The object is then drawn from the resin.

It has been an 18 month wait for this new technology to arrive at our doorstep and we are excited by the print results.

5 good things about SLA printing

SLA printed products have advantages over prints using standard filament;

High resolution

SLA printing achieves higher resolution than FDM printing because each layer is solidified by a beam of light on a solid surface. The new layer of resin is hardened against the last layer. In contrast to FDM printing, there is no chance of the new layer melting the fine structures of the previous layer.

Vastly improved accuracy

The resolution and accuracy of SLA printing is much higher than FDM.

There are many reasons for this.

1. The Z resolution can be as small as a few microns. This gives an instant boost to resolution.
2. The X/Y resolution is also smaller.
3. Light beams solidify the resin, so there is no head moving across the print causing distortion to the edges and fine structure.

Harder materials

The cured plastic is harder because of the chemistry. SLA resins are designed to cross-link. This means that the finished object will  retain it’s shape. Depending on the chemistry used, this can mean harder surfaces …. or even rubbers that will resist compression set.

Smooth surfaces

We finish the parts by curing under a UV light and an oxygen free blanket of gas.
The prints are highly detailed, watertight, hard, smooth and ready to go.

Production runs of small to medium sized parts

SLA printing is setting new standards for print quality and accuracy.  When you feel the parts, they feel like they came from a production line, not from a 3d printer.

We keep the support material to a minimum to make the surface smooth. The attachment points to the part are also smaller and easier to remove.

This is a fantastic new addition to our printing equipment that will offer makers, students and professionals a huge increase in accuracy for small to medium sized prints.

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There are few things that might not be very obvious when designing for 3D printer. To ensure that the 3D printing process goes as smoothly as possible (and to save you time and money) keep in mind the following steps.

1. Make your model “Solid” or “Watertight”
2. Give your walls thickness
3. Support overhanging roofs
4. Hollow the shell
5. Check your model before printing

Make your model “Solid” or “Watertight”

Models must be “Solid” to be 3D printable. Solid, sometimes called “watertight” or “manifold” simply means the model is a complete enclosure. If you were to fill it with water, none would drain out, and the model must not have any extra lines or faces.

Another way to define solid: Every edge in your model must be bordered by exactly two faces. If an edge has less than two faces bordering it, there is an adjacent hole, and if there are more than two faces touching an edge, there is an extra face that needs to be deleted.

The most common errors (and the corresponding solutions) are:

• Stray edges (just delete them)
• Holes (trace an edge to fill them)
• Internal faces (delete them)

Give your walls thickness

Wall thickness is a key element in 3D printing – walls need to be thick so they’re strong enough to work in real life.

Minimum FDM thicknesses. (Standard 3D printing)

• Walls > 1.2mm
• Base > 1.2mm
• Minimum feature > 3mm
• Minimum hole diameter > 2mm

Minimum SLA thicknesses. (High Resolution Liquid Resin)

• Walls > 0.5mm
• Base > 1mm
• Minimum feature > 0.3mm
• Minimum hole diameter > 1mm

Support overhanging roofs

3D printing resin can be as runny as tooth paste or even water. 3D printing resin will flow under its own weight, so it needs support.

Overhangs are where there is a horizontal surface that is not supported underneath. Examples of overhangs are – Ceilings, Doorways, Windows

Overhangs can be made 3D printable in the design by

• making the underside angle more vertical than 45 degrees
• make any unsupported overhangs less than 1.5mm un-supported and more than 2mm thick
• doorway and window features should have less than 10mm of un-supported length
  

Hollow the shell

Depending on the printing process and material, the wall-thickness requirements vary. In this case, we will use a 3mm wall thickness. To do so, we can use the fantastic software MeshLab, which is ideal for this kind of task.

What we need to do is create an offset of our model with the desired thickness, so open the model and navigate to Filters > Remeshing > Uniform Mesh Resampling (this may differ, depending on your software). Change the settings to Precision 1.0, Offset value -3 (desired wall thickness) and check both Clean vertices and Multisample. Now we should have a nice inner shell. We now need to invert its normals in order for it to be understood as a hollow model (Filers > Normals, Curvature and Orientation).

Invert the orientation of the inner shell: click View > Show layer dialog and select the offset layer. Click Filters > Normals > Invert Faces Orientation. To make the final file, click Layer > Flatten Visible Layers File > Export Mesh as. Next we just need to add a little hole for the excess material to escape. You can do that with your modelling software – normally, a hole with a diameter double the wall thickness should be enough, so in this case that means a 6mm diameter.

Check your model before printing

Software allows to you check your model before sending it to a 3D printer and in some instances you can even fix it without going back to the drawing software.

MeshLab

MeshLab is an open source project and allows you to view all potential errors (http://meshlab.sourceforge.net).
After installing the software, import your model and from the drop down menu “render” select “show non manifold edges”. All the errors will display in red.

Netfabb

This is a free program (http://netfabb.com/) which can edit stls. It can open a stl and shows basic failures on a model. It also has the basic features to edit a stl like analyze, scaling, measuring and repair.

These are the buttons which are needed to fix your model. Analyze will give additional information about the part besides the basic information, which is already known. For example it will tell you if you have holes, boundary edges, flipped triangles or bad edges in a part.

Repair is the tool which separates Netfabb from other stl identification software. The tool does the same analysis as that of the analyze button but, with your commands, will repair these negative effects as well. The last one is measuring. This will allow you to measure the distance between triangles. This comes in handy when you’re looking for critical points for your minimum wall thickness.

To fix these issues, use the repair button on the upper right of the screen. The red cross will open a new interface on your right.

When completed, export your model to .STL and you are ready to print.

Google SketchUpFind holes in your Sketchup mesh easily with the Solid Inspector plugin – this plugin allows you to view any errors instantly, so you can fix them straight away (http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/solid-inspector).

The post 3D Printing Design Guide appeared first on Print 3D.

Sound too good to be true? It might be. But if you want to give it a go, you can go to your dentist to have him or her take an impression of your teeth; you know, like one of those casts you had made to mold your retainer once upon a time? Then you send the cast off to a dental lab to have it made into a 3D file. On the very off chance that you don’t have a dental lab in your Rolodex, Blizzident will refer you. Once you have the file in the proper format, you load it onto Blizzident’s servers, and you can order your very own teeth-brushing machine for $300.

Sure, it seems like a crazy idea, and it would be risky to stop brushing your teeth altogether, but it’s an intriguing proposition. For example, have you ever tried to brush a toddler’s teeth? It’s not so easy. And while $300 is expensive for a product that’s unproven, the more people who give it a shot the better it might get. And if it works, it’ll save you a mint in dentist fees.

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Andras Forgacs, CEO and co-founder of Modern Meadow, explains the process of biofabrication and asks an interesting question: “What if, instead of starting with a complex, sentient animal, we started with what the tissues are made of, the basic unit of life, the cell?” Biofabrication, he says, signals the rise of a new industry that is both sustainable and humane and could radically change a society and environment shaped by the consumption of animals.

The new biofabrication rises new interesting questions… Would printed meat circumvent religious dietary rulings? Would it be considered Kosher or Halal? And how about vegetarians? How might they feel about a new dietary prospect? Would you eat 3D printed meat?

The post Would You Eat 3D-Printed Meat? appeared first on Print 3D.

Nylon has amazing self-bonding properties making any FFF (layer-by-layer) printed objects very strong and less prone to de-lamination.

Taulman 618 Specifications:
Size – 3mm or 1.75mm Round
Color – Natural – Prints as a bright natural to white with a translucent surface. Add color with most common clothing dyes.
Temperature – 235C to 270C – Part/Speed dependent. 240C-250C is best for most parts at average printing speeds.
Tactile surface quality 2nd to none. Parts 3D Printed with taulman 618 Nylon co-polymer will be instantly recognizable as high quality polymer.
Chemically resistant to Alcohols, Resins+MEK, Oils, Acetone, Most all Alkaline, most 2 part Casting Compounds.

As mentioned above, one aspect of its development was the ability to colour the Nylon with fabric Dye.
A very detailed step by step process can be found here.

Basically, you can use a fabric dye and use it for your models or for your filament prior printing.
So white Nylon and a pack of fabric dye is all you need to print in any colour you like.

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Evill, a recent graduate of Victoria University in New Zealand, wants to update the process of healing of broken limbs with something a little more modern: 3D printing.

Evill created the Cortex cast, a breathable, lightweight, recyclable and washable exoskeleton that mimics the body’s trabecular, the small honeycomb-like structure that makes up your inner bone structure.

The cast lets in plenty of air, which prevents that stuffy, itchy feeling.

The Cortex cast employs a similar fitting system as other casts, with X-rays to determine bone fractures. Evill’s prototype used a hacked Kinect for Xbox for the 3D scanning, but a more sophisticated and precise scanning process is in the works.

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1. What is 3D Printing

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. 3D printing is achieved using an additive process, where successive layers of material are laid down in different shapes. 3D printing is considered distinct from traditional machining techniques, which mostly rely on the removal of material by methods such as cutting or drilling.

The 3D printing technology is used for both prototyping and distributed manufacturing with applications in architecture, construction, industrial design, automotive, aerospace, military, engineering, civil engineering, dental and medical industries, biotech (human tissue replacement), fashion, footwear, jewellery, geographic information systems, food, and many other fields.

2. 3D Modelling Software

A range of software can be utilised to design a 3D model.

• FormZ – Offers a form generating environment – very powerful, dynamic, intelligent, yet easy to use.
• Blender – is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Blender was developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo and Not a Number Technologies (NaN). It is a powerful program contains features that are characteristic of high-end 3D software
• 123 Design – Professional software from Autodesk – offers many features, PC and Mac support as well as iPhone and iPad.
• 3Dtin – The simplest 3D software. You can draw directly from your browser.
• SketchUp – Google SketchUp bucks the trend of expensive 3D modeling software such as 3DSMax and Cinema4D and presents a free, easy to use alternative with which you can even post your creations onto Google Earth for the world to see.

Whether you are Mac or PC user this table can help you to choose the most suitable 3D modelling software.
Commonly supported formats by 3D printers: Pro/engineer, Solidworks, Unigraphics, Auto CAD, (IGS, STP, STL and X-T).

3. Technology

3D Printers Printers for domestic use
Several projects and companies are making efforts to develop affordable 3D printers for home desktop use.
Much of this work has been driven by and targeted at DIY/enthusiast/early adopter communities, with additional ties to the academic and hacker communities.
Maker-Bot Replicator is one of the well established brands of home 3D printers.

Industrial uses
Unlike consumer printers, industrial machines can use a wide range of materials. From multicolour PVC to metals, glass, stone and even food.
The precision and speed of print is much greater and so is the price. While home 3D printers can be purchased for less than $1000, industrial machines start at $25,000.

4. 3D Printing Materials

A number of additive processes are now available. They differ in the way layers are deposited to create parts and in the materials that can be used. Some methods melt or soften material to produce the layers – selective laser melting (SLM) or direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), selective laser sintering (SLS), fused deposition modeling (FDM), while others cure liquid materials using different sophisticated technologies, such as stereolithography (SLA). With laminated object manufacturing (LOM), thin layers are cut to shape and joined together (paper, polymer, metal).

FDM Thermoplastics
FDM Technology builds parts in the same strong, stable plastics used in injection molding, CNC machining and other traditional manufacturing processes. Harness the power of 3D printing while relying on tested, established thermoplastics.

• ABSplus – Opaque standard plastic in 9 colors
• ABSi – Translucent standard plastic in 3 colors
• ABS-M30 – Opaque standard plastic in 6 colors
• ABS-M30i – Biocompatible, sterilizable engineering plastic
• ABS-ESD7 – Static dissipative standard plastic
• PC – Strong engineering plastic in white
• PC-ABS – High-impact engineering plastic in black
• PC-ISO – Stronger biocompatible, sterilizable engineering plastic
• PPSF/PPSU – Sterilizable, strong high-performance plastic
• ULTEM 9085 FST – rated high-performance plastic

PolyJet Materials
PolyJet technology 3D prints in the widest variety of materials, so you can create realistic prototypes that closely resemble finished products.

• PolyJet Digital Materials – With versatile PolyJet dual material jetting you can construct more than 100 composite Digital Materials with a wide range of physical properties, colors and tones.
• Digital ABS – simulate high-strength and temperature-resistant plastics
• High-temperature – combine thermal functionality with dimensional stability
• Transparent – 3D print clear models and prototypes
• Rigid Opaque – 3D print in white, gray, blue and black
• Polypropylene-like – 3D print polypropylene-like models and prototypes
• Rubber-like – 3D print flexible materials with a variety of properties
• Bio-compatible – 3D print for medical and dental applications
• Dental Material – 3D print for dental and orthodontic applications

5. Post-Processing

Your 3D Printer Objects Desktop 3D printing has yet to spawn third-party finishing services like commercial 3D printing did a decade ago.
So, without access to acetone cloud chambers, multi-axis enamel jet robots, agitating chemical baths, and industrial tumblers and polishers, makers have rolled up their sleeves and discovered a host of finishing solutions using inexpensive tools and materials.

Using a solvent – Acetone (for ABS)
Acetone is a much safer way to bring brilliance to an object made with ABS and to remove small imperfections. A liter of Acetone costs about $10 and you can find it in any do-it-yourself shop.

Bending
Using a blow torch – with a blow torch you can heat objects that are not too thick and then bend them. Keep the heat source fairly far away and heat ABS plastic to maybe about 60 degrees. You then you can adjust somewhat its shape.
Using a hot air gun – hot air pistols are the best bet. Even cheap models allow to regulate temperatures fairly precisely (from 30 to 600 degrees). For bending ABS for example, you could try to heat it around 210 degrees. Use some gardening leather gloves for manipulating the hot object.

The post What is 3D Printing and How Does it Work? appeared first on Print 3D.

Beauty is an American bald eagle that got shot in the head by a poacher and consequently lost the top half of her beak.

Now, if you are a bald eagle, losing half of your beak is pretty much a death sentence – you can neither feed nor groom yourself. (Imagine eating with a single chopstick or chewing with one jaw.)

So it was no surprise that when the eagle was found in 2005 near a landfill in Alaska, it was emaciated despite being surrounded by abundance of food.

The eagle was relocated to Birds of Prey Northwest, a nonprofit organisation located near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. There, she was nursed back to health by a small army of volunteers. At first, the eagle was force-fed liquified food through a tube daily. Later, after her health improved, the eagle resumed eating solid food that was fed to her using forceps. During this recovery time, it was hoped her beak would grow back, but the bone was too badly damaged: Beauty would never recover.

At this point the expert opinion was that the bird ought to be euthanized. Luckily, mechanical engineer Nate Calvin heard about the bird’s plight and came up with an ingenious plan to help.

Mr Calvin, a founder of the Boise-based Kinetic Engineering Group, made a mold of Beauty’s shattered upper mandible, laser-scanned it, fine-tuned it in a 3D modeling program, and created a prosthetic beak from a nylon-based polymer. He then recruited his personal dentist to implant a titanium mount fitted onto the remaining part of Beauty’s beak which basically serves the function of a dental implant as it holds the prosthetic beak in place.

Thanks to her new 3D printed beak today Beauty is able to eat, drink and groom entirely on her own. Unfortunately, the beak is not fixed so securely as to return the eagle in the wild but Beauty seems to thrive in her new home.

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