The answer to that is a little complex, but it hinges on one simple idea: What are you trying to make? There are lots of great software packages for 3D design out there, each tailored to a different type of product design. Knowing what you are trying to make will dictate the type of software you will use.

Overall, design software falls into two camps: CAD and 3D Modeling. CAD software is used when creating industrial, mechanical objects. Alternatively, 3D modeling packages more commonly used for making organic elements used for film special effects and video games.

Depending on the goals of your design, you may use both types of software at different stages of the design process to make the final 3D-printable design.

Below, we’ll go over how they are different and provide a few examples of each software type.

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CAD (Computer Aided Design/Drafting)

CAD programs ask the user to “draw” a 2D shape and then turn those drawings into 3D forms, as either solids or surfaces. Drafting software comes from a long lineage of product designers, architects and engineers who would draw 2D plans, complete with measurements, which would be handed over to technicians or craftspeople who would interpret the designs and make the said object. This could be done manually or with a successive process of machining. Nowadays we have tools like 3D printing so that the design can be interpreted by other software (CAM or Computer-Aided Manufacturing) to create the tool path or slicing for 3D printing.

CAD programs take these 2D drawings and digitally translate them into 3D rendered “objects.” In some cases these are just “shells” or surfaces, while other programs treat the object as mathematically solid material. Simple shapes can then be added or subtracted to create more complex forms.

Because CAD software takes its roots in 2D drafting it is mainly for functional, measured 3D objects. Any functional object around you (your phone or computer that you’re reading this blog on) was designed in CAD software.

Examples of CAD:

Solidworks: Industry standard CAD software

Fusion 360: Free for students, startups, and makers!

Tinkercad: great for beginners

Onshape: Cloud-based with free option

3D Modeling

CAD software is great for functional objects, things that need to work mechanically or fit to a real world device. That said they may not give direct enough control over a design to allow for freeform, artistic work. This is where 3D modeling software comes in. Long used by the film and video game industry to make animation and special effects, you can also use these programs to create printable 3D models.

Modeling softwares are based around surfaces created from 3D geometry. This may be based around a system called NURBS, or may be simple polygons composed of vertices, edges, and faces. In many cases, programs will let you switch between these systems with ease, depending on your workflow. These points and surfaces come together to form the edges of a 3D object.

The advantage of modeling over CAD is that modeling software gives users direct input into each vertex or surface individually or as groups. This always for different ways to manipulate the shapes, often in ways that look more organic.

Some programs are even designed to treat 3D models as if they were lumps of clay so that designers can take a more sculptural approach. Using tools that emulate traditional artistic techniques, artists can get the most out of the geometry of a digital object.

Examples of 3D modeling software:

Sketchup: Free and popular

Maya: Industry standard for film and animation

Blender: Free, open source, and runs some of Shapeways’ backend tools

ZBrush: Professional digital sculpting software

Sculptris: Simpler, free version of ZBrush for beginners

Overall, knowing what you want to achieve with your design is vital to choosing the right tool for you. If a design needs to be functional, fit to other real-world objects, or have specific measurements, starting with CAD is the way to go. If a design needs to emulate a real-world or imaginary object or showcase your artistic vision, modeling could be a solution. If a design wants to do both, try mixing and matching software within your process.

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This post originally appeared in Shapeways Magazine on Oct. 22, 2016.

The post CAD vs. Modeling: Which 3D Software to Choose? appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

The Kespry Aerial Intelligence Platform, which allows users to design and launch autonomous aerial surveying missions

When you’re pioneering a new technology, affordable iteration and scalability are key. Kespry needed a partner and a process that would help them do something that’s still extraordinary: develop parts using 3D printing, and then integrate those parts into end-use manufacturing. Reliability, repeatability, and proactive support would underpin the success of the collaboration. “We were a very small company trying to scale up our product and get it out to market as quickly as possible. We were looking for a supplier who had reasonable scale and the right combination of lead time and cost,” remembers Jordan Croom, Kespry’s lead mechanical engineer.

Croom came to Kespry, appropriately, from the aerospace industry, where he did additive manufacturing research and development with both metals and plastics. This background prepared him to apply 3D printing in a relatively novel way. “I had a good understanding of what was possible. We were in a unique place to be able to incorporate additive manufacturing into full-scale production, which I think is somewhat rare, even though it’s becoming more common these days. So that was new for me — to be making multiple hundreds of something per order and incorporate them into our production line.”

“We were a very small company trying to scale up our product and get it out to market as quickly as possible. We were looking for a supplier who had reasonable scale and the right combination of lead time and cost.”

Shapeways offered the kind of scalability and reliability that Kespry needed. “When we started with Shapeways, it was before we even had our first customer, and now we have hundreds of drones going out every quarter. And it’s been a smooth transition to get to that point. That’s definitely not true of all of our vendors. Shapeways is one of the few that’s held out throughout that scaling process.”

A look at Kespry’s 3D mapping software, part of their Aerial Intelligence Platform

Affordability and speed play equally important roles in the 3D printing-for-manufacturing calculus. “Leveraging 3D printing and Shapeways allowed us to get things out there faster without paying an exorbitant premium to do it. And it also allows us to make modifications and improvements to our product without interrupting shipping them out to customers. So we can make a change and incorporate it in production in a few weeks, whereas if we were doing injection molding, it would take maybe a couple of months to make that sort of change. Especially now at production scale, Shapeways can handle the quantities that we’re dealing with really well, without long lead times.”

“We do look for that teamwork and responsiveness in a partner, and Shapeways has shown that to us. I would definitely recommend Shapeways to other companies.”

This became particularly important when it came to the aesthetic covers that enclose the drone’s delicate inner workings. “I know for sure that if we’d tried to make an injection mold for that, it would have been exorbitantly expensive for us. We’ve been able to modify it relatively frequently without much cost impact at all because we’re not investing in fixed tooling,” making it possible for Kespry to bring the best possible product to market, faster. “Getting the right partner is definitely important to us. Somebody with repeatable quality, where we know we can prove a design once. We don’t have to worry about it changing or breaking in future orders.”

“Leveraging 3D printing and Shapeways allowed us to get things out there faster without paying an exorbitant premium to do it. And it also allows us to make modifications and improvements to our product without interrupting shipping them out to customers. Especially now at production scale, Shapeways can handle the quantities that we’re dealing with really well, without long lead times.”

Along the way, of course, there have been a few hiccups, but, “If we do have an issue, Neil, our account manager is very responsive, very proactive and patient. I’ll get an email, photos, a description, etc. asking us if it’s ok to ship, if they should reprint them. We do look for that teamwork and responsiveness in a partner, and Shapeways has shown that to us. I would definitely recommend Shapeways to other companies,” said Veronica Espiritu, Kespry’s production buyer.

In the end, the Kespry drone wouldn’t exist without Shapeways’ prototyping and manufacturing support. As Jordan put it, “We’ve been ordering Shapeways parts basically since the beginning. It’s been helpful to work with Shapeways because you’ve been able to scale with us, going from just a few parts a week to hundreds per month. Shapeways has been able to absorb the increase in demand. I think it’s reflective of both Shapeways and the state of the industry and technology that we’re able to do that in a reliable and repeatable way — without having any negative effect on usability and reliability as a product.”

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The post How Kespry’s Drones Are Mapping New Territories in Manufacturing appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

So you’re launching a physical product. Maybe it’s just a simple object, maybe it’s a hardware product with integrated electronics, or maybe it has mechanical functionality. You’ve built one (or probably many) prototypes, you’ve launched a successful crowdfunding campaign in order to manufacture your first batch, and now you need to do just that.

This is the point at which many entrepreneurs run into trouble – how do you scale from 1 to 1,000 units? Or 10,000? Maybe even 100,000 if you’re lucky. There are many factors to consider when scaling your manufacturing, but one of obvious concern is the method with which you’ll create the physical components for your product.

So how does someone go about choosing the right method that will scale along with his or her business? Here we’ll explore the pros and cons of two popular types of plastic part manufacturing: injection molding and 3D printing.

Background

When focusing on plastic components and products, there are traditionally few manufacturing methods available, the oldest and most common being injection molding. While injection molding has dominated the manufacturing landscape for decades, new techniques, such as 3D printing, have begun to gain traction by offering an alternative at costs competitive with injection molding for low-volume runs.

Unfortunately, there is no single manufacturing method that is perfect for every part and situation. As you’re thinking about creating a new product or scaling up the production of an existing one, it’s critical that you take special care to understand the advantages and disadvantages associated with both methods.

Injection Molding

Injection molding is one of the oldest high-volume manufacturing processes, wherein a molten material (such as a thermoplastic) is injected into a metal mold. Once injected, the thermoplastic takes on the mold cavity’s shape, is cooled, and is ejected as a solid part.

Injection molding is typically used for producing high volumes of the same object. For instance, if you’re looking to manufacture 100,000 pairs of identical plastic sunglasses, injection molding would be a great way to go about doing that.

The method does have its pitfalls, however. First, there is a large upfront investment involved in making a mold. Molds can be reused to make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of parts, but can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to over $100,000. As a result, there is an inflexibility that comes with needing to create a new mold for every new or modified part. That said, injection molding is a complex but powerful process that has been the go-to solution in the plastic part manufacturing market for years.

3D Printing

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is a 30-year-old technology that has picked up a lot of steam in recent years. Unique to 3D printing is the process of adding material together to create the end part. This is opposed to cutting material away, like in milling, or reshaping it, like in injection molding.

There are many benefits inherent to this process, such as the ability to produce completely custom parts with virtually no upfront cost. With 3D printing, rather than needing a new mold for every new part, all you need is a new digital file. Additionally, 3D printing is capable of producing shapes that are impossible, or very uneconomical, to produce with any other manufacturing method.

Like injection molding, 3D printing also has its downsides. Today, many 3D printing processes are expensive, slow, and may produce parts that are not up to industry quality or material standards.

So, what process should you use to manufacture your parts – 3D printing or injection molding? When considering both methods, deciding between the two can become rather complicated and case-specific.

Considering Unit Cost & Order Volume

As previously mentioned, the prerequisite to injection molding any part is creating the mold itself. Mold costs vary greatly, but the cheapest ones typically start at around $5,000. Once you have a mold, the cost to make each unit is very little considering it really only includes the plastic used (which is very cheap), and perhaps a tiny bit of labor. This means that the upfront cost of making a mold gets amortized over your production run; with each additional unit you produce, the unit cost decreases since the initial mold cost is being spread across another unit.

3D printing is a different animal. Because 3D printing is a digital manufacturing technology, there is virtually no upfront cost to making a new part. At the end of the day, 3D printed part costs can be attributed mainly to material cost, manufacturing time, and labor. All of these are more expensive for 3D printers than for injection molding, but again, without an upfront mold cost the barrier to entry is a lot lower.

So, looking purely at unit costs, which method is more economical? There is always a point at which injection molding becomes more price competitive than 3D printing. Today, this point is usually somewhere between 1 and 10,000 units for parts that could be made to satisfaction with either method.

The figure below shows the relative unit cost for runs of the same theoretical injection molded and 3D printed part, plotted logarithmically. This model assumes a mold cost of $10,000 with each injection molded unit adding $0.20 of material cost. It assumes the 3D printed unit cost for the same part to be $20/unit for any run volume.

This logarithmic graph shows the theoretical unit cost for the same part manufactured separately with 3D printing and with injection molding. Using 3D printing, the unit cost remains at $20, regardless of the number of parts produced. Using injection molding, a $10,000 mold must be made prior to making the first unit. From there, each unit can be made for an additional $0.20, thus making the effective unit cost equal to $0.20 + $10,000/# of units produced. From the above graph, we can see that due to the upfront mold cost with injection molding, it only becomes the more cost effective production method if you are producing more than 500 units.

Other Considerations

Outside of unit cost and order volume, there are other considerations that come into play when choosing between injection molding and 3D printing:

Complexity – Whether an object is organically shaped or has ultra-sharp edges, its type and degree of complexity can help inform which manufacturing method you choose. Ultimately, you should choose the method best suited for making what you’ve designed. When thinking of “creative” or organic shapes as complexity, 3D printing wins. When thinking of hard engineering constraints and tolerances, injection molding [ed. note: most often] wins.

Production Time – Production time is typically determined by the manufacturer’s capacity and and the size of the production run. The many steps required to get something into production can factor into this timeline, from sourcing a manufacturer, to making a mold, to quality control, shipping and eventual delivery. You should always consider the manufacturer’s location, steps to getting to production, and guaranteed delivery time.

Iteration & Change – As with all competitive products and services, being able to iterate often and maintain agility is key to innovation. If you’re at the beginning of a long product development journey, spending a few thousand dollars on a mold that cannot be changed will most likely slow down your innovation cycle. However, if you’re at a point where your focus is scale and repeatability, then injection molding may prove to be more fitting than 3D printing.

Into the Future

As we look towards the future we’re seeing exciting developments within the realms of both 3D printing and injection molding. These advancements are making it easier and faster to get things made, and will hopefully lower the barrier so that more and more people can make the products they dream up.

Next time you find yourself on the journey to get something manufactured, consider the above factors and make the decision that will increase your chances of success in bringing a new product or part to life.

Looking to explore what 3D printing can do for your business? Get in touch with the Shapeways for Business team.

The post High-Volume 3D Printing vs. Injection Molding appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

3D printed parts meet traditionally manufactured parts in Preceyes’ first-of-its-kind surgical robot

Thijs Meenink had a challenge both enormous and microscopic: create a solution for eye surgeons to perform procedures at a scale never before attempted — a much, much smaller scale. However, the size of the problem he was addressing was huge: untreatable retinal diseases that affect 50 to 75 million people.

Meenink co-founded Preceyes to develop a new kind of precision robotic solution, one that could both assist surgeons and mitigate the risks of human error in the most, well, precise of surgeries: vitreoretinal procedures that take surgical instruments inside the eye. “These are the most delicate, and the most difficult kind of procedures within eye surgery, and even within microsurgery,” he told us. “The stability and precision, plus the smoothness of using a robot really contribute to the abilities of the surgeon.”

Pioneering a technology based around hardware iterations has traditionally been a costly endeavor. For Preceyes, creating a new generation of ultra-precise, first-of-their-kind surgical robots necessitated a new way of working. “The complete system is totally new. There is no part that was already available; the entire system is built from scratch.” Shapeways would play a key role in bringing it to life.

“I started out experimenting with Shapeways over five years ago. First I made one thing, then a few things per month, and it just kind of snowballed. I soon saw how useful it could become.” As Meenink developed Preceyes’ robots, 3D printing became more than a means of creating parts. Without Shapeways, the robots simply would not exist.

“It started with prototyping — just to hold something and get a feel for its shape and mechanisms. And testing to see if things work like you’d thought. But, when you get more familiar with it, you make real products. And you have a lot of freedom. Now, I think we have 60 products made by Shapeways that are in the robotic system, in nylon, aluminum, and stainless steel. In the beginning you aren’t really familiar with the process and the possibilities. I was expecting to receive parts that were very weak. But that changed: the parts weren’t weak, and tolerances have only gotten better and better. They simply work.”

One of the best illustrations of the power of 3D printing in the robots’ continued development are the covers that protect its most delicate operations. “The robot makes weird movements. The space the robot moves in is much larger than the actual robot. With complex shapes enabled by 3D printing, you can make sure that this space is bounded, keeping the system small. This impacts and improves the efficiency of space, cost, and many other things. This is not possible with other production methods — it’s way too expensive to make these covers from metal or plastic using conventional manufacturing. 3D printing is a really perfect system.”

The Preceyes Surgical System uses a revolutionary technique in which the motions of the physician are mimicked at micro scale within the eye of the patient. Meenink is a mechanical designer, so the ergonomics of the human-computer interface would pose a unique challenge. “The surgeon holds the motion controller (or joystick), and the gripper on the joystick must have a very ergonomic shape. I had to work through five or six iterations to get there. All were made by Shapeways. Quickly testing and adapting designs, week by week, easily iterating, works so well with Shapeways.”

“I frequently recommend Shapeways to others. The freedom of design, the speed, the large custom parts, large bounding box, and prices — even up to 100 pieces, it’s still way cheaper to use 3D printing. And there’s no other supplier that has this kind of transparency of production and delivery. It’s always consistent.”

Now, Preceyes is preparing to take its robots to market as “the very first company in the world to make a system for robotic eye surgery that will be available commercially in operating rooms,” but the research and development process won’t end there. And it will continue to be enabled by 3D printing. “When I’m designing something new, I try to put the most 3D printed parts and the least conventional parts. Cost, speed, the ability to combine parts, etc. all play a part. With 3D printing, the possibilities are endless.”

He also reminds us that the promise of medical robotics is just beginning to be fulfilled. And while some fear the power of these technologies, Meenink, for one, welcomes the rise of the bots. “Don’t be scared of robots; theirs are better than human hands. They will not take over the world, but they will assist surgeons for the better.”

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See the Preceyes system in action here:

The post “Don’t be scared of robots” How Preceyes Surgical Robotics Define Medicine’s New Frontiers appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Last week, Knezevic and sound engineer Edin Secibovic launched a Kickstarter for their innovative T3TRA loudspeakers. With frames in colorful Shapeways Strong & Flexible nylon and panels in laser-cut birch plywood, the speakers combine two of the most popular digital manufacturing techniques. The single-piece tetrahedral frame also offers a distinct audiophile advantage, dramatically reducing vibration (and the usual small-speaker tinniness). The result is a small-but-mighty portable speaker. I asked Igor about what led him down this new path in product design.

What inspired you to create the T3TRA speakers?

I thought, “Let’s try to use the simplest geometric forms,” which make great sense for hi-fi sound (no hard edges, no corners, so fewer resonances, etc.), and try to make all the pieces digitally, with a minimum of post-processing. The frame is 3D printed and the sides are natural plywood (birch), laser-cut to fit perfectly into the 3D printed frame. As a result, T3TRA speakers have great sound, especially in this size group.

The finished T3TRA, and in concept form

What advantages did the 3D printed element bring to the speakers?

The tetrahedral frame of the loudspeaker is 3D printed in SLS nylon, giving it great stability and excellent sound properties because of the shape (no parallel edges), rounded edges (better for sound diffusion) and perfect uniformity of nylon material. In short, it’s a “unibody” frame. This is quite hard to achieve with other manufacturing methods. Plus, it can have that really intense Shapeways dye color. The color really pops – like candy.

Available color options

What was the process of creating them like?

This sound system as a form/shape was designed by myself, but the real sound expertise was provided by my friend and co-creator Edin Secibovic, who is a sound engineer. As we tried out some ideas, we realized that by combining two digital manufacturing methods, we can achieve an affordable speaker design which can be produced on-demand and hand-assembled relatively quickly. As far as sound quality is concerned, it worked at first try! We were very pleasantly surprised. Even deep sounds were apparent, which can be a problem for small-form speakers. A few tweaks were needed to make the parts fit perfectly, but it was pretty painless.

The 3D printed frame and laser-cut side panels

Overall, what makes these speakers special?

It’s about having the minimum number of parts, which fit perfectly together since they are all fully digitally manufactured – making for excellent sound distribution. In sound, less is definitely more. It turns out SLS nylon is a very good material for sound applications since the material is perfectly uniform in all directions and sizes are always exact.

We also have another design in the works – this one fully 3D printed, and with a different form factor. Coming soon, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out the Kickstarter for the T3TRA speakers, and don’t miss the incredible pieces in Alienology’s Shapeways shop. Let us know in the comments: have you used 3D printed parts in gadgets you’d like us to feature? Leave a note below for a chance to be featured on the blog.

The post Alienology’s Latest: Audiophile-Approved 3D Printed Speakers appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Bridging the gap

The Daily Dot’s John-Michael Bond wrote about the unveiling of the world’s first 3D printed bridge which has been built in Castilla-La Mancha park in Alcobendas, Spain. The structure, designed by the The Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), was specifically inspired by complex forms found in nature, which helped to optimize the bridge’s strength in proportion to the material used (micro-reinforced concrete). The final result was a 40-foot-long footbridge constructed from eight separate 3D printed parts. Appropriately, it’s pretty odd-looking as bridges go, but it’s an incredibly cool application of 3D printing in the field of civil engineering.

Video courtesy The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia’s YouTube page

A story with a whole lot of heart

CTV News covered the story of a group of doctors at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children using a 3D printed replica of a six-month-old’s heart to practice before a complicated heart surgery. The model was created using scans of the patient’s heart and allowed for a successful surgery– making it a perfect example of the ways in which 3D printing is literally saving lives. This practice is becoming more common around the world:  Thompson Reuters Zawya also recently covered the way in which doctors in India are using 3D printed replicas of hearts.

Let’s give these kids a hand

Jesse Leavenworth at the Hartford Courant wrote about a group of twenty middle school students in Connecticut volunteering to assemble “raptor hand” prosthetics as part of The Hand Challenge, a branch of the e-NABLE Community, a global network that leverages volunteers to create prosthetic hands using their 3D printers.

Go Fish

Nathaniel Scharping at Discover Magazine describes how researchers at MIT have 3D printed some squishy robots which are not only mostly composed of water (and polymers), but are also powered by pumped water. The resulting robots are strong, flexible, and fast, allowing them to grab a (very confused looking) goldfish. These machines are going to be key for medical applications in the future, so it’s a development to keep an eye on.

The post The Week in 3D Printing appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? Where are you located?

My name is Austin Robey and am located in Brooklyn, NY. I have an academic background in architecture, a professional background in designing jewelry and accessories, and now have a studio called Make Mode, which helps people realize fun and inventive product ideas through digital design and 3D printing. As a side project from our 3D design services, we wanted to make a Shapeways store of some fun products we designed. It’s also called Make Mode.

What’s the story behind your designs? What inspires you?

I am inspired by the immediacy of 3D printing and its ability to help people quickly realize product ideas. It’s definitely a catalyst for innovation. That being said, I also enjoy the challenge of designing products around the limitations of 3D printers (size, material, cost). The idea of producing a product that can be manufactured locally on demand is fascinating. We thought that making 3D emojis would be a fun project because it really represents what is exciting about 3D printing – taking something digital and making it physical.

What brought you to 3D printing with Shapeways?
Shapeways has built an amazing infrastructure to produce and distribute 3D printed products. It’s marketplace allows us to sell products that we could not produce ourselves. It also serves as a useful service for iterative testing of designs.

How did you learn how to design in 3D?
I was introduced to 3D design tools while studying architecture at Pratt Institute. Architecture is great, but working in an architectural practice didn’t interest me, so I applied 3D design tools I learned in academia to other disciplines. I use Rhino, Maya, and Zbrush.

Who are your favorite designers or artists? Who in the Shapeways community has served as an inspiration to you?
I am inspired by the design community in New York City. Two people I know from Pratt Architecture are doing really interesting work: Francis Bitonti and Brad Rothenberg. Joris Laarnman makes very cool digitally fabricated furniture. Also, some designs that are coming from Nike research and development are exciting – like their 3D printed duffel bag.

If you weren’t limited by current technologies, what would you want to make using 3D printing?
If it wasn’t so expensive, I would want to design and print my furniture. Or maybe 3d print some more 3d printers.

Thank you so much for sharing, Austin! Don’t forget to check out Austin’s shop, Make Mode and website.

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With Shapeways we suck more, literally. Imagine if every time that you wanted to make a change to your website or app, you had to wait for two weeks to see the results. This is the reality in the electronics prototyping world. My name is George Kyriakou and I am the COO of BotFactory, where we make Squink, a Desktop Electronics Printer that can create the sort of PCBs to power any device, from drones to watches. We use Shapeways in order to get high precision and quality parts without having to order thousands of units.

BotFactory aims to reassess the way we think about Electronics and hardware prototyping. Instead of waiting a couple of weeks procrastinating while your board is being manufactured and shipped, BotFactory inkjet prints your traces in a jiffy using silver-based nanoparticle electroconductive ink. Instead of searching for interns to burn your freshly cooked wafer, BotFactory solders and picks and places for you. And all that through a single device that sits on your desk: Squink.

As COO I manage our supply and manufacturing chain, which means I also serve as the janitor, packer, shipper, assembler, purchase manager, etc. My long-term goal is to make sure that BotFactory can scale production effortlessly and meet our big vision to have Squinks on everyone’s desk. From the early days, we designed and 3D printed all of the parts for Squink on our handy Makerbot Replicator 2X. We felt that we could scale with only one machine – how wrong we were!

We started with some sample prints and, voila: awesome results (ok, some minor tweaking like belt tightening and bed leveling had to take place first). But clouds didn’t take long to appear in the fairyland of prototyping: clogged nozzles, chewed up filament, model knocking, warping and the list goes on. Even the room temperature variations due to the highly unstable New York weather affected the prints – we couldn’t reach the sort of tolerances that we needed.

As is my style, I dug deeper. I started keeping meticulous data. I tried a handful of slicers and played with hundreds of settings. Soon I buried our couch under stacks of empty filament spools and became permanently scented with the distinct stench of ABS fumes. 
It was then that I realized the AM part in 3D printing is not for Additive Manufacturing but to describe the time of the night when every person with a 3D printer ends up tinkering. But soon enough I could start calling myself a 3D printing guru.

It was a Thursday morning when I entered the BotFactory Headquarters (yes, it is a single room, so what?) and finally faced the perfect piece: no scratches, no gaps between layers, no imperfect circles or ringing, no failed supports or bridges. Everything clicked together and hard work had finally paid off. Now my only limit was, well, the limitations of our printer.

The toughest part soon proved to be fabricating our Pick and Place head. This part is responsible for picking up and rotating an IC Chip or Resistor, taking it above the camera so the image recognition algorithm can correct any errors, and of course moving them to the appropriate place on the board. But all of those were working as expected. It was the actual picking that was causing us trouble; we simply didn’t suck powerfully enough!

In order to pick up the parts we use a suction system. Simply put, we create vacuum using a pump and we guide it through a silicon tube to a syringe tip (Figure 2: The Pick and Place (PnP) Head). To maintain the vacuum, we have to make sure that all the connections are tight and sealed and no leaks are present. After rigorous testing, the culprit was found: it was the Pick and Place cylinder (the part holding the motor, the suction tube and the syringe tip together).

Figure 2: The Pick and Place (PnP) Head

Let’s take a closer look at the Pick and place Cylinder. It is composed of two parts: the cylinder’s main body (Figure 3: The Cylinder’s Main Body) and the barbed connector (connecting the main cylinder body to the suction tube) (Figure 4: The Barbed Connector). But it didn’t always look that way and, from a mechanical perspective, it is not optimum.

Figure 3: The Cylinder’s Main Body

Figure 4: The Barbed Connector

Like every manufacturing technique, 3D printing works best when the designer constrains the design to meet what the 3D Printer can do. To that end we iterated, iterated and iterated; and then iterated some more and then a little bit more in order to produce a part that is functional, has good tolerances, low failure rate during 3D printing, and a good mechanical stability.

However, with your classic FDM 3D Printer (like Makerbot) you often have small gaps that allow air in from the outside, reducing the potential vacuum. We added multiple shells, placed a high infill percentage, etc. but nothing seemed to work well enough. We had hit a roadblock. We couldn’t mill it either – the part was too complex and would probably be very expensive. Ditto with Injection Molding. What was I supposed to do?

Figure 5: Putting the Cylinder’s Main Body and the Barbed Connector Together

Figure 6: The Luer Lock Tip and the Threads in the Cylinder

I was at my limits and ready to throw the 3D printer out of the window (for the 100th time) when my friend Tenoch from Sunhouse (at the time we were working in the same room) told me with the calmness of a 10th degree black belt sensei “Why don’t you just try Shapeways?”
Within the next fifteen minutes I had already placed the sample order and within a week I was at their facilities to pick them up (after all they are literally two blocks away). At this point I have to say that if you live around the city, you have to visit their Long Island City facility! They even organize tours, which I took, and I was genuinely impressed by the way they have set up their operations!
In any case, back to our office to open the magic package. When I picked up the part (singular, no more two part nonsense) I was impressed by the finishing. Due to the small cavities used in our cylinder we explicitly asked Shapeways not to polish it and therefore I expected a much rougher surface. Instead we got a surprisingly smooth surface with a slightly dusty feeling. The detail achieved at the barbed connector was stunning (Figure 7: The PnP Cylinder made by Shapeways). But what about rigidity?

Our order contained three pieces: one for show, one for testing and one to be sacrificed to the gods of rigidity. Following the same scientific approach as the bendgate, that little thing was impossible to break!

Figure 7: The PnP Cylinder made by Shapeways

Next check in line was the Luer lock. The insertion was smooth and easy and it felt very precise. Despite the minuscule size of the pitch, the syringe tip locked tightly in place (Figure 8: The Precise Threads on the Cylinder made by Shapeways).

Figure 8: The Precise Threads on the Cylinder made by Shapeways

The final check was the barbed connector. The silicon tube slid easily into place and the barbed connector came out so sharp that indeed it was very hard to remove, providing us with the insulation we needed.

After everything was in place, it was time for the final evaluation. The part looked much nicer now. The Luer lock and the barbed connector felt more rigid and the absence of an additional connection point after merging two parts into one could only make things better, but we needed proof that it was enough! And what a proof we got: even during the very first attempt, we were able to lift parts that were twice as heavy, meaning that Squink users could now reliably lift SOICs, polarized capacitors, QFNs, inductors and many many more.

And for us it meant that we could greatly reduce the failure rate of another part for Squink, we could remove the time uncertainty that was caused by mechanical failures in our 3D printer, and finally that we reduced the reworking time by combining the two parts in one.

As a startup we are constantly working on the bleeding edge of things and everyday is another attempt to push the limits of what is possible. With such high goals we require all the help that we can get, especially from partners that understand the “what” and “why” behind what we do and can help us with the “how”. We are very lucky that we live in an era where companies like Shapeways can offer products and services that in the near past seemed unachievable. This is the same goal we aim to achieve for our users at BotFactory.

The post BotFactory Develops 3D Printed Hardware with Shapeways appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Produced with Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) Audi’s team recreated the vehicle part for part in 3D printed Aluminum and Steel. Check out the video below for more on the process.

What’s even cooler about this project is that everything used to create these replicas is available for Shapeways users as well! Our platform provides all of our community access to this technology. Any maker can print in our DMLS aluminum and anyone can buy or sell in our steel. Given all the resources, we all could be printing historic parts like these.

Even if you don’t need to 3D print the whole car, Shapeways gives access to a whole marketplace of scale vehicles for your gearhead’s delight.  From Grand Prix racetracks to other 1:120 scale german cars, 3D printing is enabling everyone to get the custom scale vehicles of their dreams.

The post Audi 3D printed a car and so can you! appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Occipital is calling on the Structure & Shapeways communities to help extend the  3D scanning power of the Structure Sensor by coming up with a great 3D-printed attachment case for iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus, so you can scan anywhere, right from your phone.

There’s $1000 in prizes from Shapeways & the Structure Sensor Store for the best designs! They’ll also be made available right here on Shapeways, with no added markup, and Creative Commons CC0- licensed for everyone in the community to print or download.

You have until Wednesday, November 12 at 11:59pm PST to submit your entry. Don’t miss out – there’s only one week left! Find the full contest details, starter materials, and how to enter here. I’ll be judging your designs so show me what you’ve got and GOOD LUCK!

One of the thousands of 3D scans made with the Structure Sensor

The post Design Contest: Help Shapeways & Occipital Bring 3D Scanning to iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus appeared first on Shapeways Blog.