Fused Deposition Modeling

Forgive us for the countdown drama, but our engineers have been working on something very exciting! It’s fun to have a big secret, and it’s even better to shout it out: Our new printer is so cool!

First of all, for a professional Fused Deposition Modeling system, Mojo is impressively compact. It fits in my humble cubicle. I know this because a 3D-printed prototype sat on this very desk for a few days last winter. FDM on a desktop. And why not? Independent research says 80 percent of 3D models...

The newest addition to the Stratasys family, Mojo, got a lot of attention when we introduced it yesterday. We'd love to hear your feedback!

How do you think Mojo will be used? Will it fit into your shop?

Offering the rare treat of a smart choice that’s also super easy, our Dimension team has bundled its popular 3D printers with the materials and accessories that every user needs anyway. The option is called a Dimension 3D Print Pack, and it boasts a nice price incentive versus buying the items separately.

When engineers and designers decide to adopt FDM technology, it’s often because they need time and money savings. The last thing they want to deal with at that stage is surprise costs. Besides...

It's time for some all-too-rare shameless boasting on the part of engineers and designers. What's the coolest thing you've ever designed? Maybe it wasn't even your most successful product, or for whatever reason hasn't yet seen the light of day outside your workshop. But something about it gives you great gratification. 

What design or engineering project makes you the proudest?

The Lamborghini Aventador was the Top Gear Car of the Year for 2011. It accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and boasts a top speed of about 230 mph. It’s 9 percent more powerful, 20 percent more fuel efficient and 6 percent lighter than the previous generation Murciélago. The key to the Aventador’s extreme performance is its light weight carbon-fiber reinforced composite (CFRC) monocoque, the core of its integrated body-chassis.

The component is the result of research involving 3D...

Sunday is Earth Day, when we reiterate the importance of using resources responsibly and cleaning up after ourselves at home and at work. One of my favorite benefits of 3D printing in general — and Fused Deposition Modeling in particular — is the opportunity to reduce waste.

How have you taken advantage of this? Do you catch design flaws earlier? Skip tooling when possible? Did you move from a subtractive to an additive manufacturing process, resulting in less wasted material?

How has 3D printing...

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...

Yesterday, Dimension 3D Printing announced the winners in this year's Extreme Redesign contest, which challenges college and high school students to reinvent products and works of art or architecture. This year's achievements include a continuous-flow hand pump and a library building that encourages community involvement. Check out the designs if you haven't already -- they'll make you optimistic about tomorrow's engineers and designers.

Did you have 3D printing technology available in your...

National Center for Manufacturing Sciences Senior VP Rebecca Taylor recently wrote about how FDM Technology mended a heartache. Her beautiful Corvette convertible, otherwise running great, was stranded for lack of one stupidly simple part: the tray that holds the engine computer.

With spring fast approaching, Taylor issued a distress call to the manufacturing community. Here's her account of how Stratasys Application Engineer Noah Zehringer delivered the joy that is a functioning convertible in...

Two years ago, we blogged about Dimension 3D Printing user Matt Bunting, who built a smart hexapod robot. Bunting has been hard at work on the device, which has taught itself to walk on its FDM legs using visual input. It can even recognize Bunting’s face.

The March 21 episode of Discovery Channel’s “Daily Planet” shows how Bunting’s bot behaves somewhat like a biological entity, adapting to its environment with the help of an artificial neural network. Five minutes in, see the Dimension 3D...

Around the Stratasys office, we often let FDM parts keep their natural 3D-printed beauty. But our engineers also experiment with various ways to smooth, seal or aesthetically alter surfaces depending on the application. (Our resource site provides guidelines for several finishing techniques.)

What about you? Does your 3D printing application call for surface finishing? What's your favorite method? Link to photos if you're particularly proud.

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...

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting a designer who uses FDM technology to build devices, test, redesign, check, try, and test again in a highly iterative process. His workshop is full of first-tries, concept models and experimental side projects -- physical evidence of the progress he's made. (You'll hear much more about this customer's heroic successes in the months to come.)

What about you? If you're an engineer or designer, do you work iteratively? I'm especially wondering whether you...

Xerox, the global office-equipment supplier, recently developed a printer especially for a niche market that needs features not found on a typical printer. This low-volume product posed a small problem: It required a modified cable connector that Xerox’s supplier was only willing to manufacture in large-volume runs.

So Xerox senior model maker Duane Byerley found a way to modify an existing connector. “I pulled out an X-Acto knife and in about 20 minutes was able to cut away the extraneous...

Happy Pi Day! In honor of the event, I'd like to know your opinion about math. Specifically, is waning enthusiasm for math skills putting future innovations at risk, or does the very existence of Pi Day prove that plenty of folks are psyched about numbers? Do you see enough up-and-coming talent in your area to keep engineering and design innovations thriving?

Is math alive and well?

Related: STEM Education Program Invests in 3D Printing

When a couple of engineers wanted to build an unmanned aerial system (UAS), they didn’t let their lack of aeronautics degrees or project funding stop them. SelectTech Geospatial’s Frank Beafore and Beth Galang started making airplanes on their Dimension 3D Printer. After eight months of trial-and-error refinements, the pair made a breakthrough in the drone world by flying the first 3D-printed airframe to take off on its own power. Not bad for a side project.

“We’re just a couple of...

In a perfect universe, all additive manufacturing systems and materials would excel at all tasks. Luckily, most real-world applications call for a narrower set of impressive qualities. What about your applications? Do you need materials that can handle some serious roughhousing? Or is it important to faithfully render fine features?

What’s more important to you: strength or resolution?

Beginning FDM users might assume that the flattest orientation is always the best. But it’s possible to improve a 3D printed part with some experimentation. Have you ever enhanced a part’s finish or strength just by trying a new orientation? What about build time and material consumption?

The mousetrap and the bicycle are often held up as icons of good design — effective, simple, tough to improve upon. The inventors behind them were so good that it’s easy to forget human minds created them. Some of our favorite modern gadgets have the same quality, seeming to have sprung fully formed from collective need rather than a series of prototypes. 

What famous design, old or new, do you admire to the point of envy? What makes you go, “Darn, I wish I’d thought of that!”

At Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, students are hard at work becoming tomorrow’s aerospace engineers. The institution’s College of Engineering emphasizes precision in aircraft and spacecraft design, according to laboratory manager Chris Smith.

But once students had perfected a CAD design and were ready to test what they’d created, they had to hand carve models from mahogany or rely on offsite machinists to make models by hand. The school needed a cost-effective way for students to create...