Nexa3D Ultrafast 3D Printing
Let's take a look at the new ultra-fast 3D printer from Nexa 3D, the NXE 400. Engineers are always looking to get their designs to market faster. While 3D printing has accelerated product development, most traditional platforms are still fairly slow for large parts and batches. The NXE 400 3D printer brings revolutionary speed to engineers with the ability to print 1 vertical inch every 2 1/2 minutes. Let's dive into the process. To begin, this platform is based on a unique process called Lubricant Sublayer Photo-curing, or LSPc. It starts with the rapid projection of light from an advanced LED matrix engine, which channels through light guides to ensure uniformity across the build area. From there, the light travels through an LED mask where it gets pixelated, ensuring edge-to-edge part consistency and accuracy. The final leg of the process entails a flexible, self-lubricating membrane that allows each printed layer to solidify while suspended. This completely eliminates the need for traditional extraction tilting. Thermal management is integrated as well to overcome the heat build-up from high-speed printing. The combination of all this enables the NXE 400 to vastly improve your cycle times. And since the speed of output is based on vertical height, [...]
Sharpen Your Skills with Free Mastercam University Classes
We are in the midst of an unprecedented event of global impact. It is our hope that everyone reading this is safe and healthy while the world comes to terms with COVID-19. As we all adjust to the disruptions and inconveniences caused by this situation, many of us are finding ourselves working from home or spending more time on our computers and devices. This is a great time to sharpen your Mastercam skills right in your own home or office! As of today, Mastercam has announced that they are opening up portions of Mastercam University for free until the end of June. They are now offering a core set of classes that should help both new and experienced users build a more solid foundation for using Mastercam. Mastercam University courses are designed to be self-paced. Each lesson contains a set of learning objectives, assessment questions, and challenges to be completed by the student. You will earn a certificate for each course you complete. Don't miss this great opportunity for free training. Free courses for Mastercam Mill: Mastercam 2019 - 2D Mill - For anyone still using Mastercam 2019, this course will focus on delivering a foundation in Mastercam 2D milling to start you [...]
HP 3D Printing Technology Reveals Cost and Weight Savings
A 3D printed quick changeover insert printed with Multi Jet Fusion for HP's Sprocket assembly line. HP has revealed further cost and weight savings within its print and packaging businesses thanks to the internal application of its 3D printing Multi Jet Fusion additive manufacturing technology. As the company continues to scale its ‘HP on HP’ program, more than 100 components of its Indigo 2020 press portfolio have been manufactured with 3D printing, while a reduction of 5007 parts across 84 different part numbers on its packaging lines has also been recorded. HP on HP was initiated in 2018, with the company first targeting its Multi Jet Fusion hardware, before expanding the application of 3D printing technology across its various other business units. The recent announcement of HP’s Indigo 2020 portfolio of presses highlighted this implementation of 3D printing, with redesigns of components generating a 90% weight saving, as well as reductions in its carbon footprint, production time and energy, and material consumption. Meanwhile, on the packaging side of the business, the roll-out of 3D printing has helped to achieve $111k within a year. HP on HP: How the internal use of 3D printing is shaking up one of the world's biggest [...]
Special Message Regarding the Covid-19 Situation
First of all, we wish good health and safety to our entire community. These are challenging times that we are facing; however, we can all work together to help ensure a healthy and productive time for all of us. Cimquest has been very aggressive over the past several years in creating a service and support infrastructure so that in the rare event that such a situation occurs, we would be completely effective at supporting our valued customer base. Prior to the circumstance that we all now face, Cimquest had 39% of our employees working from home and another 27% able to be fully functional working remotely. With 2/3rds of the company being fully functional at home and most of the remaining third able to work part or most of the time remotely, we are just maintaining a skeleton staff at just a few of our several offices to conduct mission-critical functions such as product fulfillment, shipping, and other services. Thanks to the cloud-based technology that we have been using for many years we are able to support and transact business as usual. Our VOIP phone system allows us to handle our calls as efficiently as if we were in our facilities. We will [...]
Using Mastercam Lathe Operations Libraries
Mastercam Lathe Operations Libraries make the programming of part families more efficient. Working from the first part in the family, the toolpath order of operations and tooling has already been established. To use these same operations in the series of parts first, select a group of toolpaths, then right-click in the Operations Manager and select Export. Remember to rename the operations file to prevent overwriting Mastercam’s default version of the file. Then Save the file. Use the Apply button (as shown below) to export the toolpath. You can select OK once the toolpath export process has finished. Lastly, select the red X to close the utility. Now open the next part file in the series, right-click in the Operations Manager and select Import. To open the utility, use the folder icon in the upper right to access the saved Operations Library and select Open. Now choose the toolpath you would like to import into the current part file and select the Apply button. You can select Mastercam’s origin as the reference point by using the “o” key on your keyboard. After the toolpaths have been imported select OK and use the red X to close the utility. To finish the programming of the [...]
Update on Cimquest and our response to COVID-19
Update on Cimquest and our response to COVID-19 Like all of you, Cimquest has been closely monitoring information and updates regarding the COVID-19 from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO) and New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH). Our focus is on making certain that our work environment is safe for employees and customers so that we can position ourselves for continued support of your businesses. Cimquest was an early adopter of cloud based technology and 95% of our operations can be conducted via a remote workforce. Our training classes are conducted with a maximum of 8 students and all equipment will be deep cleaned between each class. Cimquest has been a leader in offering a remote training option where the student can participate in every live class utilizing their own equipment. Each of our office locations has anywhere from 2 workers to 22 and; therefore, are not likely to be at significant risk for exposure due to our small population and the average number of cases in each state where our offices are located of less than 50. We are diligently cleaning all common surfaces and limiting unnecessary travel for our employees. If the virus cases increase significantly we [...]