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Whiteclouds uses a Printfarm of 75 Creality 3D Printers to Make Large Format 3D Prints

For a number of years now I’ve been advocating for the use of clusters of desktop 3D printers to manufacture. Whereas desktop machines years ago were not mature enough now and open cluster of FDM or SLA 3D printers could provide you with a cost-effective manufacturing solution. Not as accurate as industrial printers and lacking their reliability and repeatability the open systems would have a much lower part cost. At the same time, with no restrictions on materials you would have wider options in terms of materials and lower costs there as well. I’d always envisioned that systems such as Formlabs printers, Ultimakers and Prusa Originals would be used in this way. After all, a $1000 to $4000 investment per printer would be a worthwhile investment and pay itself back in higher reliability and longevity. I was completely dumbfounded when WhiteClouds contacted me to disclose that they have a print farm of 75 Creality systems.

I completely believe that clusters and farms of low-cost systems are the future for manufacturing for certain families of parts (B-side automotive above 10CM across for example), but not that low cost surely? We reviewed the Creality Cr10 V2 and were pleasantly surprised that it offered a lot of bang for the buck. But, the idea of using over 70 of the systems for production didn’t occur to me. WhiteClouds does do this and the firm also uses them to make some of the world’s largest 3D prints.

Started in 2013, WhiteClouds, has quite a specialization in large outdoor, trade show and entertainment models. The company marries artisans such as air brush artists, carpenters and painters with 3D printing to create large 3D printed items for many industries. The company has worked for some of the world’s largest computer games studios, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Chicago Bulls, Disney, Ford, Hasbro, Lowe’s, Marvel, Mayor League Baseball, Stanford and Walmart to create large 3D printed structures. Right now the company has released a 6 meter tall humanoid structure for a client.

The company has 40 industrial 3D printers from the likes of Stratasys and 3D Systems and now has 75 Creality systems that print PLA. We interviewed WhiteClouds CEO Jerry Ropelato to find out more.  Asked how he controls the systems, he says that, “We use the standard software that comes with the printers along with some in-house proprietary software to better manage the systems.” Jerry and his team “tested and researched the best low-cost printers and found Creality to be the best.”

I wanted to know if more expensive printers aren’t better?

“That was our original thinking when we started the company.  Early-on in our company, we spent millions purchasing high-end 3D production printers.  What we learned is that customers are willing to pay high dollars for prototypes, but very little else.  With the high-costs associated with consumables, equipment costs, maintenance costs, machine longevity, environment setup requirements found in production 3D printers, they can be 100 to 1,000 times more costly when compared to low-end 3D Printers.”

It is important to note that when switching to production, costs are supposed to dramatically fall and this is something other 3D printing firms are also finding out. Prototyping is a nice warm bath but its chilly out there on the factory floor. What about the quality of these low-cost systems?

“The quality and reliability has improved dramatically over the last few years in the low-end 3D printers and we are moving more and more to using these types of 3D printers. Cost is such a big issue in 3D printing that I do believe a lot of companies will look are more cost-effective solutions.”

Overall I think that this is a telling development. It is notable that all of the major players left the low-cost 3D printing market because they didn’t want to join “a race to the bottom.” In the spirit of the Innovator’s Dilemma good enough $200 systems have been sold in their tens of thousands and now are moving into higher cost territory. It seems that desktop OEMs are now in danger of being disrupted themselves.  If WhiteClouds’ experience leads to them expanding then perhaps more players in the market will look to lower-cost desktop systems for actual manufacturing applications.

PS, I know this is like our third Creality post in a week. This is a coincidence.

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Michael Gorski of Filament Innovations On FDM for Manufacturing

I kept hearing from people about Michael Gorski and Filament Innovations. I was repeatably told that in Pennsylvania a small firm was making open FDM systems made for manufacturing. I’ve predicted for a number of years now that the small scale open desktop FDM systems, first not suitable for much of anything, would morph into the manufacturing systems of the future over time. I really think that for large objects such as car bumpers or dashboards medium format FDM will be the technology of choice while for many smaller parts clusters of FDM printers will be the norm. Open FDM just gives you tough, dimensionally accurate parts at low cost without a lock in with a materials vendor or an OEM. For many industries at volume I think that open FDM is the manufacturing solution of the future. For that to happen we need intelligent clusters of machines (which Ultimaker and Prusa seem to be working on) and much more reliable medium format machines with high throughput, yield, and repeatability. The latter challenge is what Filament Innovations is taking on.

 

What is Filament Innovations? 

Filament Innovations is a family-owned FDM 3D Printer manufacturer located near Allentown, Pennsylvania. We focus on selling FDM printers to businesses across America. We specialize in advanced 3D Printers that are both robust and affordable for all size businesses. We really pride ourselves on the level of quality and craftsmanship that goes into each 3D Printer we build. We often tell our customers that we are the “hot rod shop” of 3D Printers as we can custom build a printer to suit a customer’s needs.

When and why did you start it? 

The company was started in October 2015; when we launched we were not building printers, but selling our own private line of filament. As FDM 3D Printing grew, we saw the hardware market get split into two segments – the “race to the bottom” imported printer and the expensive larger format printers, costing over $50,000. Many business owners who wanted to adopt FDM 3D Printing were scared of the lack of after-sales support and reliability from the imported machines, or did not have $50,000 on hand for a capital investment to buy a more well-known machine. With that in mind, we quickly saw market opportunity for a large scale, American built, and high quality FDM unit in the $15,000 – $20,000 range. 

Tell us about your Icarus printer? 

Our BFP-ICARUS 3D Printer is the backbone of the company. Our business model is simple, make the best printer we can with no cheap add-ons and sell it for one flat, shipped price with as many USA components as possible. At $15,000 shipped via LTL Freight, our BFP-ICARUS is a leader in the FDM market in terms of quality and craftsmanship. Our linear motion system is a full ballscrew design with HiWin linear rails and TBI ballscrews, running on custom made NEMA 23 motors. Our extrusion system is produced by Dyze Designs, with their PRO series hotend and extruder combination, which comes equipped with a PT100 sensor and Tungsten Carbide nozzle. Every printer is factory equipped with a Gecko print plate, allowing customers to print common filaments and have them release easily with the removable print plate. The entire frame of the printer is wrapped in quarter inch Optix USA Made acrylic which stiffens the entire body of the unit so you don’t have to worry about any frame slag or shaking. The build area satisfies customers’ needs at 470x381x915 (mm).

What kind of customers buy it?

We love selling printers to industries that put them to work and use them on a daily basis. The majority of our customers are in the Prosthetics and Orthotics industry where they print customized below the knee check sockets for patients. Since every prosthetic socket is unique, this is a great application for our BFP-ICARUS units. Beyond the O&P market, we also work with the US Army Research lab and the Navy, specifically NAWC (Naval Air Warfare Center). We are continuing to grow our relationship with other defense departments and are in the planning phase of putting more BFP-ICARUS units into defense work soon. 

What makes it different?

What makes the BFP-ICARUS different in terms of being an FDM Printer, and Filament Innovations different in terms of being a FDM manufacturer, is how we do business in the industry. At Filament Innovations we are not selling you a product and then moving on to the next customer, we are creating a partnership to bring FDM 3D Printing into their company. Businesses can be hesitant to buy an FDM 3D Printer because they do not know what they need it for, how to run it, or how to service it. We get to know each customer and their business individually and help them understand how FDM 3D Printing can help their business. For example, when you buy a BFP-ICARUS unit, we schedule a two to three hour video chat with you on the day you receive it (Skype, FaceTime, etc). On that chat, we walk around the printer with you and go over its basic operations and how to maintain it. We really go the extra mile in terms of customer service and that is why our customer’s come back to use for future printers. Plus, as a fun “wow” moment for the customer, we laser etch their logo right next to ours on every machine that goes out the door. This gives our customer’s a personal touch that provides them confidence in their decision of partnering with Filament Innovations.

 How capable is it? 

The unit is extremely capable in terms of what it can do as the unit is enclosed, the Dyze PRO series hotend can go to 450C with ease, and the unit comes with all the bells and whistles you would want (auto bed leveling, independent Z motor bed leveling, WiFi, etc). The one unique selling points that really impresses our customers is its upgradability for the extrusion systems. Filament Innovations may have one of the best relationships in the history of FDM with Dyze Designs. We have made every BFP-ICARUS unit upgradable to accommodate Dyze’s 2.85mm high flow Typhoon system and the Pulsar pellet extrusion system. This means customers can buy one 3D Printer, and upgrade that one unit to a high-flow filament or pellet extrusion system once these systems come to market. For example, in the prosthetics industry, a below the knee socket is a large, relatively basic, but unique shape that needs to be printed quickly. Customers who choose to buy their BFP-ICARUS now can get their feet wet with 3D Printing and then buy the upgrade kits to retro-fit their 3D Printer as Dyze Designs releases these new systems. We designed our BFP-ICARUS platform with ballscrews for a reason, it can handle the additional weight of these extrusion systems out of the gate, which means customers do not need to buy an additional printer. This is just another example of how we are putting the customer’s needs first and not forcing them to buy an entirely new printer.   

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Price, Performance, Potential – Closing the Gap in 3D Printing

MakerBot, a global leader in the 3D printing industry, can be seen within the rapid prototyping processes of several industry powerhouses, such as Lockheed Martin and KUKA Robotics. Recently, MakerBot’s experts became concerned by the disparity between desktop and industrial solutions, and the impact this was having on the adoption of 3D printing. In this feature, Dave Veisz, VP of Engineering at MakerBot, discusses this technology gap and what the industry is doing to overcome it.

Rapid prototyping is a staple of every designer and engineer’s workflow—essential for testing new concepts, verifying designs, and meeting increasingly aggressive time-to-market goals. Regardless of the industry or product, all engineers must consider the speed, accessibility, cost, and output of these additive manufacturing equipment. Additive manufacturing technology, in its many forms, has been synonymous with rapid prototyping, and its prevalence has only increased as the technologies have improved.

However, a significant gap between desktop and industrial 3D printing solutions still remains—both in technical capability and in accessibility within organizations. Many larger organizations have been using some form of in-house 3D printing successfully for years, while smaller businesses have been more hesitant to adopt in-house 3D printing solutions without first understanding the cost and benefits.

Many design engineers struggle to see how 3D printing, and in particular, desktop 3D printing, can fit into their business operations. Some ask themselves, “why break from trusted workflows?” Some may shy away from desktop solutions due to previously poor user experiences or concerns around the quality and accuracy of the 3D printed part when compared to the dimensions of the CAD file. Other common apprehensions surround how much manipulation of the geometry or parameter adjustment is needed to achieve successful printing. To date, most desktop solutions cannot offer reliability and precision that is comparable to more expensive, larger industrial machines. As a result, many smaller businesses wouldn’t even consider any form of in-house 3D printing as a viable option.

Desktop vs Industrial 3D Printing Limitations

Generally, one of the first issues we’ve seen potential users grapple with is a reluctance to break away from an established workflow pattern. This can be for any number of reasons, including issues of performance or integration. A lot of industries have suffered in the past with poor performance from desktop 3D printers, and difficult to use software for print preparation. For engineering managers, this is the crux of the issue; if engineers are wasting time solving the problems of a desktop machine and learning complex software, then this is time lost in designing and creating products.

Another key concern for many designers and engineers is the worry that a prototype produced on a desktop 3D printer is insufficient for their needs. For those creating prototypes to be used for injection molded parts, for example, the 3D printed parts must be generated to similar dimensional accuracy to the production manufacturing method. In addition, the material must function similar to the end use material if you want to test snap fits, install threaded inserts, or mimic other commonly designed features. Despite advancements in recent years, current desktop 3D printers cannot offer the dimensional accuracy of a higher-end machine. This is primarily attributed to the limited control of the key environmental variables within a desktop solution. Put simply, prototypes produced on desktop 3D printers do not offer robust or advanced enough properties for certain—most, even—types of product design testing.

Finally, the biggest hurdle is ensuring that rapid prototyping remains rapid. Outsourcing prototyping requirements does present a number of benefits; however, these are often outweighed by the associated waiting time—which can take weeks for a single part. Relying on external suppliers can add considerable time to the process, impacting a product’s go-to-market timeline. Here is where in-house 3D printing excels; with manufacturers across the world often reporting dramatic reductions in both time and cost when switching to in-house 3D printing. However, neither desktop 3D printing’s build speed or quality can compare to industrial 3D printing.

When we consider industrial 3D printing, there are a significant number of benefits for design engineers. The issues of speed and performance of the 3D printed prototype are often eliminated with a higher-end machine. Industrial 3D printers are able to deliver high-quality, repeatable results nearly every time. Prototypes can be produced in engineering-grade thermoplastics tailored to the varying and specific requirements of industries such as automotive, aerospace and rail. Often, customers report dramatic savings in both cost and time when switching to an industrial-level machine.

However, industrial 3D printing is not without its limitations. Industrial machines are expensive, complex and often unintuitive, creating challenges for a designer’s workflow. Designers typically do not have direct access to such a machine, so they must submit a work order and wait in a queue. Often, the economics of investing in such a machine does not make sense. Not only because of the high-level of investment required for the hardware and consumables, but also the training of staff or altogether hiring a new machine operator. Given these issues, design engineers are often left with a performance gap between the solutions they can afford and the solutions they need.

The Potential of Performance 3D Printing

For us, these were clear challenges holding back the adoption of 3D printing in the professional market. Many of our conversations with customers inspired us to develop the new METHOD 3D Printer, which we believe addresses the aforementioned gap to create a new category – Performance 3D Printing. In essence, Performance 3D Printing combines technologies often found in an industrial machine with the accessibility, ease-of-use and price-point of a desktop 3D printer. By leveraging the long-held expertise in FDM from our parent company Stratasys®, we have been able to incorporate industrial capabilities, such as advanced materials, high-speed dual extrusion, a circulating heated chamber and moisture-sealed bays, to offer designers and engineers far more control of their prints. In addition, print speeds have improved significantly with Performance 3D Printing. Our tests showed that build speeds have doubled compared to current desktop 3D printing speeds.

Successful product design requires input from many sources. By bringing affordable and reliable industrial-grade 3D printing in-house and providing direct access to engineers and designers, they can review, test and approve designs far earlier and more frequently in the production process. Simultaneously, by creating a machine that delivers both reliability and accessibility, the costs and barriers of training specified technicians typically seen with larger industrial 3D printers are altogether eliminated.

By combining the inherent benefits of desktop solutions, such as ease-of-use and affordability, with industrial-level capabilities, 3D printing is now much more accessible to a smaller organization. As a result, these businesses can dramatically improve their design and iteration process, enabling them to increase innovation and bring better products to market faster than ever before.

Request a high performance 3D printed sample and see why engineers choose METHOD.

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Researchers Use CFD Simulation to Determine Ideal Rate of Extrusion and Toolpath in FDM

In a paper entitled “Numerical Modeling of the Material Deposition and Contouring Precision in Fused Deposition Modeling,” a group of researchers discusses how they used computation fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate the flow of the material extruded from the nozzle of a 3D printer. The molten thermoplastic was modeled as an incompressible Newtonian fluid with a free surface, and the numerical model provided a prediction of the shape of the printed road. The CFD simulation provided a way to optimize tool path planning and deposition strategy, in order to improve dimensional accuracy in extrusion-based 3D printing.

The researchers investigated four deposition strategies for 3D printing a road with a 90-degree turn onto the build platform. Two types of tool paths were considered for 3D printing the 90-degree turn: a sharp tool path, which reproduces the exact trajectory of the two segments, requiring a stop of the printing head at the turn point; and a smoothed tool path, which negotiates the turn with blended acceleration along the X and Y axis. Two extrusion rates were also considered: a constant extrusion rate and a synchronized extrusion rate, in which the volumetric flux is kept proportional to the tangential velocity of the printing head.

“In theory, the synchronized extrusion rate should produce a uniform road width along the turn; however, the synchronized extrusion rate is an ideal case that could only be achieved if the dynamics of the liquefier and the filament feeding system were totally predictable and under full control of the 3D printer, which is not the case in practice,” the researchers explain. “On the other-hand, the constant extrusion rate is expected to lead to variable road widths, when the printing head decelerates or stops at the turn.”

The researchers used a CFD model to simulate the different rates of material flow. They found that the ideal case was where the extrusion rate was synchronized with the tangential velocity of the printing head and the tool path followed a stop-at-turn trajectory. This produced a uniform road width with minimal overfill and underfill at the turn. However, if the extrusion rate was kept constant during the acceleration and deceleration phases, the stop-at-turn trajectory yielded a large overfill at the turn. An almost uniform road width could be obtained with a constant extrusion rate, by using blended acceleration, at the expense of smoothing the corner.

Geometry of the CFD model. The light turquoise and the dark grey surfaces represent the build platform and the extrusion nozzle, respectively.

“The smoothed tool path with an acceleration blending factor κ=0.6 provides a compromise between material overfill and corner smoothing,” the researchers conclude. “In principle, the predicted variations of the road width at the corner could be taken into account by the tool path planner, in order to compensate overfill and underfill regions. Thus, CFD simulations could be used to develop optimized tool paths and deposition strategies, which would improve dimensional accuracy and surface quality in extrusion-based additive manufacturing.”

Authors of the paper include Raphaël Benjamin Comminal, Marcin Piotr Serdeczny, David Bue Pedersen and Jon Spangenberg.

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Tsinghua University Investigates if Blends of PLA and PBS are Suitable for FDM 3D Printing

A trio of researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing recently published a paper, titled “Preparation and Characterization of Poly(butylene succinate)/Polylactide Blends for Fused Deposition Modeling 3D Printing,” about preparing material blends of PLA and PBS with various compositions, then validating if they are suitable for use as filaments for FDM 3D printing.

The abstract reads, “To obtain a new type of biodegradable material with high toughness and strength used for fused deposition modeling (FDM) printing, a series of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS)-based polymer materials was prepared via blending with polylactide (PLA). The rheological, thermal, and mechanical properties as well as FDM printing performances of the blends, such as distortion, cross section, and the interlayer bond strength, were characterized. The results show that with increasing PLA content, the blends possess higher melt viscosity, larger tensile strength, and modulus, which are more suitable for FDM printing. Especially, when the content of PLA is more than 40%, distortion due to residual stress caused by volume shrinkage disappears during the printing process and thus products with good dimensional accuracy and pearl-like gloss are obtained. The results demonstrate that the blend compositions with moderate viscosity, low degree of crystallinity, and high modulus are more suitable for FDM printing. Compared with the low elongation upon breaking of commercially FDM-printed material, the PBS/PLA blend materials exhibit a typical ductile behavior with elongation of 90−300%. Therefore, besides biodegradability, the PBS/PLA blends present excellent mechanical properties and suitability as materials for FDM printing. In addition, our study is expected to provide methods for valuating the suitability of whether a thermoplastic polymer material is suitable for FDM printing or not.”

Appearance of the PBS/PLA blend bars prepared by FDM 3D printing.

When it comes to prototyping, FDM is one of the most widely adopted technologies, and plenty of materials research has been conducted for the technology. Researchers have been working hard to develop new polymer materials for FDM 3D printing with both high dimensional accuracy and good mechanical properties. PLA, which theoretically can be degraded into just carbon dioxide and water under natural conditions, is often used, but it’s unfortunately a brittle material, which limits its applications.

PBS, with great thermal stability, has a decently low melting point and excellent ductility, which would make it good for FDM 3D printing. But, there haven’t been a lot of studies published on the use of the material as a 3D printing filament.

“One reason is that its low melt strength makes it difficult to continually form monofilament when extruded, which makes printing fail halfway,” the researchers explained. “Moreover, the distortion caused by the relatively large volume shrinkage during cooling probably happens after crystallization, thus resulting in defective products. Therefore, modification of PBS is quite necessary to solve the drawbacks mentioned above and make the material suitable for FDM printing.”

By blending materials, the advantages of these two components can be combined – that’s why this modification method is used so often for polymer materials. There is little research about the use of PBS blends in FDM 3D printing, so the Tsinghua research team stepped up.

“The rheological, thermal, and mechanical properties of the blends were investigated, and different specimens were printed with these filaments to evaluate their suitability for FDM system,” the researchers wrote. “Interlayer bond strength in the printed products was also measured. Furthermore, we expect to find a relationship between the properties of materials and the performance of FDM printing so as to give a reference for judging whether a thermoplastic polymer material, not limited to polymer blends, is suitable for FDM printing or not.”

Vertically printed PBS40/PLA60 samples for testing the interlayer bond strength.

The team first dried PBS and PLA pellets at 65°C for 12 hours in a vacuum oven before processing them and extruding the blended pellets into filaments for FDM 3D printing.  In addition to a few other shapes, like a rabbit, a cuboid model was printed to show distortion, which can be an obstacle to overcome in FDM.

The shear viscosity of the polymer blend melt was measured, along with the thermal properties, such as glass transition temperatures. The researchers also injection-molded the polymer blend pellets to make dumbbell-shaped and cuboid bars for tensile and impact tests, in addition to performing a thermal analysis on these bars to “investigate the effect of FDM printing process on the crystallization behavior of the PBS/PLA blends.”

“All blends exhibit excellent processing properties and can be extruded as monofilaments with 1.75 mm diameter via a single-screw extruder. With increasing PBS content, the elongation at break and impact strength of the blends arise,” the researchers explained. “However, distortion of the printed bars increases due to larger volume shrinkage resulting from the higher degree of crystallinity in the blends. In addition, the interlayer bond strength improves due to the decreased melt viscosity. When PLA content in the blends is not less than 40 wt %, FDM printing can proceed smoothly with neither observable distortion nor detachment from the platform at room temperature.”

The paper also states that PBS60/PLA40 and PBS40/PLA60, in terms of interlayer bond strength, material toughness, and distortion, are the “optimal blend compositions” for use in FDM 3D printing.

SEM images of cross sections of the FDM-printed bars.

“Therefore, with pearl-like gloss and good mechanical properties as well as dimensional accuracy, the bio-based PBS/PLA blends are new promising materials for producing FDM filaments for applications in many fields, especially for architectural design,” the researchers concluded. “Furthermore, our study is expected to provide methods for evaluating whether a thermoplastic polymer material is suitable for FDM printing or not.”

Co-authors of the paper are Qing Ou-Yang, Baohua Guo, and Jun Xu.

Discuss this research and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.