Stratasys, Inc.

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...

RedEye On Demand, Stratasys’ digital manufacturing service business, has received AS9100C certification. Achieving this standard in the aerospace industry recognizes that RedEye meets the quality management standards required to provide 3D-printed production parts for aerospace manufacturers, following a rigorous audit process that began in March 2011. The AS9100C standard ensures that a dedicated process is set aside for the way in which manufacturers handle production parts. Interior parts...

Designers of jigs and fixtures made by conventional manufacturing processes are often forced to compromise on functionality and performance. That's because of the need to adhere to design for manufacturability (DFM) rules and to keep cost and leadtimes at reasonable levels. On the other hand, the design freedom offered by additive manufacturing makes it possible to create complex, freeform, feature-laden configurations that often deliver substantial improvements in performance without any cost...

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...

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...

The FDM 3D printing process can't be used to produce jigs and fixtures when metal is a must. But the broad selection of mechanical properties as well as chemical resistance and thermal resistance selection offered by the materials makes it possible to use 3D printing for a range of custom tooling applications.

"3D Printing Jigs, Fixtures and Other Manufacturing Tools" is a Stratasys white paper that talks about how plastic tools offer advantages over metal in many applications. Here’s the second...

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...

The news is out! Stratasys Inc. just announced the finalists in the eighth annual Extreme Redesign 3D Printing Challenge. The annual global contest encourages students to submit an innovative new product design, a redesign of an existing product, or an original or redesigned work of art or architecture.

Ten finalists were picked in each of three categories: Middle School and High School Engineering, College Engineering, and Art & Architecture. Winners will receive either $2,500 or...

This year’s Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) conference promises to be the group’s biggest event ever. The number and level of experts who will gather at this event is a great opportunity for advanced Fortus users to expand their systems’ value. Stratasys application engineers (including yours truly) will be there in full force with the following breakout sessions: Stratasys systems maintenance, software, applications, materials, upgrade paths, and best practices.

We love to answer...

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

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...

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?

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...

Minimizing weight and space is critical to success in aircraft design and manufacturing. However, there are limits to what you can achieve with conventional manufacturing methods because of  how they produce part geometry. Most designers have heard the response “it can’t be made like that” from manufacturing engineers. Additive manufacturing (or 3D printing) overcomes these limitations. For example, there’s no need to worry about draft angles or parting lines that are part of injection molding...

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?

Stratasys recently observed the 10-year anniversary of the Dimension 3D Printer line. The Dimension laid the foundation for the 3D printing revolution we see today. This model drove adoption by bringing 3D printing to a whole new demographic that previously couldn't access the technology.

In the early years of the additive manufacturing industry, a "low-priced" machine cost about $200,000, and additive manufacturing was mainly used by Fortune 100 companies.  About 10 years later -- in 2002 -- the...

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!”

A considerable amount of tools and equipment are needed to support aircraft before and after flight. Custom ground-support equipment typically isn't cost-effective to produce with conventional manufacturing methods because of the low quantities. Direct digital manufacturing (or 3D printing) provides the ideal platform to produce many ground support-equipment components because of its ability to produce parts without tooling expense.

"Constant Improvement" is a Stratasys white paper that discusses...