Articles
MaterialsSeptember 9, 2026Understanding Silicone Viscosity and Its Role in Silicone 3D Printing
If you've researched silicone 3D printing, "viscosity" comes up repeatedly as a problem to solve rather than a property to understand. This article focuses on the term "viscosity": what it actually means, how silicone flow behavior differs from that of conventional printing materials, and how viscosity is measured and controlled to achieve reliable production. For a deeper explanation of how material properties interact with printer technology and workflow, see Silicone 3D DLP Printing: Why Material and Process Must Work Together.
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MaterialsSeptember 7, 2026Why Soft Robotics Needs True Silicone, Not Just a Flexible Material
A soft robotic gripper doesn't just need to bend — it needs to bend the same way ten thousand times, hold a seal under pressure, and behave predictably against a sensor. That's a materials problem, not just a flexibility problem.
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ProcessAugust 27, 2026Biocompatible Silicone Parts: What Engineers Should Ask Before Ordering
Biocompatibility isn't a checkbox a supplier ticks — it's a set of questions a buying committee needs answered before a part enters a device program. Here's what to ask, and why the answer matters.
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ProcessAugust 25, 2026From Lab Concept to Publication-Ready Silicone Part
Labs don't need a manufacturing line — they need one accurately made part in true silicone, on a timeline that fits a study, not a supplier onboarding process. Here's what makes a research part reliable enough to cite.
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ApplicationAugust 22, 2026Designing 3D Printed Silicone Seals: Geometry Rules That Molding Usually Blocks
Undercuts, variable wall thickness, and integrated features are routinely designed out of molded seals — not because they don't work, but because a tool can't produce them. Here's how additive manufacturing changes what's worth drawing.
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ProcessAugust 21, 2026When Does Silicone 3D Printing Beat Injection Molding? A Volume and Tooling Decision Guide
Injection molding wins at high volume — but the crossover point isn't where most teams assume. A practical framework for deciding when to prototype on demand, bridge production, or commit to tooling.
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ProcessAugust 4, 2026Silicone 3D DLP Printing: Why Material and Process Must Work Together
Silicone DLP 3D printing is not simply a matter of loading silicone into a conventional DLP printer. Silicone flows differently, cures differently, and requires a dedicated printing and post-processing approach. That creates two interconnected challenges: developing a light-curable silicone chemistry and building a production workflow capable of controlling its high viscosity, layer formation, cleaning, and post-curing. Standard DLP resins use fundamentally different chemistry, while most DLP printers are designed for low-viscosity materials that flow and level easily.
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ProcessJune 8, 2026Why True Silicone Additive Manufacturing Is Now a Reality
For years, engineers were told to compromise. The materials that behaved like silicone were not silicone, and the silicone that worked like silicone could not be printed. That constraint is no longer absolute — but the confusion it left behind still shapes how most of the industry thinks about flexible additive manufacturing.
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MaterialsJune 3, 2026TPU vs. TPE vs. True Silicone — What the Data Actually Shows
TPU and TPE are legitimate engineering materials — until your application demands autoclave sterilization, sustained sealing performance, or ISO 10993 biocompatibility. Here is where each material's limits are, and why they matter.
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ApplicationJune 3, 2026The Gasket Nobody Thinks About Until It Fails
The electronics inside an avionics enclosure are specified to micron tolerances. The gasket sealing it is treated as a late-stage procurement item — ordered after the design is locked, sourced from catalog where possible, and substituted when the geometry doesn't fit. A tooling modification to correct an interface issue costs $5,000–$15,000 and four to six weeks. This piece makes the case for treating the conformal gasket as an engineering decision from the start — and explains what silicone additive manufacturing changes about the geometry, weight, and traceability constraints that have defined the category.
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ApplicationMay 21, 2026Why the Fingertip Is the Hardest Part of the Robot to Get Right
Robotics engineers spend years solving the hard problems — actuation, sensing, path planning. Then they get to the fingertip. The failure mode in most gripper systems is not the force control. It is a contact interface made from the wrong material, in a geometry constrained by what a mold could produce. This piece works through why platinum-catalyzed silicone is the correct material for high-cycle gripper applications — and why additive manufacturing changes what fingertip designs are actually possible.
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