Machining Allowance Inspection with FreeScan UE Pro Metrology 3D Scanner
PT. Meiwa Mold Indonesia (hereby referred to as Meiwa Mold) is a company engaged in die-casting mold manufacturing. Its customer base is diverse, including prominent names like American Toyota, Astra Daihatsu (ADM), HPPM (Honda Precision Parts Manufacturing), and Yamaha. Meiwa Mold recognizes the importance of delivering high-quality molds to meet their customers’ strict requirements. To ensure accurate machining of castings, machining allowances must be tightly controlled. An excessive allowance will raise the machine’s weight and the use of materials, equipment, and energy. That’s why they invested in SHINING 3D’s FreeScan UE Pro metrology 3D scanner for machining allowance inspection, sourced through PT EVOLUSI KREASI INDONESIA, a trusted partner. What challenges did Meiwa Mold face? Before integrating FreeScan UE Pro into their machining margin inspection and analysis process, Meiwa Mold faced a major challenge: scanning medium to large objects. They already had a CMM for small and precision mold inspection and a structured light scanner, but neither was portable enough. With limited space, it was inconvenient to move large and heavy objects. How does the FreeScan UE Pro help Meiwa Mold be more efficient? To address the challenges, Meiwa Mold implemented the FreeScan UE Pro metrology 3D scanner from SHINING 3D. This industrial 3D [...]
What is Bound Metal Deposition (BMD)?
Bound Metal Deposition (BMD) is an extrusion-based metal additive manufacturing (AM) process where metal components are constructed by extrusion of a powder-filled thermoplastic media. Bound metal rods—metal powder held together by wax and polymer binder—are heated and extruded onto the build plate, shaping a part layer-by-layer. Once printed, the binder is removed via the debind process, and then sintered—causing the metal particles to densify. Prevalent metal AM technologies involve melting powder or wire feedstock using lasers or electron beams. While viable, these systems have substantial facilities requirements to accommodate power and safety requirements. Additionally, localized melting and rapid solidification create complex stress fields within parts, requiring rigid support structures to aid heat dissipation and resist shrinkage. As a result, support removal often requires machining. The Desktop Metal Studio System leverages BMD to deliver an office-friendly metal 3D printing solution. There are no loose powders or lasers associated with fabrication. In terms of support removal, parts are printed with their supports which are separated by ceramic interface media (or the Ceramic Release Layer™) that does not bond to the metal. This material disintegrates during sintering, making it easy to remove supports by hand. BMD can be applied to virtually any sinter-able powder that can [...]
3D Printing Changing the Game
How TUM Boring Printed Strong Parts for their Tunnel Boring Machine TUM Boring team in Bastrop, Texas in April 2023. TUM Boring is a student organization from the Technische Universität Munchen composed of more than 60 students originating from 16+ countries. The group came together in 2020 to participate in the Not-a-Boring Competition 2021 from Elon Musk’s The Boring Company (TBC). The student-led team is dedicated to the future of mobility and aims to build one of the fastest micro tunnel boring machines (TBMs) in the world to drive innovation in the tunneling industry. The competition provided the perfect place to see how their project compares to innovations from around the world. After winning the competition in 2021, the TUM Boring team got their hands on a Form 3+ stereolithography (SLA) printer and also got to work with Fuse 1+ 30W selective laser sintering (SLS) printed parts. The newly acquired 3D printing technology significantly improved the team’s work processes. From rapid prototyping to end-use parts, the Form 3+ transformed TUM Boring’s day-to-day operations and helped the team win the second edition of the Not-a-Boring Competition in April 2023. Discover how TUM Boring made use of 3D printing to create strong, durable [...]
Introducing Design X Essentials for Mastercam Users
Attention Mastercam Users Who Need To: Design machinable parts from point clouds or mesh files. Have access to incredible sketching, solid and surface modeling CAD tools. Machine parts when no drawing or model exists. Repair broken parts where no CAD model or Drawing exists. Introducing Design X Essentials for Mastercam Users Scan-based Step/Parasolid files vs CAD-Based Step/Parasolid Files – What’s the difference? Some of you may have experienced the nightmare of attempting to create good quality G-Code by programming Step or Parasolid models that originated from “Auto-Surfaced” scanned data. I affectionately term these “Scan-Based Step (or Parasolid) files” and they are functionally useless when trying to produce good quality pocketing, profiling, point-to-point or other simple toolpaths. With these models, circular interpolating a bore with an end mill doesn’t create a single G02 or G03 block but rather, hundreds or even thousands of G01 points are generated, providing a gigantic, inefficient point-to-point G-Code program. But what if there was a way you could create “CAD-based Step (or Parasolid) files” from point clouds or mesh files where the models react as if the were generated by a CAD system? Well now you can! Cimquest Mastercam users can purchase Design X Essentials at a 40% discount [...]
Ceramic Production Innovation via 3D Printed Prototypes
Artisans are increasing speed, reducing costs, and expanding flexibility by using 3D printers to create prototypes as opposed to traditional hand-made models. Chinese porcelain has always been loved by people all over the world for its unique beauty, among which the Southern Song Dynasty official kilns are very popular because of their elegance. Xiao Heqing, a ceramics manufacturing expert, inherited traditional ceramic skills and introduced 3D printing in the process of making porcelain from the Southern Song Dynasty official kilns to speed up the production process. The new Southern Song Dynasty official kiln porcelain production process is complex, and 3D printing changes the process for the first step, mold making. Mold-making directly affects the shape of porcelain molding and the quality of porcelain. It is mainly divided into two steps, making the master pattern and turnover the mold. Traditional mold-making method The traditional mold-making method is based on the master pattern and plaster casting technique. The master pattern is made by cutting and trimming the clay and this clay mold is turned over with plaster to make a production mold. Challenges The making of clay molds is complicated and tedious, so it takes a lot of time to make a complete master mold. [...]
Which 3D Printing Metal Technology is Right for You?
If you are interested in learning more about 3D printing Metal, please join us this afternoon for a special webinar where you will learn which metal technology is right for you and how easy they are to adopt. 3D Metal printing can be transformational - unlocking new design freedoms for part innovation with fast iterations and enabling tooling-free production of spare parts or custom fixtures. When getting started with the technology, it’s important to understand the different technologies available to make sure your investment fits your production workflow and your company gets the best ROI. Today, June 28th at 2:00 PM EST, Desktop Metal's Sean Roberts, will give a breakdown of two of the easiest-to-adopt metal additive manufacturing technologies, “powderless” Bound Metal Deposition (BMD) and the easily scalable binder jetting. In this webinar, you’ll: Learn the processing workflow for both extrusion-based 3D printing processes and metal binder jetting, including sintering, used with both technologies and how software-based workflows help ensure easy-adoption success Gain an understanding of which technology is more suitable for different types of applications See use case and part examples from Desktop Metal’s Studio and Shop System printers Don't miss out. Register now! Register Now