3D Printing News Briefs: April 25, 2017

IMTS

Share this Article

In today’s edition of 3D Printing News Briefs, we’re covering everything from business to 3D printing, scanning, modeling, and design. EOS joins a manufacturing alliance, while a 3D printer gets an update and CLIP technology is used to 3D print thousands of small parts. A 3D printing outfit uses 3D scanning technology to cut costs, and an artist remixes artwork at a well-known museum with the help of 3D modeling. A popular 3D design website gets an upgrade, and the finalist teams have been announced for a space design contest.

EOS Joins Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance as Bronze Member

Industrial additive manufacturing solutions company EOS has been announced as the newest member of the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance. The 501(c)(3) non-profit organization is part of the national Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), and is frequently one of the most effective MEP centers in the country, serving more companies (per population) than any other center in America. The alliance helps manufacturers progressively grow more successful, in order to help grow the state of Oklahoma’s economy, and offers free business advice and technical assistance.

EOS is a bronze member of the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance; there are a total of four levels for manufacturers. The goal of the bronze level is to keep Oklahoma manufacturers informed, while helping them access current business practices and understanding the value. Benefits of being a bronze member include a Knowledge Package, a two-stage CoreValues Assessment, 50% off the production of the company’s promotional video, member promotion and recognition, and priority workshop registration. EOS will also be invited to members-only events and get 16 hours of Applications Engineering services waived.

Type A Machines Announces Series 1 3D Printer Series Updates

Leading manufacturing-ready FFF 3D printer manufacturer Type A Machines launched its Series 1 line of 3D printers several years ago, and recently scaled up production of its out-of-the-box, one-click printing machines. Now, the company is introducing the upgraded Series 1 Pro, with several new features including a flexible, removable BuildTak FlexPlate platform and hardware/software Adaptive Auto-Leveling.

Type A Machines’ founder Andrew Rutter said, “Reliability and accuracy are the hallmarks of the Series 1 Pro 3D printer. With today’s announcement, we add ‘simplicity’ to the list of reasons to own a Series 1. The Series 1 delivers uncompromised quality, eliminates burdens for professionals, and delivers results that meet the criteria of engineers and manufacturers. The Series 1 Pro with BuildTak and Adaptive Auto-Leveling represents a significant step forward in increasing the efficiency and throughput of 3D manufacturing.

We’re eliminating the biggest challenges facing 3D printers users. The combination of BuildTak’s easy-to-print, easy-to-remove FlexPlate System and Adaptive Auto-Leveling delivers unmatched part fidelity. The Series 1 Pro is the first industrial-level 3D printer capable of true out-of-the-box printing for professional operators.”

The Series 1 Pro 3D printer’s new Adaptive Auto-Leveling uses a high-quality induction sensor to both calibrate and correct for build surface misalignment. In addition, the printer’s existing fast-heating 360W 12 x 12″ build surface now has a magnetic base that’s fitted with the BuildTak FlexPlate system. These two new features are currently available as upgrades, for just $299, for existing Series 1 3D printers. The upgraded Series 1 Pro is available on the Type A Machines online store, and through authorized resellers, for $3,995.

Carbon CLIP Technology Used to 3D Print 10,000 End Use Parts

Back in 2015, Silicon Valley 3D printing company Carbon launched its cutting edge CLIP 3D printing technology and took everyone by surprise, including R&D unit Oracle Labs, a computer technology leader. The same year that Carbon’s CLIP (Continuous Liquid Interface Production) hit the scene, Craig Stephen’s team at Oracle Labs was developing a design that was necessary to incorporate tiny micro servers to a larger network. Two separate parts could efficiently provide micro server alignment, but each rack required thousands of parts, so the CLIP technology was appealing.

“Carbon’s technology and materials were superior to the alternatives available to Oracle,” Stephen said. “Our choice was about more than just optimizing cost and time.”

Working with Carbon, and its production partner Sculpteo, Oracle Labs was able to design and 3D print a very precise bracket that measured barely an inch in size; in turn, Sculpteo delivered a total of 10,000 3D printed board alignment brackets to Oracle Labs in just a few days, manufactured using Carbon’s tough, stiff RPU 70 (Rigid Polyurethane) material. Sculpteo helped design the part so that it could be printed in a row of cubes, which worked well with CLIP’s ability to offer continuous resin flow; the only thing that limited the approach was “how far the Z-axis could be pulled out.”

Stephen said, “Instead of printing parts by inch, CLIP let us print parts by hour. That’s game changing.

Oracle is thrilled to have partnered with Carbon. Not only did the part quality stand up much better than other technologies we had previously tried, the part itself was economical and saved us a lot of time in our fabrication process.”

Custom Innovation Co. Lands $3 Million in Funding to Scale Up Global Operations

Custom Innovation Co founders David McLaughlin and Rob Fisher. [Image: David Swan, The Australian]

Australian enterprise Custom Innovation Co., made up of tailored menswear company Tailors Mark and pre-revenue software solutions firm Tec. Fit, is focused on disrupting eCommerce retail, and recently closed a $3 million raise in an effort to scale up global operations. The company, which has sold 70,000 custom-made shirts all over the world, leverages 3D scanning technology in order to offer discounted prices for its premium clothing.

The co-founders of Custom Innovation Co. have been friends for two decades, and developed the new scanning technology, which takes a precise scan of a customer’s body and then sends the measurements to a Thailand manufacturing facility. Once the garment is manufactured, it’s shipped right to the customer.

Co-founder David McLaughlin said, “We take you from checkout to receiving your shirt in two to four weeks. Return rates are notoriously high in this space and we’ve brought it down below 10 per cent. That’s pretty much unheard of.”

Tailors Mark consultants are able to conduct customer fittings anywhere with a handheld scanning device, so there’s no need for a brick and mortar location. Now that Custom Innovation has raised some new funds, the goal is commercialize several of Tec. Fit’s technology solutions.

3D Modeling Used to Remix Artwork at the Met

The Theater of Disappearance, Adrián Villar Rojas, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Contemporary Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas is the youngest sculptor, at 37, to receive the annual commission to create an installation for the roof of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rojas digitally scanned and combined nearly 100 works from the museum’s existing collection to create the 16 black and white sculptures that make up his rooftop installation, titled “The Theatre of Disappearance,” which, according to Adafruit, “looks like a freewheeling Bacchanalian fete.”

Rojas and his team made good use of the Met’s Advanced Imaging Department to digitally scan and create 3D models from the collection, and also incorporated staff members and their families into the installation, which will stay on the roof all summer. Rojas describes his installation:

“The Theater of Disappearance seeks to dialogue with the vision and division of The Met’s patrimony. An entire cartography of human culture seems to emerge from the Museum’s wings and rooms. Rather than a mirror of facts, the Museum becomes a version of them: America’s map of human activity on earth, a scale-model account of who we are and how we got here.

What if we discovered that we are in a labyrinth, not a house? What if every classification and hierarchy created to stabilize the world was erased to produce a deeper insight: that there are no facts but only interpretations, and that the distance between interpretations and facts might be power—the power of an institution or a nation to sanction truth?

Jorge Luis Borges imagined a kingdom so obsessed with cartography that a full-scale map of the kingdom itself was made. When the map’s futility plunged it into disuse, torn pieces, like phantoms, hung from trees and rolled through the windy desert. What if The Met was neither the map nor even its pieces, but instead that windy desert, a scale-model theater of disappearance?”

Tinkercad Users Can Share Designs on MyMiniFactory

Autodesk is making its 3D design software Tinkercad even more accessible – users are now able to share their designs to 3D printable object sharing platform MyMiniFactory right from within Tinkercad. Hundreds of thousands of makers and designers share over 25,000 guaranteed 3D printable digital objects every day on MyMiniFactory, and it shares a vision of making 3D content available to the masses with easy-to-use, browser-based Tinkercad, which has over a million users.

In a blog post today, MyMiniFactory wrote, “We have been working closely with the Tinkercad team in order to streamline the process of sharing 3D printable content and as of today, you will be able to ‘share to MyMiniFactory’ when using the software.”

Users first need to authorize Tinkercad to access their MyMiniFactory accounts. Then, once a user has finished a design, they can just pick the “Share” option in the top right of the screen, and select MyMiniFactory. MyMiniFactory is giving away a Startt 3D printer to celebrate the launch of this new sharing partnership; to enter the drawing, just upload a 3D printable design, via Tinkercad, sometime over the next two weeks.

Finalists Announced for Enterprise in Space Program’s “Print The Future” Competition

Together with the Kepler Space Institute, the non-profit Enterprise in Space (EIS), which is a program of the National Space Society (NSS), launched its “Print The Future” contest in October of 2016, along with contest partners 3D Hubs, Sketchfab, Made in Space, and Prairie Nanotechnology. The goal of the competition, geared toward university students from around the world, was to drive innovation of space manufacturing technology. Teams were asked to create designs that “push the bounds of 3D printing in microgravity to serve humanity in expanding its presence among the stars.”

EIS has now announced the three finalist teams for the “Print The Future” competition, based on the commercial potential, originality, and scientific and engineering merits of the designs.

  • Team ProtoFluidics’ Microfluidic Modules: University of Pennsylvania undergraduate students Jaimie Carlson, Laura Gaoand, and Adam Zachar designed 3D printable modules that will enable the rapid of prototyping of microfluidic experiments on the International Space Station.
  • Team Bengal Tigers’ Multi-Purpose Wrench: North Carolina State University PhD Student Hasan Latif, with Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology Masters students Tavila Sharmin, Habibur Rahman, Shourav Ahmed, and Ankhy Sultana designed a 3D printable tool that can loosen and tighten various sizes of bolts, nuts, and screws, reducing the need to carry multiple tools in space.
  • Team H2’s H2 Capsule: University of Pennsylvania Masters students Haimin Yie and Hyung Jin Yoo designed and created a 3D printable capsule that early explorers on Mars in the future can use to store media and objects necessary to share their personalities and stories to future generations, as a way to confront and accept death as a possible mission outcome.

The finalists will have their projects prototyped, at no cost, through 3D Hubs, and present their experiments at the NSS 2017 International Space Development Conference next month, which is open to the public. The grand prize winner will work with Made In Space to 3D print the project on Earth first, and then it will be printed on the ISS, before being returned to Earth so the winning team can study the results, using Prairie Nanotechnology’s advanced research equipment. Three members of the winning team will also receive R.S. Kirby Memorial Scholarships from the Kepler Space Institute, valued at $5,000, to be applied towards a full certificate program. 3DPrint.com wishes the three finalist teams good luck!

Discuss these stories in the News Briefs forum at 3DPB.com.

 

Share this Article


Recent News

3D Printing Financials: Velo3D Struggles in Harrowing 2023 Earnings Report

Time Travelers’ Relics: 5 Spectacular 3D Printed Artifacts that Bring History to Life



Categories

3D Design

3D Printed Art

3D Printed Food

3D Printed Guns


You May Also Like

3D Printing Webinar and Event Roundup: March 17, 2024

It’s another busy week of webinars and events, including SALMED 2024 and AM Forum in Berlin. Stratasys continues its in-person training and is offering two webinars, ASTM is holding a...

HP Releases New Arkema Sustainable 3D Printing Polymer Ahead of AMUG 2024

Ahead of the Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) Conference in Chicago next week (March 10-14), HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) has announced a new sustainable polymer offering, PA 12 S, for...

3D Printing Financials: Materialise Reports Growth in 2023 with Medical Segment Success

Closing out 2023, Materialise (Nasdaq: MTLS) unveiled a strong financial performance for its fourth quarter. The Belgium-based company reported a revenue increase of 4.1% year-over-year, and despite facing net losses,...

3D Printing Webinar and Event Roundup: February 25, 2024

It’s another busy week of webinars and events in the AM industry, including Silicone Expo Europe in Amsterdam, an open house for Massivit in North America, and the AM for...