Clear Optical Prototypes

Acrylic polishing can help present the best clarity and light transmittance of all the clear plastics. Although CNC acrylic (PMMA) is essential to achieve a good machined finish before polishing to ensure critical dimensions, it is difficult to achieve high clarity.

Acrylic polishing requires special skills since acrylic is a stress-sensitive material and is fairly brittle. Manual polishing requires different grades of polishing process used in conjunction with sand paper and polishing paste which will remove surface material and leave the surface a high quality finish and optical clarity.

Highly polishing requires the sanding work starting from 400# or 600# sand paper to remove the superficial tool marks initially, then the level will lift up to 800#-1000#-1500# and end by 2000# sand paper, the polished surface will be highly smooth without any machine line and mark. Finally we still need to use polishing paste to refine process, and the final surface is super clear and transparent without any sanding marks and scratches with optical quality finish.

When we apply the decent heat treatment, machining method and polishing ways, polycarbonate can also gain the similar optical performance as acrylic and it is usually widely used on applications such as lamps, light pipes and displays.

Vapor polishing can be used to enhance component features on materials such as polycarbonate, and is ideally suited to the polishing polycarbonate of small features and offers improvements to internal and external surface finishes. Minor scratches and other small surface irregularities can be removed from machining polycarbonate parts by vapor polishing. When done properly, vapor polishing can provide optical prototypes a good quality finish.

Polycarbonate polishing process, the same as acrylic manual polishing, we use the sandpaper to smooth the surface first to remove the tool mark starting from 400# to 2000# sandpaper. The vapor is created by boiling a container with methylene chloride, then utilize vapor to flow over the surface of the polycarbonate. When it hits the surface it melts at a molecular level and turns it out clear. The whole process must be operated in a closed and well ventilated room, which prevents the operator from contacting with the harmful fumes. After the polishing process, parts must be sent to dry in order to evaporate the methylene chloride.

WayKen is focusing on automotive lighting prototype as a complete service which has allowed us to expand our knowledge and experience in this area, and now it’s the most important technology and production in WayKen. Creating ways to develop the best automotive lighting prototypes in the industry ensures us to provide all our clients with the best automotive prototyping services.

Our proactive and flexible way of working allows us to fully support automotive lighting development projects. From mechanical component design reviews and photometric development engineering test to show car lamps projects, we are able to support at all levels.

We also have rich experience to ensure the minimum machined tool radius of 0.1mm to process the detail for those optical surfaces and areas. The machined optical surface tolerance can reach +/-0.02mm. Then finishes can be achieved the best clarity and light transmittance through our specialized polishing process. The final optical components are ultra accurate, excellent optical quality and free of any marks or scratches.

So when we evaluate the splitting patterns, we will try our best to only split the parts in the assembly area such as fitting step, thus the line can be covered. Polishing the finished piece is almost always necessary, optically clear finishes will be perfect when assembly on a show car.

Our Sales Manager, Cacti, adds: “So far, many of our customers have welcomed the news, and RFQ’s are starting to come in for more complicated parts. These are orders from customers with whom we already have a great reputation for turning out quality components and delivering on time. The good news is that I can now reach out to customers in new industries that required more complex machining capabilities.”

There are various methods of making models, and other processes available that can bring your invention to life. Whether you’ve created a concept model or a fully functional prototype, you have given actuality to your product to assure that your product is marketable to investors and valuable to consumers.