voxeljet Debuts Phenolic Resin Binder

In a recent announcement voxeljet has debuted a newly developed Phenolic-Direct-Binding method. This new binding method not only offers key advantages for sand printing but also allows for the production of ceramic molds.

The new binder offers a number of advantages for many 3D printing applications, as process engineer Dr. Florian Mögele can attest: "With this binder, we are able to achieve an incredible level of resolution and precision in 3D printing. At the same time, we have also made significant improvements in terms of stability and sand recycling. And: phenolic resin binders are ideally suited for processing ceramic and other materials."

3D printed, complicated PDB sand molds surpass even the highest expectations. The Phenolic-Direct-Binding method, with its impressive accuracy and increased strength, is setting new trends, especially for complex molds with undercuts, elaborate details and very small radii.

The phenolic resin that is used is not toxic and allows for 100% recycling of non-printed particle material. In contrast to conventional binders, the PDB process does not require silica sand to be pre-treated, which means that it can be easily returned to the sand cycle.

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by General Fabb via Fabbaloo

UCF, Stratasys Create Life-Changing Prosthetic Arm

University of Central Florida (UCF) engineering students have developed a robotic arm for 6-year-old Alex Pring, using a Dimension Elite 3D Printer by Stratasys.

Born without his right arm, Pring always dreamed of climbing trees or shaking hands. His dreams came true thanks to UCF engineering students who designed and 3D printed a functional prosthetic arm. Aerospace engineering Ph.D. student and Fulbright Scholar Albert Manero is a volunteer at E-Nable, a network of 3D Printing enthusiast’s whose goal is to develop 3D Printed prosthetic hands for those in need.

Manero met Alex and his family through the E-Nable online network. Manero, along with his team, dedicated seven weeks for their design. The Dimension Elite 3D Printer delivered rapid design iteration during the process and the Ivory ABS M-30 Material used was strong, yet light enough for Alex to easily move.

“He learned to use the prosthetic fast,” Manero said. “When he could control it, the first thing he did was hug his mother. He said it was their first real hug. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

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by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

MIT Engineer Prints Houses and Nanoscale Medical Devices

When an aspiring mechanical engineer on a budget wants a top-of-the-line guitar, what does he do? He makes it himself, of course.

At age 13, Nathan Spielberg — now an MIT senior — began building his first guitar, a process that consumed his attention for eight hours a day, every weekend, for 3 1/2 years. Reminiscing now, he calls it a full-time hobby, but it was also pure inspiration: Strumming away on what was once a mere block of wood, Spielberg grew to appreciate the potential to turn an abstract idea into a functional object.

As a mechanical engineering major at MIT, he has held onto this tenet, but turned his attention to a new means of production: 3-D printing. Until recently, Spielberg worked in the MIT Media Lab with Neri Oxman, the Sony Corporation Career Development Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and PhD student Steven Keating. There, he focused on optimizing system designs that can handle large-scale printing projects, like houses.

As Spielberg sees it, 3-D printing has two extremes: At one end is rapid prototyping, which allows researchers to design, print, and experiment — and then design, print, and experiment again — many times faster than traditional manufacturing. On the other end is express, large-scale construction of single objects. That’s where his research with Oxman comes in.

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by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

ORNL Reveals the Unique Capabilities of 3-D Printing

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have demonstrated an additive manufacturing method to control the structure and properties of metal components with precision unmatched by conventional manufacturing processes.

Ryan Dehoff, staff scientist and metal additive manufacturing lead at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL, presented the research this week in an invited presentation at the Materials Science & Technology 2014 conference in Pittsburgh.

“We can now control local material properties, which will change the future of how we engineer metallic components,” Dehoff said. “This new manufacturing method takes us from reactive design to proactive design. It will help us make parts that are stronger, lighter and function better for more energy-efficient transportation and energy production applications such as cars and wind turbines.”

The researchers demonstrated the method using an ARCAM electron beam melting system (EBM), in which successive layers of a metal powder are fused together by an electron beam into a three-dimensional product. By manipulating the process to precisely manage the solidification on a microscopic scale, the researchers demonstrated 3-dimensional control of the microstructure, or crystallographic texture, of a nickel-based part during formation.

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by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

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.

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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.

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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