FDM Machine

An iconic name in aviation, Piper Aircraft creates single- and twin-engine planes for businesses and individuals. Hydroforming — placing sheet metal against a form and applying pressurized fluid — helps create hundreds of aluminum components from frame to skin.

In the past, Piper used a CNC machine to make aluminum forms. But complex geometries were expensive, lead time could be weeks, and material waste was considerable.

So Piper’s Fred Jones, lead tool designer, worked out a quicker, less...

Using colors on the Fortus systems is a great way to make your parts stand out, especially when creating an assembly or specialty parts for manufacturing applications. (Designated colors could signify safety, caution, no-fly, danger, etc.)

However, one thing I've noticed is that after using a colored material, when I switch back to a lighter color or natural material, some of the darker colorant bleeds onto the first few layers of my next part. I could purge extra material during the loading...

Incorporating Screw Threads Into FDM Parts
Screw threads are one of the most common components used for fastening parts in an assembly or attaching pipe tubing together. Here are five ways to incorporate screw threads into Fused Deposition Modeling parts, followed by some useful applications.

Threads directly from the FDM machine
Depending on the pitch and helical profile, it may be possible to design your desired thread right into the CAD file. Typically, large pitched threads on parts used for...

I recently received a 4:30 p.m. distress call from a customer. He runs a small service bureau using only Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) machines. He was really hoping to deliver a 3D prototype the following day to impress his new customer, but the green flag (default) run time was 36 hours and 11 minutes.

The part was basically a large, thin-walled container. Naturally, he chose to orient it with the cavity upward to avoid filling it with support, but a thin rim around the top still...

Don’t miss the uPrint SE 3D Printer in a cameo role on the spring premier of Fox TV’s "Bones." Airing at 8 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. Central) next Monday, April 2, the show follows a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, as she uses her highly developed intelligence (and a few high-tech tools) to help law enforcement solve murder cases.

In Monday’s episode, "Prisoner in the Pipe,” the remains of a body are found in a sewer. According to the script pages we received, Brennan’s team uses...

Many years ago I was given the opportunity to design my first product. The terms rapid prototyping, 3D printing, and 3D prototyping were foreign to me. Although I felt confident in my abilities to design a complex piece of equipment, I was ill-prepared when it came to making the parts I needed.

We had a large in-house machine shop and I was assigned a machinist to build my prototypes. I would bring him a drawing of a part I’d worked on all day. He would bring me the part and I would find an error...

Most companies obtain custom manufacturing tools either by purchasing them from a subcontractor or building them internally. Either approach can be expensive and can take a fair amount of leadtime. Because of this companies often make do without jigs and fixtures that could increase process throughput and reduce scrap and rework. By substantially reducing the cost and leadtime required to produce custom manufacturing tools, additive manufacturing can justify building custom tools for...

This is the first of many posts in a regular series from Stratasys application engineers, who’ll offer technical advice, new ideas and experienced reflections on Fused Deposition Modeling from an engineering perspective.

One thing that’s true of rapid-prototyping machines across the board is that some post-build processes must be done before a 3D printed or rapid-prototyped part is ready to be used. The parts have been built, but support removal and/or some additional post processing is required.

W...

Advanced Composite Structures (ACS) repairs components for planes and helicopters, and manufactures low-volume composite parts for the aerospace industry. A typical job might include repairing a helicopter blade or building an aircraft camera fairing. Tooling is often a big portion of a job's cost, including layup tools to create composite parts and fixtures for drilling. 

In the past, CNC machining weighed down ACS with heavy costs and lead times. The typical tool cost around $2,000 to make...

Additive manufacturing has long been used in the aerospace industry to build functional prototypes used to evaluate form, fit and function. But machine improvements and new materials have opened up the potential for producing manufacturing tooling used to align, assemble, clamp, hold test and calibrate components and sub-assemblies at all stages of the manufacturing process. A key advantage of creating these tools with FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) is that they can be produced in less...

A new mindset has made Acist Medical Systems more agile than ever. A medical-device manufacturer with a clinical presence in more than 40 countries, Acist specializes in contrast injection systems. Its devices let caregivers in cardiology and radiology infuse dye into the vascular system so doctors can better see patients’ anatomies.

Creating end-use parts on Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) systems has improved Acist’s processes in several ways. Because it’s engaged in direct digital...

Polycarbonate (PC) is one of the most widely used thermoplastics in industry. As manufacturers look to 3D printing (additive manufacturing) to produce functional prototypes and production parts, it’s only natural that PC materials should be one of their top choices. Parts made from this material have the advantage of duplicating the properties of injection-molded PC parts.

Stratasys offers three PC formulations. Basic PC has excellent mechanical and thermal properties that make it suitable for...

Until our economy turns around, will you hunker down or invest in technology?

When the economy started to tank, Matt Hlavin, CEO of Thogus Products, a 61-year-old manufacturing company rooted in injection molding and heavily dependent on the automotive industry, chose not to await economic recovery, but to invest in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology and diversify. His decision has paid off in spades.

With FDM in place, Thogus shifted to small-volume molding and now competes with high-cost...

From the early days of FDM technology, ABS has been the most popular material choice. Today, there is a wider range of FDM materials, and ABS itself has evolved to a number of formulations, each tougher than the original material and offering advantages for specific applications. ABS-M30 (aka ABSplus) is up to 40 percent stronger than standard ABS material and is an ideal material for conceptual prototyping, design verification, and direct digital manufacturing. ABSM30i is even stronger than...

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Today Stratasys introduced a new soluble support material for its rapid prototyping and direct digital manufacturing systems. It's called SR-100 and it's for use with the polycarbonate (PC-10) formulation. Without a soluble support material, the prototype's supports must be manually removed. Automating the process speeds up the time to get a finished part in hand. Dissolve time is only about 30-120 minutes.

Prior to this introduction, soluble support material was available only for material...

As additive manufacturing is used more frequently to produce short-run production parts and manufacturing tools, like jigs and fixtures, engineers need to consider how well the parts hold their dimensions over time. The main controlling factor in assessing dimensional stability is the production material.

A Stratasys white paper, entitled "The Accuracy Myth: Don't Make the Mistake of Confusing Resolution with Accuracy" addresses the question of long-term stability of parts produced by additive...

What kind of savings could you see? ScriptPro, which manufactures automated pill-dispensing systems for pharmacies, realized a net savings of nearly 80 percent – savings that were easy to swallow.

Robotic dispensing systems, which automate the pill bottle filling function, allow for more patient counseling time and reduced wait times. The large variety of vial sizes available, however, posed design and manufacturing challenges.  ScriptPro, therefore, customizes its machines for each pharmacy.

As...

Resolution has long been one of the qualities used to evaluate the performance of an additive manufacturing system. But today, additive manufacturing systems are most commonly used to build parts that measure several inches across and have tolerances of several thousands of an inch or greater. In this situation, the resolution of the manufacturing system is much less important than its overall accuracy, the deviation between the CAD model and the measured value of the part

A Stratasys white...

You’ve heard it before: the advice to innovate to thrive. And in a challenging economy, you may need to innovate just to survive.
 

Nothing gives me a sense of pride more than to hear of a company innovating and thriving with the aid of Stratasys FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) Technology.

An article in the Green Bay Press Gazette profiles Wisconsin Plastics Inc. as a company thriving in a tough economy with some help from FDM. The article refers to the manufacturer’s FDM machine as “the jewel”...