Project Goals :

• Ensure the safety of operators who will be interacting with the equipment and resin.

• Reduce waste associated with normal manufacturing processes by centralizing resin delivery and recycling resin back into the system. 

• Maintain the “digital thread” as much as possible.  Our unique manufacturing methods enable the tracking of each midsole from start to finish to maintain consistency and identify manufacturing problems.

• Minimize technician process control management.

Solution :

• The Resin Delivery Cart was designed to fill 6 printers with the required resin before requiring a refill.

• Resin delivery via air pressure minimized consumable components and cleaning required of wetted components.

• Fully portable cart with off the shelf drill battery allowed hot-swapping for a charged battery.

• The E-stop cut power to all the electronics and the manual pressure release allowed technicians to de-pressurize the resin holding tank in moments.

• The resin holding tank was equipped with a pneumatic mixer to incorporate “reclaimed” resin with fresh resin.

• Guesswork of resin management was eliminated by displaying QR codes on individual printer screens which corresponded to the amount of resin each printer required.

• Accuracy of resin delivery was maximized by a mass scale and a feedback control loop.