The Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group of Australia’s Department of Defence has selected nScrypt’s Factory in a Tool (FiT) platform to augment its research operations.DST is a leader in safeguarding Australia by delivering expert and impartial scientific advice, supporting current operations, and providing innovative solutions for defense, national security, and future defense capabilities.
DST selected an nScrypt 3Dn-500 Penta-Head multi-material FiT platform, which will be outfitted with a SmartPumpTMmicrodispensing tool head, nFDmaterial extrusion tool head, Pick and Place(for electronic components and subassemblies)andnMillTMtool heads (for micromilling), and UVtool head with integrated laser and Pulse Forge photonic curing for spot curing of photopolymers.The tool heads can operate in series or parallel on the FiT’s fast (up to 1 mps), high-precision (up to 10nm resolution, 500nm repeatability, 1 micron accuracy) linear motion gantry.The tool heads are monitored by multiple cameras for automated in-process inspection and computer vision routines.The system also includes a point laser height sensor for Z-tracking and mapping for conformal printing onto objects of any surface shape.
According to nScrypt’s CEO, Dr. Ken Church,
This is one of our most advanced and versatile machines.With this tool, DST can go from CAD to a final, multi-material product with embedded electronics in a single machine, without retooling.Although the U.S. military has been a regular customer for nScrypt’s direct digital manufacturing solutions, this is nScrypt’s first sale to a foreign government agency.We are honored that Australia DST selected our tool to help support its mission.
The FiT’s SmartPumpTMmicrodispensing tool head eliminates drooling with pico-liter volumetric control and boasts the widest range of materials available for any microdispensing system: more than 10,000 commercially available materials, ranging from a few centipoise (like water) to millions of centipoise (much thicker than peanut butter).The SmartPump’s pen tip has what is believed to be the smallest commercially available diameter, 10 microns.
The nFD extruder tool head can 3D print what nScrypt believes is the widest range of thermoplastics, composites, and continuous carbon fiber.
About nScrypt
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Orlando, Florida, nScrypt designs and manufactures award-winning, next-generation, high-precision microdispensing and Direct Digital Manufacturing equipment and solutions for industrial applications, with unmatched accuracy and flexibility.Serving the printed electronics, electronics packaging, solar cell metallization, communications, printed antenna, life science, chemical/pharmaceutical, defense, space, and 3D printing industries, our equipment and solutions are widely used by the military, academic and research institutes, government agencies and national labs, and private companies. nScrypt is a 2002 spin out from Sciperio Inc., a research and development think tank specializing in cross-disciplinary solutions. The nScrypt BAT Series Bioprinter, which won the R&D 100 award in 2003, will travel to the International Space Station in 2019, in a joint program with Techshot. nScrypt Cyberfacturing Center is our direct digital contract design and manufacturing service. www.nscrypt.com
You may have heard of the concept of a 3D printer farm – multiple 3D printers set up in one location, all working together in a 3D printing factory that can generate hundreds of parts in mere hours. It’s a really cool concept, but not many people have access to that many 3D printers – certainly not the average individual. That’s what recent Harvard graduate Harnek Gulati wants to change, and he’s working to do so with his MakerFleet concept.
“I’ve always had the dream of building a factory that was connected to the Internet,” Gulati said. “Didn’t know how to build it, but I was, like, ‘I can learn all this stuff.’”
MakerFleet is based at Harvard Innovation Labs and consists of 18 3D printers that customers can rent for $2.00, plus $3.50 an hour. Users connect online to any of the 3D printers, and then have full control of the print job, from print settings to the position of the item on the print bed. They can then watch the print in process through MakerFleet’s webcams, and if the MakerFleet staff doesn’t catch a failed print first, the user can cancel it and start another.
Local customers can pick up their 3D printed items directly or have them shipped to them. Gulati hopes to eventually expand to a larger network of MakerFleet labs around the world so that they become more local for more people.
“The dream is to, actually, create modular factories, just like AWS has different data centers around the world,” Gulati said. “You have one in designated areas around the world, so when you print something, you print something that’s very local to you.”
MakerFleet isn’t the first service to offer print on demand capabilities; there are large companies like Shapeways that work with a network of manufacturing partners to be able to produce and deliver locally, for example, and of course there is 3D Hubs, which allows customers to order 3D prints from their closest participating 3D printer operator. In a way, MakerFleet is like a massive Hub, with one key difference: customers can watch and control their items being printed.
Gulati recently graduated from Harvard with a computer science degree, but MakerFleet is not his first entrepreneurial project. First he created a limited edition series of wooden watches that turned out to be immensely popular; he raised more than $75,000 in less than a month after setting an initial goal of $15,000 on Kickstarter. He realized how difficult it was to manufacture a product for hundreds of people, and that led him to the idea of setting up a factory that could be accessed online.
Many individuals who don’t live near Harvard will likely still turn to their local 3D Hubs for their 3D printing needs, but a project like MakerFleet could be useful to small businesses who need more than one 3D printer to produce a product but don’t have the funding or space to establish their own 3D printer farms. MakerFleet is still a new endeavor; Gulati started it in May of 2018 and has a far-reaching vision for reproducing the intitial lab in locations around the world. If he succeeds, MakerFleet could be another new aspect of a world of more distributed manufacturing.
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Welcome to this month’s last edition of 3D Printing News Briefs! Today, in honor a new month starting tomorrow, we’re starting with stories about everything new. BEEVERYCREATIVE will soon launch a new 3D printer kit, while Fast Radius is opening a new headquarters and Thor3D welcomes a new CEO. Verashape is introducing the latest version of its SOFTSHAPER software, and Link3D launched a new additive manufacturing scheduling solution. Moving on from new things, Midwest Engineered Systems, an official KUKA partner, will be displaying its technology at IMTS 2018, and a company used its innovative laser cladding technology to restore a CNC spindle.
BEEVERYCREATIVE’s New 3D Printer Kit
Portuguese 3D printer manufacturer BEEVERYCREATIVE is getting ready to launch a new 3D printer DIY kit, and will present it publicly for the first time at the upcoming TCT Show 2018 in Birmingham. This is a big deal for the company, as it hasn’t introduced had a product launch for a new 3D printer since 2015; employees have been very busy working on the MELT project for the European Space Agency for the last two years, and are more than ready to introduce the new B2X300 3D printer kit.
BEEVERYCREATIVE conduct multiple studies before the launch, including market research on 3D printer user patterns and collecting quantitative and qualitative information from users about its helloBEEprusa 3D printer kits. The B2X300 is named for the company’s brand (B), its two extruders (2X), and its 300 x 200 x 300 mm print area (300), and was delivered to several beta testers this spring for testing and feedback. Aside from its build area, number of extruders, and the fact that it features auto bed leveling and trinamic drivers, we don’t know much about the 3D printer kit yet. But all will be revealed by mid-September.
Fast Radius Opening New Headquarters and AM Factory
The Fast Radius team, L-R: John Nanry, chief product officer; Bill King, chief scientist; Lou Rassey, CEO; and Pat McCusker, COO [Image: Manuel Martinez, Chicago Business]
3D printing solutions provider Fast Radius is scaling up its manufacturing footprint, and recently opened its new headquarters in Chicago’s West Loop, which features an advanced, industrial-grade 3D printing facility. This facility is home to extensive HP MultiJet Fusion technology, as well as what the company calls the largest Carbon production facility in the Western Hemisphere. This was a well-thought out location: the building of the Chicago-based Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) was where the company’s new CEO Lou Rassey first collaborated with several other Fast Radius executives, including Chief Scientist Bill King, PhD, Chief Product Officer John Nanry, and Enterprise Solutions Leader John Ramirez. The rest of the company’s executive team includes Vice President of Sales and Marketing Brian Simms and COO Pat McCusker.
Rassey said, “It was important to the Fast Radius team that we were headquartered in Chicago, as we are passionate about being a part of the next great industrial manufacturing renaissance in this city, the Midwest, and ultimately, the world.
“Pat, John, Bill, John and Brian form the perfect core team to grow Fast Radius as we build out our technology platform and global footprint to bring manufacturing innovation to the world at scale.”
Thor3D Welcomes New CEO
Anna Zevelyov
This week, Moscow-headquartered 3D scanner manufacturer Thor3D announced that it has appointed its very first Chief Executive Officer. The new CEO, Anna Zevelyov, is a company co-founder and a 3D printing market veteran who had been serving as Thor3D’s Sales Director; her long-time lieutenant, Vadim Fomichev, will now be taking on this role. Under Zevelyov’s leadership, the company will be focusing on R&D, with plans to release at least one new 3D scanner each year.
“Some history…the company was, until now, ruled by committee. Although periodically, this “collective-wisdom” approach was beneficial, over time we realized that a strict hierarchy and one person at the helm is needed,” Zevelyov wrote in a statement. “The Board of Directors took 6 months to consider whether to nominate a CEO and if yes, who that might be. After much debate about how this could change the culture of the company, the decision was made this month. I was elected unanimously, which, naturally, boosts confidence, as I take on this new challenge.
“I am honored and optimistic. My first priority will be R&D (after all, Thor3D is, first and foremost, a technology company). My aim will be to significantly improve our current technology and to introduce a new 3D scanner at least once a year (expect to hear big news before the end of the year). Another priority will be organization of our intellectual property. I anticipate filing a number of international patents over the next year to formalize the innovative work that has been done in the company over the previous months.”
New SOFTSHAPER Software Version
Verashape, which manufactures the VSHAPER line of 3D printers, has just introduced the latest version of its SOFTSHAPER software. Thanks to a license granted to the company by Siemens PLM Software last year, SOFTSHAPER 2019 is based on Parasolid Communicator. There are many improvements and new features in this latest version of SOFTSHAPER, including a technological process tree, detailed reports, and the ability to group layers and print manually adjusted supports.
“A huge simplification that SOFTSHAPER 2019 provides us with is the ability to print supports with higher density,” explained Seweryn Nitek, a Software Engineer at Verashape. “The density is higher only in the area of contact with the model. In other areas, the density of supports is selected in relation to the required stiffness. This saves time for printing supports, which are then removed by the user.”
Midwest Engineered Systems Displaying KUKA Technology at IMTS 2018
Two years ago at IMTS 2016 in Chicago, KUKA Robotics showcased how its robots integrate with 3D technology thanks to partnerships with companies like Midwest Engineered Systems (MWES), a leader in complex systems integration. MWES provides services such as robotic welding, machine tending, material handling, and automated production lines, but has become well-known in the last few years for its work in laser wire additive manufacturing. This technology is able to create very large parts, while also saving up to 90% of the material normally machined away.
“We’ve actually come up with a way way to print with metal using wire. Really what that does is allows you to print larger parts and it allows you to print them faster,” said Scott Woida, the President of MWES, in a video.
The company’s additive manufacturing system uses the hot wire process to preheat wire before it enters the molten pool. At the upcoming IMTS 2018, you can check out the MWES technology for yourself at KUKA’s Booth N-236200.
Restoring CNC Spindle with Laser Cladding
A company called Synergy Additive Manufacturing LLC (SAM), which claims to be one of the only turnkey jobshops to offer metalworking services like final machining, heat treating, metal forming, 3D CAD design, and 3D printing, also developed a laser cladding process is a more cost-effective alternative to hard chrome coatings. The company offers a 24 hour turnaround on the dimensional restoration of rotating components, like motor shafts and CNC spindles, using this technology.
In a new video, SAM demonstrated how its laser cladding method can be used to restore a CNC spindle. The technology offers a good metallurgical bond, and there is no chipping away or peeling once the restoration is complete. You can see this for yourself in the video below:
Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the comments below.
material extrusion tool head, Pick and Place (for electronic components and subassemblies) and nMillTM tool heads (for micromilling), and UV tool head with integrated laser and Pulse Forge photonic curing for spot curing of photopolymers. The tool heads can operate in series or parallel on the FiT’s fast (up to 1 mps), high-precision (up to 10nm resolution, 500nm repeatability, 1 micron accuracy) linear motion gantry. The tool heads are monitored by multiple cameras for automated in-process inspection and computer vision routines. The system also includes a point laser height sensor for Z-tracking and mapping for conformal printing onto objects of any surface shape. 
