Silicone Sock mold - Mingda D2 Hotend

prusaprinters

This is a Mold for the Mingda D2 hotend Silicone socks.With this mold I tried a new approach compared to my previous mold designs. Usually the biggest issue was to get rid of the air bubbles in the closed mold designs. Therefore this mold is open at the top. No syringe needed.You just pour in the silicone, let it settle in the mold and can easily access it to get away the air. After being sure that all air is gone you can remove the left over silicone that's above the level of the mold. You can see how far the mold should be filled in this picture here:If a bit silicone is spilled or left over at the surrounding surface this isn't a big issue. I usually cut this away after the silicone got hard.The two mold parts get screwed together with a m3 x 35 screw through the hole in the middle.Printed the molds in ABS. But PLA will also work. PLA is less sticky but the only way to get nice silicone surface is using really thin layer height and nice print outlines. Sanding the surface does also help a bit. ABS on the other hand has the advantage that it can be smoothed with aceton. That makes really nice and shiny surfaces but also is a bit more work to do.  For casting i usually use 2k high temp casting silicone which works really nice and also doesn't stick to the mold. Personally I use the Trollfactory type 3 HB silicone for most socks. But there are other silicone that also work well.If you are worried about the silicone sticking to the mold you can try using vassiline or something similar to apply it onto the mold. But I didn't have issues with this in the past.