Mattel and MakerBot Team Up
For Mattel, bringing joy and education through play is serious business. Mattel is a leading global toy company, with a portfolio of iconic brands, including Barbie®, Hot Wheels®, Fisher-Price®, American Girl®, Thomas & Friends®, UNO®, Masters of the Universe®, Monster High® and MEGA®. With the help of the MakerBot METHOD 3D printing platform, Jack Peach, key lead innovation engineer, and the Product Innovation team are reinvigorating toy research, design, and development at the company. The MakerBot METHOD and METHOD X 3D printers have been game changers, enabling them to put form to the creation and bring joy and imagination to the next generation of Makers. “In early 2020, I decided to invest in a 3D printer that offered high resolution, high repeatability, and was super easy to use. When I started using the METHOD 3D printers, I realized 3D printing parts at home at the industrial level with industry-standard material was amazing,” said Jack. “Our team’s focus is to share innovative product features with the brand team and help bring them to market. When physical models are needed, our team can rely on industrial-grade 3D printing materials like ABS-R or Nylon Carbon Fiber because they are durable enough to prove out form and [...]
Dungeons & Dragons Dice Tower: An ABS Story
Did you know that ABS is the most popular material for engineers in the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) category? ABS is strong and has great machinability and thermal stability. Usually, ABS is highly susceptible to warping and curling in desktop 3D printers which, before the MakerBot Method X, caused ABS to be too challenging and unreliable to print with, regardless of its great qualities. MakerBot has also created RapidRinse™, a support material for ABS that actually dissolves in tap water! No chemicals are required in order for RapidRinse™ to dissolve, offering your ABS prints unlimited geometries. For fun, we experimented by printing a Dungeons & Dragons dice tower made of ABS with and without the support material, RapidRinse™. In the photos, you can see the difference between the two. The tower printed with RapidRinse™ has crisp overhangs with no stringing or extra material hanging off. For personal projects, this may be less enticing as some prints can be created without support. However, for engineers or designers that are bringing innovative ideas to life, having access to RapidRinse™ offers endless possibilities. More Info on 3D Printing
New Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit
3D print functional steel parts on your Ultimaker Ultimaker and BASF Forward AM are proud to announce that the Metal Expansion Kit is now available from our network of resellers – meaning it is now possible to print functional steel parts on your Ultimaker S5, at a fraction of the cost of other metal production methods. At the Ultimaker Showcase event back in April, we unveiled two new solutions that together deliver a breakthrough for 3D printer users. First came Ultimaker Cura 5 offering enhanced detail and print speeds. Now, the Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit unlocks massive possibilities for Ultimaker customers. You can now take advantage of a new range of metal 3D printing applications by upgrading the Ultimaker S5 with the Metal Expansion Kit. Its seamless workflow makes creating stainless steel parts easier, more efficient, and affordable. From small series of small tools to auxiliary components. What’s included? You may be wondering how an expansion kit allows an existing printer designed for thermoplastic filaments to reliably print metal parts. There are two key elements. First, the kit includes Ultimaker Print Cores – including a new Ultimaker Print Core DD¹ – with nozzles specially optimized for printing metal and ceramic support materials. The [...]
3D Printing Is Becoming Manufacturing Reality
A reprint from CNBC Additive manufacturing is on the cusp of being adopted more widely by industry, as large corporates Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and Boeing as well as small innovative start-ups prove it can work well at scale in manufacturing. Picture shows a non-pneumatic tire (NPT), an airless tire, during the presentation of the NPT tire of Goodyear in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg, on May 17, 2022, where the tire manufacturer has a new plant where it is experimenting with 3D printing.Francois Walschaerts | Afp | Getty Images In May, Goodyear opened a $77 million plant in Luxembourg that centers on 3D printing and can make tires four times faster in small batches than with conventional production. Goodyear also is testing its new 3D printed airless tire technology on Tesla electric vehicles and Starship Technologies' autonomous delivery robots. It has been working for the past several years on improved manufacturing techniques at an R&D center near Columbus, Ohio. By 2030, Goodyear aims to bring maintenance-free and airless tires to market, and 3D printing is part of that effort for the Akron-based tire-making leader founded in 1898 and named after innovator Charles Goodyear. Currently, about 2% of its production is through additive [...]
Upcoming Desktop Metal Webinar
How Your Business Can Outperform the Competition During the Supply Chain and Labor Crisis with 3D Printing How long will the current mix of supply chain and labor issues last? How can your business outperform during this challenging time? Join Desktop Metal on August 24 at 2 PM EST for a special two-hour webinar event to discuss how 3D printing can help solve your supply chain and labor challenges. During this webinar, Desktop Metal assembles both company and industry experts to share up-to-date forecasts on how long the supply chain and labor crisis will last and show how machine shops and other manufacturers are carving out an advantage during this time with agile, turnkey digital manufacturing tools. In this webinar you will learn: How to use additive manufacturing to ease supply chain disruptions How Desktop Metal customers are using a digital inventory strategy and producing replacement parts on-demand with 3D printing How to identify parts in your inventory that could benefit from 3D printing production How to get started digitizing your data and what tools are available to help Which printers and materials are available for plug-and-play adoption Register Here
Action Figures Spring to Life With 3D Printing
A reprint from DE247 Digital Engineering Formlabs 3D printers, materials, and processes are powering the Hasbro Selfie Series, a new family of custom action figures produced at scale. Imagine being able to cast your image as a fellow Ghostbuster or Power Ranger. Or even joining forces to battle for good with your favorite G.I. Joe character. Thanks to a partnership between Formlabs, a 3D printer maker, and toy giant Hasbro, devotees can indulge their fan-fic fantasies. The pair have collaborated to create the Hasbro Selfie Series, which enables consumers to create collector-grade, six-inch customized action figures in their likeness—the latest in the stream of projects that illustrate the power of 3D printing for mass customization at scale. The Hasbro Selfie Series exemplifies the power of 3D printing as a personalization platform. Image Courtesy of Hasbro. Slated to be available this fall, the Hasbro Selfie Series employs Formlabs 3D printers as the personalization platform. Fans simply download the Hasbro Pulse mobile app, available for both Android and iOS, log into an account, scan their face, and then customize their character and hairstyle. The resulting custom action figure, which can draw from characters from the above-mentioned popular action TV series and comics, will [...]