Laminated Object Manufacturing or LMO is a system used for rapid prototyping. It consists of adhesive – coated layers of plastic or paper that are stuck together with the help of glue and then cut into an appropriate shape with the help of a laser cutter or a knife.
How does Laminated Object Manufacturing Work? The LMO is used to manufacture 3 – D objects that are cut on the basis of the geometrical data that is available with the system. The laser that is used in the LMO is a carbon dioxide laser that is capable of creating cross sections of 3 – D objects successively, from layers of foil, usually paper. The back of the 3 – D object that is created has a polyethylene coating on it.
The computer with the help of which Rapid Prototyping runs, has the ability to slice a solid 3 – D model into 2 – D cross sections that are thin. Every cross section would have a thickness that is equivalent to the thickness of each of the materials that is used for the process of prototyping.
The system also consists of a rewinding and an unwinding roll. These are connected to each other with the sheet of the material that is being used to manufacture the prototype. The sheet is routed with the help if the idler rollers that are also present in the machine. The rolls are the ones that supply the material to the machine and also store it, if need be.
The laminated part of the prototype is built one a platform that is capable of incremental vertical movement. The movement of the platform is brought about by a stepping motor. On the top of the platform, is a heated roller that can both, heat and compress the stacks of sheets or ribbons that are placed on the lamination platform. The heated roller moves in a reciprocal manner and binds the ribbon material by heating it.
There is also an x-y axis table on the machine that holds and positions the mirrors which do the reflecting of the beam that is emitted by the laser. The table also carries the lens that ultimately focuses the laser beam on the surface of the stack that is laminated so as to cut the top most layer of the stack.
The scrap pieces that are produced as a result of the building process stay on the platform itself. These are basically diced by the beam of the laser into several squares in the cross hatched pattern. The scraps serve as a support for the part. When the built part is removed from the machine, it is in the form of a block. Whats nice is that the cross hatched scrap pieces can be separated fairly easily from the block.
Why Use the Laminated Object Manufacturing? The machine can be used to build larger models for the purpose of sand casting or to understand the conceptual design of something. Even though you can build massive prototypes with Laminated Object Manufacturing, one of its limitations is that you cannot build hollow parts with LOM. Nevertheless, it is relatively less expensive and a much faster way of building robust parts for rapid prototyping.
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