Now a mature industry, rapid prototyping is diverging to two distinct applications: lower-priced 3-D printers and those that manufacture customized parts.
The push to trim equipment prices is creating new roles for these complex systems. Instead of sitting in the corners of manufacturing facilities, they’re moving into offices. Quieter machines designed for easy operation now reside in engineering offices, giving engineers an easy way to check out their designs.
Lower purchase prices are augmented by, “When the cost of making a prototype is only $10, people won’t think twice about it,” says Kevin Lach, marketing vice president at Z Corp.
On the other front, the quality of end parts has gotten high enough for use in production. In fields from medicine to aerospace, customized parts can be built in minutes or hours, generally offering performance levels that equal those of conventionally manufactured products. Metal components can now be created as quickly as those made of nylons and plastics.
Equipment vendors are making this a significant push as they design new systems. “Every single new product has been developed in order to create a broader acceptance and higher market penetration for manufacturing,” says Johann Oberhofer, COO of EOS GmbH.
Desktop 3D Printer Sets New Price Level
The Desktop Factory has finalized the design of its 125 ci, which sets a new price point of $4,995. The compact system, which will ship later this year, has a build envelope of 125 cubic inches, measuring 5 x 5 x 5. Single or multiple parts can be built in this envelope. Printing layers are 10 m thick, providing high precision. Details can measure 0.01 and 0.04 inches along the X-Y and Z axes. Parts build at one cubic inch in one to three hours, depending on the resolution of the part.
Parts are built using a nylon composite with a target price of $1 per cubic inch. The printer supports CAD 3D Solid Object Modeling packages that output STL files, such as SolidWorks, Catia, AutoDesk, Rhino and Alibre.
Versatile System has Two Build Modes
The FDM 200mc from Stratasys builds parts with better feature detail and material strength than previous entry-level systems. It uses a new material, ABSplus, and high-end Insight software to produce parts with improved mechanical properties and feature detail. Its 8 x 8 x 12 inch envelope builds parts with 0.007- and 0.010-inch layers.
It has two build modes. The first is for speed and efficiency, while the second lets users manipulate construction parameters to change mechanical properties. The advanced mode also lets users pause the building process to add inserts or change material colors.
Producing Fine Detail with Smooth Surfaces
The Dimension Elite 3D Printer offers strong functional models that have finer feature detail and improved surface finish. It features an 8 x 8 x 12 inch build envelope. Parts can now be built with ABSplus, which is 40 percent stronger than previous generation materials. It’s designed for small parts that require fine detail such as electronic connectors, medical tester and small instruments.
Office Printer Cuts Costs
Providing affordable high-definition 3D printing in color is the goal of the ZPrinter 450 from Z Corp. Priced below $40,000, it’s automated for use in offices.
To sit in this environment, it uses safe materials kept inside the unit by negative air pressure. No-touch powder and binder cartridges load like inkjet printers to eliminate spills during loading while also trimming loading time by nearly half. Once parts are built, it automatically removes and recycles loose powder. Employing one tri-color print head instead of multiple print heads cuts costs and enables dramatically faster ink cartridge changes. Prototypes can be built five to 10 times faster than competing printers at half the cost, about $3 per cubic inch.
System Builds Larger Metal Parts
The Arcam A2 direct digital manufacturing and prototyping system produces metal parts 75 percent larger than previous models. The Swedish company’s system, sold in the U.S. by Stratasys, has two interchangeable build chambers, for high or wide parts. The high build chamber measures 200 x 200 x 350 mm, while the cylindrical wide chamber measures 300 mm in diameter and 200 mm tall.
The Electron Beam Melting employs a high-voltage power supply and an advanced heat model to improve build speed, precision and part accuracy. Improved software automates calibration, simplifying setup for additive manufacturing operations such as medical implant production. Parts can be built with three materials: F-75 Cobalt Chrome; Ti6AI4V Titanium, a widely used titanium alloy; and Ti6AI4V ELI Titanium which offers improved ductility and fracture resistance at low temperatures. Manufacturing occurs in a high vacuum, so parts are solid, without imperfections caused by oxidation. That gives them characteristics similar to conventionally produced components.
Manufacturing System Creates Its Progeny
The FORMIGA P 100 from EOS GmbH underscores the trend to use rapid prototyping gear for production, it literally builds itself. The material hopper, switch cover and pyrometer elements are among 23 system components that are laser-sintered using this hardware. The FORMIGA P 100 has an 8 x 10 x 13 inch build envelope within a 52 x 42 x 77 inch cabinet. It can produce walls as thin as 0.016 inch, yet provides speed, building parts at about one inch per hour. It also features a newly designed radial recoater system that improves part quality while decreasing powder consumption, which lowers operating expense.
Prototype Times Trimmed
Protomold, which offers rapid injection molding, and First Cut Prototype, which makes rapid prototypes with automated CNC-machining, have trimmed their turnaround times. The two have also become divisions in the newly formed Proto Labs Inc.
First Cut Prototype makes plastic rapid prototype parts using CNC machining rather than additive printing. That provides better material characteristics than additive production techniques, since parts are made from real plastic blocks, the company says.
First Cut and Protomold customers can continue to submit 3D CAD models and get pricing based for their choice of resins, finishes, production quantity and shipping speed, which can be one day. For Protomold, that’s quicker than the three-day turnaround previously offered for making parts with what’s called a combination of rapid prototyping processes and traditional injection molding. Parent company Proto Labs now explores and develops new applications for the company’s proprietary software technology.
Improved Strength, More Color Options
The ABSplus material from Stratasys claims improved thermal characteristics, allowing better flow properties than ABS. It’s complemented by improvements in the company’s Insight software, which offers enhanced extrusion flow-control parameters. The two factors combine to boost the feature detail of printed parts.
The material’s improvements over standard ABS include tensile strength, impact strength, flexural strength and bonding strength. These improved mechanical properties yield parts with up to 67 percent greater strength than standard ABS. It comes in a variety of colors including white, grey and black, with custom colors available as an option. ABSplus was engineered to work optimally with the 200mc system.
Whiter Whites
It’s not laundry detergent, but Z Corp.’s zp140 delivers brighter whites and rinses with clear water. The modeling material employs an ecological finishing step, rinsing residue with tap water instead of the caustic baths required for many rapid prototyping materials. The material is up to 180 percent whiter than existing materials and it hardens in less than half of the time of its predecessors. The parts are monochrome, but those who want color can finish zp140-based parts with infiltrants, which can also enhance strength. The material can be used in the company’s multicolor 3D printers along with other materials to create parts with various colors. Shipments begin this summer.
Steel for Tooling Provides High Strength
A martensitic-hardening steel from EOS GmbH called MaragingSteel MS1 offers a significant improvement in materials used for series tooling. The material is a high-performance 18 maraging 300 steel (type 1.2709) with high strength. It can be used for highly stressed tooling inserts, offering performance traits that match those of conventional tool steels. EOS also offers cobalt chrome, stainless steel and titanium.
Titanium Alloy Meets Many Needs
Arcam is addressing metal production requirements with two titanium alloys. Ti6Al4V is a titanium alloy that can be used in the medical industry, aerospace, automotive and marine equipment industries. Ti6Al4V ELI features Extra Low Interstitials, especially iron and oxygen. That helps create parts with improved ductility and fracture resistance, even at cryogenic temperatures. The titanium powder also creates solid parts with corrosion resistance and high ductility.
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