge 3D printing technologies from leading manufacturers, allowing us to print a variety of parts from flexible polyurethanes to rigid optical products, and provide vivid color multi-print prototypes and 3D printed metal services. These options give us as a 3D printing services company the flexibility to meet the unique needs of each customer application.
Optical 3D Printing Manufacturer
Elimold is one of the companies in the world that can provide 3D printing services for optically transparent products. We use revolutionary additive manufacturing technology to manufacture optical components such as microstructures, arrays, prisms, and free-form lenses. 3D printed plastic optics are ideal for lighting, photovoltaics, and prototyping applications. 3D printed optics have several advantages over traditionally manufactured optics. They do not require upfront tooling investment, can manufacture complex geometries, have no minimum quantity requirements, and can easily improve designs through multiple production iterations. And, 3D printed plastic optics are ideal for photovoltaic applications (such as Fresnel lenses), biometric applications (such as micro-optics, micro-lenses, and lens arrays), and their size can reach 380 mm x 200 mm and thickness of 20 mm.
Design Innovation for Optical Products
Advances in optical 3D printing technology have improved high-volume product customization, replacing the complex and lengthy prototyping cycles required for traditional manufacturing. Optical 3D printing can rapidly produce highly detailed and complex functional optical product prototypes for testing, eliminating expensive tooling and assembly costs before large numbers of SKU are produced. Tool-free support allows experimentation with unique aesthetic and functional design parameters, with micron-level accuracy on prototypes and final products. Digital scanning and advanced 3D printing enable highly custom optical products with a high surface finish for both low-volume and high-volume production.
Optical Additive Manufacturer
Elimold is a global additive manufacturing company specializing in optical 3D printing. Our proprietary manufacturing methods enable the rapid creation of custom optical prototypes for use in lighting system design and engineering, temporary events, and interior spaces in multi-market applications. Based in Shenzhen, China, Elimold’s 3D printing manufacturing technology for 3D printed custom optics is a fast, flexible, and cost-effective method to deliver custom optics in a matter of days. The optics we print can be used in real-world applications or as functional demonstrations. Our manufactured optics are smooth and fully functional, printed straight from the 3D printer with no post-polishing required. Optical design services are available upon request, as well as finishing of the surface with a variety of decorative or technical performance coatings and photometric measurements.
Optics from Design to Delivery
Optical Design
Structural Design
Process Optimization
Manufacturing
Characterization
3D Printed Optics
Our 3D printing technology allows for smooth and fully functional optical plastics to be printed directly from a 3D printer. Our optical 3D printing service is a method for rapid custom optical prototyping and volume manufacturing. Speed, cost-effectiveness and flexibility are the key drivers behind our process. We make it so that large upfront investments in tooling and inventory (and the minimum order quantities associated with them) are no longer a constraint on rapid iterative product development. Elimold’s optical 3D printing technology helps you get inspired and fully functional custom optics in days without the need for physical tooling. Now new products can be quickly prepared, demonstrated and iterated before taking the final step of production tooling.
Rapid Prototyping of 3D Printed Optics
Anyone seeking fast, flexible, and cost-effective custom optical prototypes and pre-series products can take advantage of the unique advantages offered by digital optical processing. Whether validating your digital design, predicting or justifying your tooling investment, or impressing your marketing team or customers, custom 3D printed optics can be delivered in just a few days. We offer 3D printing services for custom optical components that can embed sensing, display, and lighting elements directly into the housing or mechanical structure of interactive devices.
Ready to start your next optical 3D printing project?
3D printed micro-optics
Another strength of Elimold is the design, development and manufacturing of unique 3D printed micro-optical components and systems. Our technology allows manufacturing on a variety of substrates, including glass or silicon wafers, fiber tips, image sensors and LED. We offer the complete process chain, from the idea of a micro-optical system to the delivery of an optimized finished product, including series production, all under one roof. With many years of experience in 3D printing micro-optical components, we have a deep understanding of the challenges and huge possibilities of 3D printed micro-optical systems.
Rapid Prototyping of Custom Optics
We offer a 3D printing method for custom optical components for interactive devices. Sensing, display and lighting components can be embedded directly into the housing or mechanical structure of an interactive device. Using these components, unique display surfaces, novel lighting technologies, custom optical sensors and embedded optoelectronic components can be digitally manufactured to enable rapid, high-fidelity, highly custom interactive devices. Printed optics are part of our long-term vision to 3D print entire interactive devices.
Anyone seeking fast, flexible and cost-effective custom optical prototypes and pre-series products can take advantage of the unique advantages provided by Elimold’s digital optical processing. Whether validating your digital design, predicting or justifying your tooling investment, or impressing your marketing team or customers, custom optics can be delivered in just a few days.
Our Manufacturing Services
Elimold offers best-in-class manufacturing capabilities, ideal for rapid prototyping and custom production orders. With our own facilities and extensive manufacturing network, we are able to efficiently deliver complex, high-quality parts.
Stereolithography (SLA)
Selective Laser Sintering(SLS)
PolyJet
Multi Jet Fusion (MJF)
Digital Light synthesis(DLS)
Fused DepositionModeling (FDM)
Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS)
P3 technology (DLP)
Solidscape (wax deposition)
Digital 3D Printing and Injection Molding of Optical Components
Elimold’s optical 3D printing service is digital throughout the process, allowing for full flexibility and on-demand ordering, eliminating the need for large inventory costs and small batches or single optical components can be completed within a few days. Unique optical designs and components can be quickly tested and new designs can be verified. Elimold combines all of these advantages into one manufacturing service, now offering a full range of services, and we can also provide optical injection molding services for small and medium-sized batch production. With these new features, Elimold’s optical 3D printing process can be used to produce small and medium-sized optical components. Providing fast and effective optical prototyping, iteration and manufacturing services without the use of expensive and inflexible tools.
End-to-End Optical Product Development and Manufacturing Services
3D printing brings greater design freedom and efficiency to optical product manufacturers. 3D printing optical components can enable optical product companies to continuously improve designs and freely expand products to respond to market needs more effectively. Optical companies using Elimold’s advanced 3D printing technology can differentiate their brands from competitors by launching more designs and providing customization and personalization in a more cost-effective way than traditional manufacturing. Elimold’s optical digital custom manufacturing workflow fully utilizes Elimold’s in-house factory’s industrial-grade printers, premium materials, and dynamic software to increase manufacturing flexibility for unique functional designs and improve product quality and performance. Our advanced DLP 3D printing provides the industry’s highest productivity, part performance, and design flexibility.
Advantages of Elimold Printed Optical Components
Custom Optics Components
Fast, flexible and cost-effective prototyping of functional and decorative optical plastics enables our users to quickly experiment with their functional lighting concepts.
3D Frosted Finishes
Frosted finishes (define the desired roughness) can be added to optical pieces or lens components in the same printing process for functional or aesthetic purposes.
3D Textured Surfaces
Complex designs with textured surfaces can be quickly prototyped to validate production tooling or generate marketing samples and functional demonstration models.
3D Reflective Surfaces
By combining the smoothness of the Elimold optical 3D printing process with a variety of decorative or industrial coatings, micro-reflectors and reflective surfaces can be created.
Elimold Additive Manufacturing Micro-Optics
With Elimold’s high-resolution optical 3D printing services, you can realize virtually any three-dimensional shape with optical-grade surfaces. This effectively circumvents the limitations of mechanical tools as well as geometric or process design constraints common to subtractive technologies. Single microlenses, hybrid and freeform optical elements, and compound lens systems can be printed without the need to assemble the individual components after printing. Use our optical processing systems. Take advantage of their capabilities for fast and ultra-precision micromachining. Print on a wide range of suitable substrates, including glass, silicon wafers, photonic and microfluidic chips.
Our IP optical resins also offer options for manufacturing advanced micro-optics. IP-S optical resins are ideal for printing microstructures with high shape accuracy, very smooth contours, and optical-quality surfaces. For example, microlens arrays printed with IP-S achieve shape accuracy better than 1 µm and surface roughness less than 10 nm Ra. In addition, the new IP-n162 features a high refractive index of 1.62 and a high Abbe number of 25. The optical properties of IP-n162 are comparable to those of optical polymers commonly used in injection molding, such as polycarbonate and polyester.
Creating Custom Optics
Lens and optics have traditionally been made using molds. Optical manufacturers invest in expensive molds that quickly become obsolete. This results in high financial losses. In addition, mold making is time-consuming, taking weeks to create a perfectly custom mold. Therefore, manufacturers often choose standard optics to control light. These standardized optics do not fully meet lighting project requirements, resulting in energy waste and inadequate light distribution.
3D printing enables optical and lighting designers to custom optics to their projects. Rapid prototyping and small to medium series of optics are already available to the public. With Elimold’s optical 3D printing service, products with complex shapes can be designed almost infinitely, iterated as needed and customized to specific customer needs. With 3D printing, product cycles are very short, taking only days instead of weeks or even months. This enables optics engineers and lighting fixture designers to easily test their optics in a limited time before adopting the design.
Freeform Optics
Elimold’s optical 3D printing enables any type of optical shape. Complex freeform optical shapes can be printed drop by drop, resulting in a perfectly smooth surface. This process is much more efficient than a diamond lathe. By designing the optical shape in a CAD software tool, freeform optics can be printed in a matter of days. Optical designers can unleash their creative thinking with 3D printing.
Materials
- ABS (filament PM)
- PETG (filament PM)
- PLA Crystal Clear (Fillamentum)
- SLA Resin
- Prusa Transparent Tough
- Prusa Trans Red
- Prusa Trans Green
- 3DM Tough Clear
3D printing of optical components with different functions
3D printing has great potential in the field of photonics manufacturing. It can develop crystal color patterns, structural colors, and display fibers, which are difficult to achieve using traditional manufacturing. The main advantage of Elimold’s optical 3D printing service is that the key shapes of the device can be easily developed and manufactured using a variety of materials.
Our optical 3D printing service can be used to develop optical lenses of different scales, such as nanoscale, microscale, macroscale, and multiscale. It can reduce the limitations of traditional lens manufacturing technology and provide higher manufacturing quality and resolution. It can also be used to develop optoelectronic devices such as light-emitting diodes (LED), solar cells, and waveguides. Materials with novel artificial structures composed of subwavelength units are called optical metamaterials. Optical products such as optical lasers, contact lenses, modulators, and light field modulators can also be manufactured.
Why 3D Print Optics?
There are many other ways to manufacture optical components. One of these methods is injection molding, where a transparent material is injected into a mold in the shape of the desired product. The material then hardens and the mold can be removed. This produces high-quality components. However, this method is expensive and time-consuming to make the injection mold. It can take months just to make an optical injection mold. This technology is not suitable if prototypes are needed for testing. If many different optical products are required, the expenses will increase quickly.
Other alternatives include diamond cutting and CNC milling, which are more expensive and only suitable for large-scale production of single parts. 3D printing of functional optical components is seen as an ideal and viable alternative that can alleviate these problems. This method does not require tooling setups, molds for each specific product, and other expensive setup investments. All that is needed are component design files that can be loaded into the printer. These files can be changed very easily, and the design can be reprinted on demand if changes are required. There is no additional cost for these changes.
Post-processing
The right surface finish can mean the difference between a pristine prototype and a marketed product. Our expert surface finishing services can help create visually striking prototypes that enhance the use and functionality of your optical 3D printed parts. Using our state-of-the-art surface finishing technologies, such as our semi-downdraft spray booths, we transform your optical 3D printed parts into products you can be proud of.
- Bonding/Gluing
- Bead Blasting
- Painting
- Sealing
- Electroplating
- Mass Finishing
- Sanding
- Smoothing
Benefits of 3D Printed Optics
Elimold offers a fast, flexible and cost-effective method for custom optical prototyping, both for product prototyping and for serial production. The core benefits of the process include:
- No Upfront Investment: Large investments in tooling and inventory are a thing of the past. Optical 3D printing uses a direct CAD-to-optics manufacturing process that takes you from design to prototype in just one step;
- Manufacturing Speed: The Elimold process has the speed of jetting technology compared to traditional optical manufacturing techniques and conventional additive manufacturing;
- Easy Design Variations: Get multiple lens designs and easily “trial and error” with a single print. Save money and time!
- Easy Design Iterations: Iterate your design process until you achieve satisfactory performance;
- Order on Demand: Order the exact quantity of functional optical prototypes you need, when you need them. No minimum order quantities (MOQ) apply;
- Ultimate Design Freedom: Experience the ultimate freedom in optical design and manufacturing;
- No Post-Processing Required: Optics printed straight from the 3D printer are smooth and fully functional. No post-processing, such as polishing or grinding, is required.
Future development of optical 3D printing
Currently, optical 3D printing services are mainly used for research and development. The process has great potential to manufacture more complex optical components with higher precision and richer material selection. As long as the 3D printer has enough resolution to print the right materials, optical components such as lenses, filters and mirrors can be produced. In addition, with advanced deposition technology, chemically active components and optical coatings can be printed. Therefore, mirrors and filters with different wavelength ranges can be customized digitally manufactured by simply depositing the required substances. Nanoscale 3D printers can print gratings for light diffraction. In addition, 3D printers and nanotechnology provide the opportunity to manufacture digital designs of chip-based optical systems, further reducing the cost of experimental equipment and potentially making them as ubiquitous as mobile phone cameras. Therefore, Elimold said: We want to bring better and better services to the market. By using additive manufacturing, using new materials and technologies, we can bring more benefits and advanced aesthetics to the field of optical design.
Ready to get your next optical project done?
Keep up-to-date and sustainable with our 3D printed optics and send your drawings to our team of engineers for a quote today.