3D Printing News Briefs: October 18, 2019

The stories we’re sharing in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs run the gamut from materials to new printers. Altair has launched its new industrial design solution, and Remet opened a metal 3D printing lab in Poland. Innofil3D is sharing lots of material news, and Equispheres has released the test results for a unique 3D printing powder. Finally, Hackaday published a micro 3D printer project.

Altair Launches New Industrial Design and Rendering Solution

The “Geko Ring Collection,” jewelry by Luca Palmini, designed and rendered with Inspire Studio. Image courtesy of Luca Palmini.

Global technology company Altair has launched Inspire Studio, its new 3D design and rendering solution, to help architects, designers, and digital artists create, evaluate, and visualize designs. The solution builds on the functions of Altair Evolve, and includes 3D rendering and animation software Inspire Render, which helps users rapidly generate photorealistic product renderings and animations. Both Inspire Studio and Inspire Render run on MacOS and Windows, and help designers open up their creativity to go beyond traditional CAID tools. The solutions will be introduced next month during a one-day launch event in Italy, and you can also get a free ticket to formnext 2019, where you can learn more about Inspire Studio and Inspire Render at Altair’s booth E11, hall 11.1.

“We are very pleased with these two new solutions for the global industrial design community. Inspire Studio builds on our previous industrial design tool, Evolve, while going beyond Evolve’s capabilities. Inspire Studio will enhance designers’ creativity by letting them drive their designs. It offers an intuitive user interface and a powerful construction history, allowing them to quickly create and explore multiple iterations of their design. Relying on the same modern user experience with powerful interactive, full progressive and raytracing rendering engine, Inspire Render will help designers quickly run photorealistic renderings and walkthrough animations on GPUs and CPUs,” said James Dagg, CTO at Altair.

3D Design and Rendering Software | Altair Inspire Studio

Remet Opens Modern Metal 3D Printing Laboratory

Polish steel structures manufacturer for the oil and gs mining industry, Remet, has launched a metal 3D printing laboratory equipped with a range of high quality machines and devices. The first of these is the DMP Flex 350 by 3D Systems, followed by 3D Systems’ Figure 4, the office-friendly metallic powder atomizer ATO Lab, and plenty of other specialized research equipment. Remet completed the project together with 3D Lab, a top Polish industrial 3D printer distributor and manufacturer of the ATO Lab.

The ATO Lab metal atomizer, which enables testing and fabrication of many powdered metal alloys, was the starting point for this unique laboratory. A new branch of the enterprise, called Remet Metal Labs, is where the company will work on comprehensive additive manufacturing and industrial applications projects. Its goal is to create highly flexible conditions for creating prototypes in the powder production field, and automotive, aviation, and space industry customers are invited to work with Remet to take advantage of the lab. 3D Lab and Remet will present their solutions together at formnext in Frankfurt next month.

Innofil3D Materials and Design Rules Video

This week, Innofil3D, and its parent company BASF, have a lot of news to share. First up, Ultrafuse BVOH, its water-soluble support filament, is now available for purchase, along with its new Ultrafuse 316L metal filament. Designed for easy FFF 3D printing, this is the company’s first metal material – 80% stainless steel with a 20% polymer content.

For users interested in 3D printing their Innofil3D PRO1 filament on a Raise3D printer, you can now join the Raise3D Open Filament Program to take advantage of optimized settings and print profiles. This new program is a collaboration between Raise3D and filament manufacturers, like Innofil3D, to find the top-performing materials for its 3D printers. Finally, Innofil3D has released its second video tutorial for design rules and principles of FFF 3D printing. Check out the video below, and be sure to visit BASF at its large K-Fair exhibit in Hall 5, C21/D21.

Equispheres Releases Test Results for Unique AM Powder

Materials science technology company Equispheres has released the results from its first powder testing phase, completed by a facility that certifies AM materials for applications in aerospace and defense. The results have confirmed that the powder has exceeded expectations, allowing for a 20-30% increase in mechanical performance and a 50% increase in production speeds. In light of this news, Equispheres is launching new equity financing in order to, as the company wrote in a press release, “grow and unlock the vast potential of Additive Manufacturing.”

“The unique properties of our powder, including the high sphericity, narrow particle size distribution and low surface area results in significantly increased packing density.  This allows an increase of powder layer thickness by a factor of 2 which significantly increases build speed. Most importantly, this boost to build speed does not come with a mechanical performance penalty.  Instead, the uniform nature of our powder ensures that parts are produced with reliable and consistent mechanical properties.  The minimal variance in our performance results provides design engineers the statistical confidence to produce stronger, lighter parts,” said Equispheres’ CTO, Dr Martin Conlon.

Hackaday Project: Micro Deltesian 3D Printer

A new Hackaday project by architect Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi was just published – a micro Deltesian 3D printer, which he says offers a quality that’s on par with any Cartesian 3D printer. The printer has a solid aluminum frame, with a standard slider Y axis and a Delta mechanism for the XZ axis. A 3.5″ LCD touchscreen, with a built-in SD card, is fast and easy enough for his young daughter to use, which was his ultimate goal. With an 80 x 100 x 85 mm build volume and a print bed held in place with magnets, the biggest challenge in making the minuscule 3D printer easy to use was the filament loading; Singh Kalsi used a lever-based latch mechanism for this.

“the micro deltesian was born out of the curiosity of building the convoluted deltesian mechanism,” he explained. “Later on it evolved into the idea of building a 3d printer simple enough to be used by my daughter. The deltesian mechanism seem very wierd when i first saw it but eventually i thought maybe i should give it a try and hence this printer was born.”

Watch the video below to see just how easily his daughter uses the micro Deltesian 3D printer:

Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below. 

The post 3D Printing News Briefs: October 18, 2019 appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

TCT Asia: Ultimaker Introduces Cloud-Based Platform and New 3D Printing Material Alliance Program Partners

The TCT Asia show began today in Shanghai, and desktop 3D printing leader Ultimaker is one of the attendees. The Dutch company made some important announcements at the event today, including the launch of its future-ready Ultimaker Cloud platform, which was designed to support the professional 3D printing workflow and will help speed up the adoption of 3D printing.

As the world transitions to local digital manufacturing, we need a platform solution that will not only make the user workflow more simple but also hasten this transition, while ensuring compatibility with multiple materials and software applications. Due to Ultimaker’s open strategy, important industry partners, like material manufacturers and CAD providers, can integrate with its new cloud-based platform, which will offer more value to users and make the 3D printing experience seamless and reliable.

“Ultimaker Cloud forms the foundation for future value propositions provided by Ultimaker and key industry partners. This is a crucial next step in our journey to speed up the world’s transition to local digital manufacturing,” said Jos Burger, Ultimaker CEO. “I have no doubt that our enabling platform, formed with our global network of software and material partners, makes Ultimaker the preferred solution in the desktop space.”

The first cloud services the platform offers include remote 3D printing, which will provide monitoring and allow print jobs to sent from anywhere to network-enabled Ultimaker 3D printers. Ultimaker Cloud also provides unlimited access to the Marketplace, where registered users can browse materials thanks to exclusive access to print profiles, as well as give feedback to the community and plugin contributors through a rating option. In addition, optimized settings for ideal print results are automatically populated in Ultimaker’s Cura software through the Marketplace. Finally, Ultimaker Cloud offers a way to backup user settings for easier remote access.

Ultimaker Cloud will be available for download on March 19th, which is also when Ultimaker Cura 4.0, with its updated user interface, will be launched.

This new cloud-based platform isn’t the only news Ultimaker announced at TCT Asia. The company’s Material Alliance Program, which was established last year, has three new members: PolymakereSUN, and Essentium.

“The growing importance of 3D printing gives us – as a leader in desktop 3D printing – an important role in ensuring a perfect collaboration between hardware, software and materials. By offering material profiles directly to millions of end users via the Ultimaker Marketplace, we unlock new 3D printing applications for different industries,” said Burger. “Essentium, eSUN, and Polymaker and are well-respected material companies, offering unique material properties that are relevant for engineers working in a wide range of industries. I am proud to recognize their commitment to the Ultimaker Material Alliance during TCT ASIA.”

This means that there will now be more choices for applications and materials in FFF 3D printing, as print profiles for these three companies will now be available for download in the Ultimaker Marketplace. Users can just choose a material profile and quickly begin a print.

“FFF 3D printing remains the most practical and accessible of all 3D printing technologies. The three materials we offer via the Ultimaker Marketplace, including PolyMide PA6-CF, PolyMide CoPA and PolyCast, are among the most unique and advanced materials in our portfolio,” stated Polymaker president Dr. Xiaofan Luo. “I believe they will open up countless new applications for a greater number of engineers.”

L-R: From Jos Burger, CEO Ultimaker; Dr. Blake Teipel, CEO Essentium; Dr. Yihu Yang, CEO eSUN; Dr. Xiaofan Luo, President Polymaker; Benjamin Tan, VP APAC Ultimaker

Each new member of the alliance brings something important to the table. For instance, recycling is a topic that’s widely discussed around the world, and it seems like helpful initiatives are popping up all over.

“We are specialized in the industrialization of biodegradable polymers. We are delighted to join the Ultimaker Materials Alliance Program with material print profiles of PETG, ePA-CF, and HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene), since it allows us to speed up the development of eco-friendly 3D printed products by using renewable resources,” said eSUN’s CEO Dr. Yihu Yang.

So engineers in the electronics industry can benefit from FFF 3D printing, the materials used must be ESD safe. Now, print profiles in the Ultimaker Marketplace are available with just these properties.

“At Essentium we are committed to creating industrial solutions for the world’s top manufacturers and bridging the gap between 3D printing and machining. We have partnered with BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer, to create the Ultrafuse-Z line, which is a series of ESD safe filaments that are powered by Essentium,” explained Dr. Blake Teipel, CEO of Essentium. “We offer material print profiles for Ultrafuse-Z PCTG in the Ultimaker Marketplace, an industrial grade filament that is specifically formulated to be ESD safe.”

Discuss this news and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[Source/Images: Ultimaker]