Manufacturing of moulds by rapid prototyping processes, such as stereolithography (SL), is considered an important technology to aid the development of injection moulding plastic products. Although this technology shows significant advantages, the lifetime of moulds may be drastically be reduced due to strong adhesion between the injected polymer and the material of the SL mould. This work investigates the use of Ni-P metal coating obtained by electroless deposition on SL moulds manufactured with the resin DSM SOMOS 7110. Specimens of PA6.6 have been injected into SL moulds manufactured with and without metal coating. The results showed that the electroless metal coating process can be an appropriate alternative to allow moulding of small series of PA6.6 parts in SL moulds.
PA6.6 injection molding; stereolithography molds; electroless metallic coating
