Biome Bioplastics Launches New Material for 3D Printing

Made from plant starches, Biome3D is a biodegradable plastic that combines easy processing and a superior print finish, while offering much higher print speeds. Developed in partnership with 3Dom Filaments, the new material was unveiled today at the TCT Show 2014, the leading event dedicated to 3D printing, additive manufacturing and product development.

Plant-based plastics are already a popular choice for 3D printing because they are much easier to work with during processing, and are food safe and odour free. They are a great example of how sustainable alternatives can gain market share based on their performance, rather than just their ‘green credentials’. However, oil-based printing filaments are still used because they have a higher softening point and make more flexible models that will bend before they break.

Biome3D combines the benefits of both plant and oil-based printing filaments and demonstrates that high performance plant-based plastics can be the ideal material for the 3D printing industry. Biome3D combines a superior finish and flexibility, with ease of processing and excellent printed detail. In addition, and perhaps most importantly for the industry, it runs at much higher print speeds, reducing overall job times.

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

by General Fabb via Fabbaloo

Historic Golf Clubs Brought Back to Life Via 3D Printing

As some of the world’s top golfers prepare to descend upon Scotland for the 2014 Ryder Cup, researchers from the University of Dundee are celebrating the game’s history with the use of the latest technology.

They have produced the world’s first metal 3D-printed clubhead using irons loaned by the British Golf Museum in St Andrews.

The University’s division of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering teamed up with St Andrews Golf Co. to investigate the process of making high quality, authentic examples of historically important irons, woods and putters using traditional craft methods.

Today’s clubs are created in such a manner that they can be manufactured with ease on modern machinery. St Andrews Golf Co. is the only company in the world to still practice the craft of producing golf clubs by hand, which was once popular across Britain, but has now almost disappeared due to the adoption of modern, digital based production methods.

The company’s Grant Payne, a Product Design graduate of the University, used his skills to convert physical to digital and back again. After 3D scanning the clubs, he used specialist programmes to make accurate digital models of the clubs.

The Mechanical Engineering team then worked with colleagues in academia and industry to ready the model for printing in metal. The clubhead was recreated exactly, including dents, patina & damage collected over its 125 year life.

Grant says the project will hopefully protect these examples of rare and ancient golf clubs, as they are irreplaceable artefacts of great importance to Scotland’s cultural and manufacturing heritage.

“We are delighted to have assisted in the production of the world’s first metal 3D-printed clubhead. The avenues opened up by combining the latest in manufacturing technology with the traditional craftsmanship practiced by St Andrews Golf Co Ltd are exciting. It was only made possible through our Industrial Partnership with the University and we hope it will demonstrate to people we’re thinking about the future, whilst being considerate of the past.” he said.

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

Silver and 3D Printing: A New Source of Demand?

At the end of July, The Silver Institute released a report called The Outlook for New Electrical and Electronic Uses of Silver. Prepared by Metals Focus, it looks at three potential areas of growth for the white metal: flexible electronics, light-emitting diodes and interposers.

Those are all exciting applications of silver, but they’re definitely not the only new uses of the metal that are garnering attention. Another — perhaps unexpected — arena in which silver is making waves is 3D printing.

Here’s a brief overview of how silver fits into the 3D printing landscape.

In terms of where silver enters the picture, Jeffrey Ellis, The Silver Institute’s senior technology consultant, states in the firm’s most recent newsletter that two types of 3D printing processes involve silver.

The first “is the equivalent of casting silver into a 3D printed mold such as those made of plaster-fortified wax” — in other words, a mold is created using a 3D printer and molten silver is then poured into it. That method is the more common of the two and is used by companies like Sculpteo, i.materialise and New York-headquartered Shapeways, whose goal is to give “anyone the ability to quickly and affordably turn ideas from digital designs into real products.” A quick glance at the company’s website shows that many people are doing just that, using 3D-printed molds to create jewelry, other accessories and more.

The second, which Ellis describes as “direct laser sintering, a process of forming a solid with heat that does not reach the melting point,” involves silver more directly, but is “a relatively new technique that has yet to be widely adopted.” Explaining why that’s the case, he notes that silver’s high reflectivity “is a serious challenge because so little of the light is absorbed to accomplish the fusing.” One company currently working on overcoming that difficulty is Cookson Precious Metals.

Ultimately, that technique may lead to some very interesting uses of silver. Ellis notes that it could allow government and private mints to produce coins and other objects, and will perhaps also be used to manufacture “batteries and other electrical components.”

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by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

Reusable HDPE Material Introduced by Diamond Plastics

Germany’s Diamond Plastics GmbH, has introduced a new, reusable plastic powder of laser sintering.

Named HDPE HX 17, the material is can be processed by nearly all laser sintering systems, and is cheaper than other materials in its class. Moreover, HX 17 has the added benefit of being reusable allowing for significant savings when it comes to handling.

While HDPE HX 17 only comes in a single color, dark grey, its smooth surface finish allows for post-process painting making it ideal for industrial designers looking to make realistic product demos or vacuum form master castings.

In addition to those properties HX 17 can be lased in 100 micrometer thick layers and is resistant to acid, alcohol, oil and gasoline. Diamond Plastics also says their material can be welded and cross-linked with other materials as well.

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

by General Fabb via Fabbaloo

Civil, Architectural and Mechanical Models Come to Life with the ProJet 4500 3D Printer

3D System’s ProJet 4500 claims to be the only “continuous tone, full-color plastic 3D printer” on the market. It is capable of printing models with nearly one million colors. The ProJet 4500 accomplishes this through the use of a proprietary plastic powder called VisiJet C4 Spectrum.

Every part of a 4500 model can be imbued with color thanks to the ProJet 4500’s 0.1mm axis resolution. Furthermore, the machine’s color printing technology allows its models to showcase either seamless color gradients or abrupt color switches depending on a user’s input.

While the features of the ProJet 4500 might sound a lot like the ProJet 660, the 4500 is actually a much more versatile machine. The main point of difference between the 660 and the 4500 centers on the materials that each printer uses. While the 600 uses a gypsum-based powder the 4500 uses a polymer stock. Leveraging the strength inherent in plastics, the 4500 is capable of producing parts that can withstand conditions that would cause a 660 model to break.

Because of its added strength the ProJet 4500 has a greater application portfolio than the 660. Functional models as well as high-quality display prototypes can be created using the 4500.

Because of its added strength the ProJet 4500 has a greater application portfolio than the 660. Functional models as well as high-quality display prototypes can be created using the 4500.

According to Steve Cory of Objex Unlimited, the ProJet 4500 is a perfect complement to his company’s ProJet 660. “With the 4500 we’re able to build any models that we think would be too delicate to build on the 660”. Aside from being more robust Cory was also quick to point out that the 4500 excels at printing thin-walled, complex parts for both mechanical and architectural applications.

Diving into the mechanics of the ProJet 4500, Steve also complimented the system’s Piezo-style printhead technology: “With the 4500 we don’t see any costly, time consuming printhead changes. For that reason we can run the 4500 with little to no downtime.”

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

New Composite Resins Could Lead to Larger, Stronger 3D Printed Structures

In wind farms across North America and Europe, sleek turbines equipped with state-of-the-art technology convert wind energy into electric power. But tucked inside the blades of these feats of modern engineering is a decidedly low-tech core material: balsa wood.

Like other manufactured products that use sandwich panel construction to achieve a combination of light weight and strength, turbine blades contain carefully arrayed strips of balsa wood from Ecuador, which provides 95 percent of the world’s supply.

For centuries, the fast-growing balsa tree has been prized for its light weight and stiffness relative to density. But balsa wood is expensive and natural variations in the grain can be an impediment to achieving the increasingly precise performance requirements of turbine blades and other sophisticated applications.

As turbine makers produce ever-larger blades—the longest now measure 75 meters, almost matching the wingspan of an Airbus A380 jetliner—they must be engineered to operate virtually maintenance-free for decades. In order to meet more demanding specifications for precision, weight, and quality consistency, manufacturers are searching for new sandwich construction material options.

Now, using a cocktail of fiber-reinforced epoxy-based thermosetting resins and 3D extrusion printing techniques, materials scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed cellular composite materials of unprecedented light weight and stiffness. Because of their mechanical properties and the fine-scale control of fabrication (see video), the researchers say these new materials mimic and improve on balsa, and even the best commercial 3D-printed polymers and polymer composites available.

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

by General Fabb via Fabbaloo

3D Printed UAV will Auto-Follow; Film Sports Exploits

Extreme sports enthusiasts will never miss a flip, turn or jump again with the new AirDog and AirLeash products from Latvia-based Helico Aerospace Industries.

Via the AirLeash wrist-worn tracking device, created using PolyJet-based 3D printing from Stratasys, users can capture live aerial video footage of themselves

The AirDog is a programmable “quadcopter” drone that works with the AirLeash (a remote tracker worn on the wrist) to follow you while you are surfing, snowboarding or biking. A camera mounted on the AirDog captures the action, wherever it goes, from above.

AirDog – the world’s first automated drone designed to track and video outdoor sports and activities – has been entirely 3D printed using Stratasys FDM 3D printing technology

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

by General Fabb via Fabbaloo