Prototyping
- Optimize Your Part Designs for Production
- Accelerate Your New Product Development
- We’ll Guide You From Prototyping to Production
Fathom’s Prototyping Services
Our experts can help you optimize your part designs for production
Do you need prototype parts to help you accelerate your new product development? Our experts can help you select the right manufacturing technology to refine, validate and prepare your part designs for production.
Validate Your Design
Most companies are under pressure to accelerate their new product development programs. Prototypes are a critical part of the process. They not only provide product development, marketing and sales teams with a 3D model to validate their design concepts. Prototypes also help them verify fit, finish and performance before moving finalized part designs into production.
Prototyping Capabilities
Fathom gives you numerous prototype manufacturing options to refine and validate your designs.
Urethane Casting
Urethane casting is an ideal way to produce small quantities of parts quickly for functional and cosmetic testing. It can be used to produce parts with complex geometries and fine detail. One silicone mold can be used to produce the same part in a variety of durometers, so they can be tested side-by-side to determine which one works best.
STEP Technology
Selective Thermoplastic Electrophotographic Process (STEP) is a revolutionary additive technology that enables you to produce high-precision prototype parts without tooling. Because it uses powdered versions of popular thermoplastics, it can serve as a single solution for everything from prototype parts and bridge production to full production.
Sheet Metal Prototyping
Prototype metal parts can be made using a variety of methods, including:
- Stamping
- CNC-controlled cutting (water jet, micro water jet, laser and wire EDM)
- Press brakes
- Progressive dies
- Multi-slide forming
- Chemical etching
Injection Molding
Our ICOMold by Fathom rapid tooling service produces steel tooling quickly, with delivery of sample parts in as little as 15-days. Not aluminum tooling, which has a limited life, but hardened steel tooling that is perfect for bridge and low-volume production of parts. No one produces rapid steel tooling faster than ICOMold by Fathom!
Fiberglass Layup
The Fathom team has decades of experience in hand-building large prototype parts using the traditional process of laying up fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) in wooden molds.
This process uses reinforcement material like fiberglass, saturated with liquid resin, which is applied and shaped by hand to fit the mold. The size of these panels is limited only by the size of the mold. Once the parts have cured, they can be finished and painted for use on products that are under development. Fiberglass layup is significantly less expensive than other methods of making large parts.
One Fathom customer utilizes our fiberglass layup skills to build body panels for new models of agricultural equipment. It’s the perfect way to confirm fit and finish before production.
Need It Faster Than Fast? Try Our Rapid Prototyping
Rapid prototyping enables engineers to quickly convert their ideas into printed parts that have similar physical and mechanical properties to their finished parts. Using automated production technologies like 3D printing and CNC machining, they can be produced in a matter of hours.
This enables them to use these parts to validate their designs and test for fit, finish and functionality. In addition, because prototype parts can be produced so quickly, engineers can simultaneously test multiple designs or can iterate their way to a final version quickly.
Why Choose Fathom for Your Prototyping Needs?
Fathom has the expertise and technology to help you meet your needs faster.
Working with Fathom begins with a hands-on, personalized access to an engineer, who will work closely with you to understand your needs. Our comprehensive DFM process can help identify and solve potential design problems early in the product development process and recommend changes to improve the manufacturability of your parts.
We’ll also help you optimize your material selection and production process and for the best results, at the best price. Our experienced engineers will help you efficiently move your projects from prototype to production.
Our focus on prototype manufacturing and low- to mid-volume, highly customized parts is a perfect match for any company that is looking for ways to accelerate its rate of new product development.
