Rapid Prototyping of Custom Optics for Illumination Applications

Rapid Prototyping is generally used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional CAD data. In the optics field, printed optics by Luximprint are a fast way of getting custom optical parts available in a matter of days. Manufactured in a fast, flexible and cost-effective way,  inventive Additive Optics Fabrication technology is used to build customs for a broad range of multi-market illumination applications.  

Shorter Cycle Times, Faster Marketing

During the engineering cycle, it is critical to keep lead times as short as possible in order to avoid valuable market time losses. The faster a product can be engineered, assembled and produced, the faster a company can launch it to the market and start to earn revenues from it and earn back the investments.

In traditional optics fabrication, lead times for custom optics typically range from weeks to months, taking into consideration that soft tooling has to be created, validated and approved before any final hard tooling can be ordered. Even when no soft tooling is ordered and a direct step is taken towards a hard tool, the time (and money) losses coming along with that are significant. Not to speak about the risk involved in the decision making.

Direct ‘CAD-to-Optic’ manufacture is the most straightforward way of getting your custom optics available without costly commitments.

Direct CAD-to-Optic Manufacture

Additive Optics Fabrication, on the contrary, uses additive technologies rather than subtractive machining, whereby unnecessary materials are removed. With direct ‘CAD-to-Optic’ manufacture, LED optics are printed straight from the CAD file without the need for further manufacturing tooling.

Noteworthy is that the printed parts are optically smooth and functional straight from the printer, on the contrary to conventional 3D printing methods whereby a significant amount of post-polishing work is needed.