righthand labs is a part of righthand roboticsthat sells the hardware that we're designing to the research community. we use the form 2 to do prototyping of componentsthat are going into our reflex hand and our industrial systems. we used the formlabs' flexible resin to prototype our fingers. because our fingers are compliant there aren't a lot of technologies out therethat we can prototype in that mimic that sort of compliance. we like to do a lot of small batch and shortrun production
because it gives us the flexibility to change the design without sinking a lot of cost into the tooling. we're using the form 2 in our manufacturingprocess to create molds that we then use to cast other materials like urethanes. the way that we make the fingers for righthand robotics is we have a 3d printed core and some electronics and we stick that into a mold, pour rubber around it and then take it out, stick it into a secondary mold andover-mold around that. the unique value that 3d printing adds for the mold-makingcasting process is basically cost and speed.
it's easy to make a change, print a mold,make a few castings and then test it and see if it works. the really cool thing about righthand roboticsusing this process is that they're able to make design changes during production. so they're able to produce 20 units thatthey can actually sell. and we can do that because we're 3d printingthe molds and 3d printing the cores so we're not having this really high investment in tooling. i think being flexible with your design processultimately gives your customers a better product any problem or idea that we come across duringmanufacturing or testing, we like to get into the final production version of our hands right away
having a cheaper access to prototyping reallychanges the whole design process. for us, having access to that technology asa relatively small company
3d printing in automotive industry,is a complete game changer because otherwise we would have to send out for it. there's no way we could afford, you know, an eighty thousand dollar printer but we can afford the formlabs printer.
