Have you used Versatile Plastic to make 3D printed prototypes? How about for end-use products? In Part Three of our Material of the Month series, we are going to demonstrate the strength and flexibility of this material.
Take a look!
3D printed shock absorber spring shows incredible flexibility
Durable and strong enough to be used as structural components
Excellent for very complex geometries and thin features
Versatile Plastic is printed with an SLS process that uses a laser to fuse together nylon powder. This enables interlocking parts. When printed with thin features in a chainmail pattern, it’s flexible and folds like fabric.
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Grow Your Business
Learn how you can utilize SLS technology to expand the manufacturing capabilities of your business.
Check out our Material of the Month series on Versatile Plastic:
Cable clasp printed in Versatile Plastic. Image by Voytek Medical
It doesn’t matter whether you’re experimenting with prototypes or printing final products. Wherever you are in the 3D design process, Versatile Plastic can be used to help you create the perfect end product.
The Many Benefits of Versatile Plastic
Versatile Plastic is ultra thin, incredibly flexible and can be used well for parts like hinges and springs. Printed on EOS P770, P396, and P110 machines through Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), when printed in a thick form, it can be strong enough to be used as structural components. Versatile Plastic is also heatproof to 175C/350F, skin-friendly and dishwasher safe.
Clearly, these features of the material provide a multitude of possibilities, and that’s precisely why Voytek Medical — a company focused on creating and developing products that lock all patient cables to a desired bedside monitor or roll stand without voiding warranties or modifying equipment — has utilized it so vastly.
Cable clasp printed in Versatile Plastic. Image by Voytek Medical
“Voytek Medical has been using Shapeways in every stage of production, from concept to prototype and end-user products,” the company explained. Their job is difficult for many reasons, especially because the products they create need to be able to withstand different chemicals that they come in contact with in a hospital setting. To create their desired products, the company has been using Versatile Plastic and has seen great results from doing so. Before coming to Shapeways and using Versatile Plastic, however, there was a long trial-and-error process.
“In the trial-and-error phase of our designing, the use of extrusion desktop 3D printing in ABS was the best option available to us at the time. This material was far from precise, very brittle, and the layers tended to separate over time. From that point, stereolithography was used that brought us into the world of really designing with a purpose and good quality. The resin was brittle and dust and other mirror issues made consistent prints impossible to mass manufacture.”
Experimenting with Shapeways’ Materials
However, when they discovered Shapeways and began experimenting with the possibilities here, everything changed. For starters, they were able to continue to try out new products at an affordable cost, which allowed them to “grow and thrive at a comfortable and manageable pace.” Soon after, they discovered Versatile Plastic and its many benefits.
“In our testing, hospital cleaning chemicals had no effect on the finish or hardness of the Versatile Plastic. These chemicals are known to destroy some plastic surfaces by making them more brittle, etching and fogging on clear membranes of other equipment. In destruction testing, the material withstood all tools available to hospital staff on a regular basis.”
Finding Undeniable Success with Versatile Plastic
Now, after trying out the product for quite some time, Voytek Medical uses this material and Shapeways exclusively to print their products.
Cable mount printed in Versatile Plastic. Image by Voytek Medical
“Shapeways materials have exceeded our performance testing. We have received no returns due to manufacturer defects from the 300+ units sold over the past 6 months. Customer service has been nothing short of phenomenal thus far, turn around times have been accurate and timely.”
Grow Your Business
Want to know more about how you can use Versatile Plastic to benefit your designs? Get in touch now and we’d love to help you with your business needs.
This is the second installment of our Material of the Month: Versatile Plastic series. Check out Part One of the series here if you missed it. And stay tuned for material demonstrations and Q&As later this month.Got a question about this material? Drop us a line here and your question may be included in our Q&A post.
Versatile Plastic is a durable nylon plastic that can be used for a wide range of applications, both for prototyping and for end products. Printed using Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), when thin, it’s flexible enough for hinges and springs and when thick, it’s strong enough for structural components.
Ideal Applications Include:
Robotics
Drones
Medical & Prosthetics
Installation & Exhibits
Education
Consumer Products
EOS Selective Laser Sintering
We print all of our Versatile Plastic on EOS P770, P396, and P110 machines which are Laser Sintering Systems. The largest machine is able to print parts over half a meter in length.
Ready to get started? Upload your file now for an instant quote.
Grow Your Business
Learn how you can utilize SLS technology to expand the manufacturing capabilities of your business.
We hope you enjoyed this first installment of our Material of the Month: Versatile Plastic series. Stay tuned for more in-depth look into business applications and material demonstrations later this month.Got a question about this material? Drop us a line here and we’ll provide answers in a future post.
The best gifts are personalized, thoughtful ones, and what better way to give that this season than by helping your family and friends 3D print the perfect products? Giving a Shapeways gift card to your loved ones gives them the chance to explore the world of 3D printing, either from the Shapeways marketplace or by creating something beautiful and personal. Our gift card options range from $25 to $500 and the value of them never expires. Although it may be late to order a 3D printed gift before the holidays, giving a gift card will allow your gift recipient to design or purchase any time of the year.
Once you purchase a gift card from our site, you’ll receive a confirmation email followed by a customized email you can send to your special giftee. Whatever their design skills are, consider giving the gift of Shapeways this season.
We think it’s possible to find the perfect gift for everyone at the Shapeways Marketplace. We’ve compiled another curated list of 12 gift ideas for the sophisticated people in your life, no matter how specific their interests may be.
Help the visionary in your life find the pinnacle of perfection wherever they go with this Fibonacci Spiral Pendant. Add a chain for a complete necklace look.
Golden Phi Spiral Rectangular Grid Pendant by Sacred Tribe
For Art Collectors
Art lovers will adore this 3D head design inspired by MC Eschers’ Face Peel drawing.
Escheresque Face peeling by BAROBA’s Shop
Also available as earrings for artistic accessorizers!
Escherian Head Earring by jasolo
For Avocado Addicts
Celebrate the much-adored superfruit with these gorgeous avocado earrings, available in silver, gold, and polished brass.
BendU – Universal Mobile Stand by Urbano Rodriguez´s Shop
For Modern Gentlemen of Taste
This sophisticated plastic bowtie adds a futuristic and fun element to any fancy ‘fit.
Bow Tie by monocircus
For Brilliant Mathematicians
This pencil cup features the first 546 digits of Pi in an attractive and sturdy spiral design. Perfect for teachers and math lovers!
Pi Pen Holder by Cinemo
For Driven Drummers
Help them turn their destroyed drumstick collection into an art piece they can be proud of with this wall mount for broken sticks. Rock on.
The Stick Clip v1.0- Broken Drum Sticks Become Art by A Place for You to Buy Yourself Things
For Caffeine Fiends
Even when there’s no coffee in sight, this caffeine molecule pendant will help them remember what’s important in life. Perfect for use as a necklace (add a chain) or keychain.
Caffeine Molecule Necklace / Keychain by moleculestore
For Style Icons
Sometimes it’s more important to be seen than to see.
DEAL WITH IT Shades by Raw Legend Collaborations
For Potterheads
Gift this beautiful Deathly Hallows pendant to the avid Harry Potter Fan in your life—they’ll know what it means. Complete the look with a chain.
Deathly Hallows Necklace by Fanatic Alley
For Rare Gem Collectors
This human-designed and 3D printed gem echoes the real formation of the desert rose crystal, rendered in rainbow hues. A statement piece for any crystal collection.
Rainbow Desert Rose – imaginary rock collection by Seedling Design
We all want to gift our loved ones with something thoughtful, delightful and useful this holiday season, but finding gifts that celebrate the uniqueness of each of the people in our lives can become a daunting task. No matter who you’re shopping for or what their interests may be, Shapeways has got you covered with thousands of inspired products from our community of independent designers. This week, we’ve curated 12 gift ideas for 12 passionate characters in your life to help you find something perfect for each individual on your list.
For Your Beloved
You’d bring them the moon if you could, so why don’t you?
Moon lamp by VFXguy’s desktop toys
For Modish Musicians
Gift this gorgeous treble clef pendant to the diligent and debonair musician in your life.
Classic Treble Clef Pendant by Uveros
For The Whiz Kid
Perfect for a brilliant kid with an interest in science, or for anyone who loves a party trick, The Wave is a balanced syphon which transfers water between glasses using the principles of physics.
Wave by OliveBird
For Workaholics and Desk Dwellers
Know someone who lives at their desk? Gift them Robbie the Robot Planter so they’ll always have a friend nearby. Grab a tiny succulent to plant inside and you have a two-in-one gift that brings a bit of greenery and freshness to their workspace.
Robbie the Robot Planter by XYZ Workshop
For Stylish Statement-Makers
This incredible botanical choker necklace is a unique piece that the most stylish and bold fashionista on your list will absolutely love.
Botanical Choker Statement Necklace by Fabparlor
For World Travelers
Remind the globetrotter in your life of the places they’ve been or have yet to go with this stunning London cityscape ring.
London Ring – Best Seller Gift! by Wearable Cityscapes
For Stargazers
Tell your starry sweetie to keep shining bright and looking up to the sky with a constellation pendant.
Ursa Minor Necklace by Layers By Design
We also love this celestial circles pendant, which echoes the shape of planetary orbits, and we think the stargazer in your life will, too!
Celestial Circles by Layers By Design
Treat the Chef
Support your favorite home chef’s culinary creativity with this clever little egg cup for unshelled eggs (keep the shell on for food safety).
birdsnest-eggcup by studiogijs
For Your Gym Buddy
More Kettlebell! Give your fitness pal this kettlebell keychain to keep them inspired and celebrate their hard work.
Crossfit Kettlebell Weight Pendant and Keychain by Amathing3D
For Puzzlemasters
Brain games are perfect for holiday family-time fun! This 3D puzzle comes with interlocking pieces which fit together in hundreds of different ways to provide endless new challenges.
“SOMA’s Revenge” – Interlocking Puzzle Cube by Ethereal Maze Puzzles
Gag Gifts for Gigglers
Perfect for pranksters of all ages, this catapult gift takes “spitballing” to a whole new level.
Catapult by Jeewel
For Inspired Creatives – give the gift of Shapeways
You can’t go wrong with a Shapeways giftcard that inspires and encourages creative minds to make their own 3D innovations.
Need a last-minute gift for a special person on your holiday list? You can create a unique, custom 3D-printed clock with just a little bit of design knowledge and an inexpensive battery-powered clock kit like this $8 Youngtown Silent Clock Mechanism with Small Hands:
You’ve got from now to the second week of December to get a 3D design together, if you want to order a 3D print before the Shapeways Material Cut-Off Dates for the holidays. In this post we’ll show you how you can create a custom 3D-printable clock face with three different software programs. Don’t have time for that? Skip to the end to see how you can customize a retro clock very quickly with our Sunburst Clock Maker.
Beginner: Tinkercad
Even if you’ve never created a 3D design before, it’s easy to get started with Tinkercad, a free in-browser 3D design tool with a simple drag-and-drop interface. To get started, sign up for a free account and check out the All3DP video Getting Started in Tinkercad: A Tutorial for Complete Beginners. Once you know a few Tinkercad tricks, you can create complex designs from very simple combinations of shapes; throughout this post we’ll link to helpful YouTube videos to show you exactly what you need to know.
To make a simple clock in Tinkercad, we’ll start with a cylinder for the center face, and then create a couple of stretched-out rings with Rotated “Round Roof” shapes and Holes:
By using the “Control-D” duplication tool we can copy and rotate those rings in a pattern around the cylinder. After modifying the heights of each shape with the Ruler, we get a simple retro clock face design:
If you want to pick apart our Tinkercad design and see how it works, just open this Quick Clock link and tinker for yourself! Add some Text for numbers, if you like, or design something new from scratch. When you’re ready to download your design for 3D printing, click the “Export” button and then choose “Export as STL”.
Intermediate: Fusion 360
To make a fancier custom clock, try Autodesk’s Fusion 360 3D software, which is free for students, educators, and hobbyists. There’s a steeper learning curve to get started in Fusion 360 than there is with Tinkercad, but there are plenty of video tutorials online to help you learn. Some of the best are the Fusion 360 tutorials by Maker’s Muse. We’ll link to relevant video tutorials throughout this section so that you can learn just what you need. Fusion 360 is a very powerful program with a lot of features and tools, but you only need to know how to use a few of those tools to make a simple clock!
For example, if you know how to create a Sketch, add Constraints, and use a Circular Pattern, then you have all the tools you need to create a 2D shape for a clock face design in Fusion 360. To create the example below we started a Sketch, added a Circle at the origin, then formed spoke shapes with Lines. We kept the shapes symmetric by using Constraints, and rotated them in a Pattern around the origin. In the screenshot below we are in the process of duplicating and rotating the thinnest spoke to create twelve copies of it around the center circle:
Most models in Fusion 360 start from a two-dimensional Sketch like the one above. Once you’re done with your Sketch you can Extrude to give it some three-dimensional depth, and then Fillet the edges to make them rounded and professional-looking:
To download your model for 3D printing, right-click on the gray name of your model in the Browser menu (if you haven’t saved your Fusion 360 design yet, then the name of the model will be “(Untitled)”, as it is in the screenshot above). Select “Save as STL”, click “OK” in the new window that pops up, and save the STL file to your computer.
Advanced: Make ALL THE CLOCKS
Feeling more ambitious? With some parametric design you can write OpenSCAD code to generate billions of clocks, each from a random seed. For example, consider the many types of retro-styled “Sunburst” or “Starburst” clocks shown in this Google Image search:
Clocks like these were inspired by the modernist-style work of industrial designer George Nelson, who made many variations of such clocks in the 1950s. There are some common design features that are shared by most of these clocks: geometrically-shaped spokes, a star/sunburst pattern, a circular inside for the hands… Here’s what our first notes looked like when we started thinking about the typical parts and designs for Sunburst Clocks, and some of our early test prints:
OpenSCAD is a free code-based design software that works on any platform. With just a little bit of coding knowledge you can write simple code to describe a library of geometric spoke shapes, and then options for rotating those shapes around a central circle. There are literally billions of configurations; here are just a few:
If you want to learn more about OpenSCAD, check out our beginner’s video tutorial PolyBowls – A simple OpenSCAD code walkthrough and intro document Hello OpenSCAD. The “Hello” document has a link to sample code you can inspect and modify; if you want to play around with the code that made the clocks in the rotating image above, you can download it from our Thingiverse page.
The Easy Way Out: Customize a Sunburst Clock
But… you may be thinking… there is NO TIME FOR THIS!! The holidays are coming fast, and you don’t have time to learn how to write parametric OpenSCAD code right now? No problem, just use our Customzier to design your own retro clock! We’ve made our design free on Thingiverse so you can create unique and interesting Sunburst Clocks in just a few seconds. Just go to the design on Thingiverse and click the “Open in Customizer” button to get started (you’ll have to sign up for a free Thingiverse/MakerBot account to open the design in Customizer):
The Customizer version of the Sunburst Clock design lets you create new clocks just by clicking in the Random Seed slider and selecting design options from drop-down menus. You can also set the overall shape and size of your clock, and control the center hole and backing to match your clock kit:
Once you have the clock you want, click the “Create Thing” button and download the STL file from your list of Things within Thingiverse. Here is a design we made with the Customizer and had printed at Shapeways in White Versatile Plastic for less than $30 (it’s the “Cordelia” design), together with the clock mechanism we’ll use to assemble the final clock:
After assembly, the clock looks like this:
And here’s an “action” shot on the wall:
Light Speed: Order an Existing Design
If you’re really down to the wire and don’t have time to create or customize your own design, then quickly head over to the Shapeways Marketplace for a huge selection of unique 3D printed gifts that you can order right away. If it’s before the December 13 cutoff date for medium-sized White Versatile Plastic at Shapeways, then you still have time to order, with next-day shipping and priority manufacturing, one of our best twelve pre-made retro clock designs from the geekhaus shop, like the Velma:
Jorge Rojas is a Spanish jeweler and designer based in Hamburg, Germany. Rojas has developed his passion and craft over the years as a jewelry maker, training in the workshops of master jewelers in New York and teaching as a professor of Jewelry Design at the Centro de Estudios Joyeros de Madrid for more than 10 years before opening his own atelier. Rojas still collaborates with the school, and is an active contributor to the jewelry magazine Gold & Time as a columnist and to the design magazine Experimenta as a blogger. His work has been exhibited at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona, Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Málaga, the German Gemstone Museum in Idar-Oberstein, and the Cervantes Institute in Hamburg.
Now, with 4 years of 3D design experience under his belt, Rojas is utilizing the state-of-the-art 3D printing services offered by Shapeways to create a new, ultramodern collection which marries organic forms, shapes and elements with cutting-edge technologies to create unique, evocative pieces of wearable art.
The New Collection
In his new collection, Rojas utilizes strategic void space in his designs to create sculptural “containers of emotion” within each piece. To Rojas, a piece of jewelry’s true value lies in the emotion it is imbued with, both by the creator during the design process, and by the wearer when it becomes a part of their life story. According to Rojas, when a jewel is gifted, it then takes on an emotion, which becomes a memory, and is rendered an intrinsic part of the jewel.
The dynamic forms and fundamental structures which comprise each piece of this collection echo the essential building blocks of our universe, and indeed, through this collection Rojas is recreating and refining his own creative universe, with a series of offerings which hold space for the emotions of those who would use his pieces to celebrate and commemorate life.
Why Rojas Uses 3D Printing
Using 3D printing as a means of production offers many benefits to Rojas, including the opportunity to create realistic visual renderings of ideas quickly and effectively, before producing the designs in more precious and costly materials. As a designer and project manager who offers customized design services to clients from all over the world to help them realize their creative visions, this is very helpful to ensure structural quality and customer satisfaction. With 3D printing as their production method, Rojas and his clients also have the freedom to create jewelry from more novel materials, such as splintered black steel and laser-welded polymers.
“For the creative, it is a tool that multiplies the development options, making possible designs and production of pieces that before were technically impossible, or that they required an impossible investment of time,” explains Rojas. “I think there is a new way to enjoy jewelry, more personal and free, and that’s why I’m using the new technologies of 3D design and printing, applying all my knowledge of the trade and my creative freedom to offer original, fresh and very current [pieces].”
The Purmundus Challenge 2018 3D printing design award took place on the 15 November in Frankfurt as part of Formnext 2018. A registered trademark of cirp, a German prototyping and small-batch production company, Purmundus invites challengers from around the world to participate in a theme-based 3D printing design contest. Christoph Behling, founder of Christoph Behling Design, and […]
The goal of this holiday season for our business owners is simple: to sell as much as possible and to deliver quality products that satisfy customers. A helpful part in doing that — in addition to planning for material cutoff dates and refreshing products and images — is marketing. But we have one more tip to share before we get to that, which is to recognize how your products are positioned in the Shapeways marketplace, or wherever else your products are sold.
Consider the Theory of Long Tail
Traditionally in the commercial world, a company’s sales work like this: About 20% of their products make up 80% of the sales, which is known as the 80/20 rule. The other 80% of the products, while still manufactured, draw in much less revenue. At Shapeways, however, our marketplace sales embrace the theory of Long Tail.
3D printing is moving the consumer world more towards personalized and customized products, and the products our shop owners sell on the Shapeways marketplace is an example of a diverse long tail of products. Our shoppers purchase from this long tail of products instead of from a small pool of selections (meaning the 80% rather than the 20%).
Categories, Subcategories and Popular Product Placements
Where you choose to place your product in the marketplace is completely up to you, but it’s definitely a decision you should take some time to think about. You can reconsider your categories to help more shoppers discover your shop, or you can count on a less crowded space to help your products stand out. Whatever you choose, know that each route can lead to much success with the right strategy.
