Case Study: Aerosport Additive achieves rapid, lower‑cost production of rubber parts with Proto3000 (ETEC Xtreme 8K & Adaptive3D Elastic ToughRubber)

Rewriting the rules for producing rubber parts Aerosport Additive turns to ETEC and Adaptive3D

Aerosport Additive, an Ohio-based service bureau that produces prototypes and working models for automotive, aerospace, military and consumer customers, faced slow, labor-intensive urethane casting and costly, long-lead injection molding for rubber parts. Seeking a tooling-free way to get true rubber-like properties and faster iteration, Aerosport Additive turned to Proto3000, deploying the Xtreme 8K printer and Adaptive3D’s Elastic ToughRubber (ETR 70) material to achieve authentic rubber performance and greater design flexibility.

Proto3000’s solution — the high-volume, top-down Xtreme 8K running ETR 70 — enabled Aerosport Additive to print complex, Shore A70 rubber parts with dramatic speed and scale: up to 150 four-way switches in a 2.5-hour build, 30 flexible tubes or 45 belt holders per build, and eight RC tires in one run. The result was a shift from weeks of lead time to days or same-day delivery in some cases, lower per-part costs, expanded production capacity and new market opportunities, all delivered by Proto3000.

Aerosport Additive

Geoff Combs

President