Nexa3D Announces Two New 3D Printing Materials
Nexa3D recently added xCast and xPRO410 to their 3D printing materials lineup. xCast, a new material tailored specifically for the production of precision investment casting patterns on the NXE400 3D printer. xCast is ideal for foundry series production of small, large and complex metal parts for a variety of aerospace, defense, automotive, oil and gas and heavy industry applications, offering a toolless, faster, and more accurate alternative to traditional pattern production. Watch the video below to learn more about xCast. xPRO41 is a rigid photoplastic that prints extremely high accuracy parts with exceptional surface finish. Formulated based on Henkel’s LoctitePRO410 polymer and optimized for Nexa3D’s NXE400 3D printer, this material is ideal for general purpose prototyping. xPRO410 is an affordable general-purpose material enabling multiple daily design iterations and same day on-demand parts for small and large product enterprises. This rigid material offers extremely high accuracy and exceptional surface finish that is ideal for service bureaus seeking to upgrade their services to same day and next day fulfilment. It enables the fast and accurate printing of parts for a wide range of form, fit and function designs and beautiful appearance prototypes. xPRO410 can be printed continuously on the NXE400 at speeds of up to [...]
Metrology Minute – Interpreting 3D and 2D Color Maps
Let’s take a look at how to interpret 3D and 2D color maps using inspection software. Non-contact inspection software that is designed to show color maps will align the scan of a manufactured part with a nominal CAD model and actual manufacturing tolerances are revealed in a clear, easy to interpret fashion. Some products can show a blended color map whereby a color (typically green) represents a nominal tolerance. For the connecting arm color map in the example below, the green color is revealing the areas whereby the deviation from the scan to machined part is +/-.005”, the nominal value. Critical tolerances may also be shown that exceed nominal but reveal what is happening during the manufacturing process. In this case, critical tolerances are set to +/-.010”. Areas trending towards yellow, orange, then red are in between high nominal and high critical (between +.005” and +.010”). The closer to red, the further we are to approaching the critical tolerance ‘full’ (oversize) values. Conversely, the light to dark blue colors are showing where the model is trending between -.005” and -.010” or undersize values. By increasing the nominal tolerance to +/-.001” and the critical tolerance to +/-.005”, we get the results (below). You can [...]
Mastercam Lathe Custom Thread Toolpath
This blog post will take a look at a new Mastercam Lathe Custom Thread toolpath that was added in Mastercam 2021. This new Custom Thread toolpath allows simplified creation of previously hard-to-make thread profiles like the rope thread on our example part. After selecting Custom Thread from the lathe toolpath gallery, it launches in the new side panel window just like 3D custom tools. In this example, we selected a .156 button cutter from the tool drop-down menu and just like all other Mastercam toolpaths, worked down the left side menu, filling in any necessary information. The Shape tab is where you can define what type of thread you want to machine. You can choose to use parametric data and select a shape style from the drop-down menu. Or you can define your shape with a chain. Selecting by Chain allows you to create any custom geometry you wish to form your thread shape but it is important to remember to only create one complete thread. Once you select your thread shape you can fill in the thread pitch. If you don't know your pitch you can always use the right-click menu to select a distance between points and divide that number into [...]
Introducing the Solutionix C500 3D Scanner
The Solutionix C500 structured light 3D scanner sets the standard for excellence and ease of use. The novice user can be up and running in minutes with single-click calibration and intuitive software deploying an extremely simple scanning process, from loading of parts to scan processing and scan exporting for downstream applications. Starting at just $40,000 for a single lens set or $52,000 for all four lens sets, the C500 covers a wide range of part size, accuracy, and resolution requirements making it a perfect choice for either a service bureau or a company with a wide range of part size scanning requirements. Utilizing an integrated and fully automated 3-axis rotary, tilt and swivel turntable, capturing all exposed surfaces for the scanner is a simple task. Typical scan processing algorithms including automatic scan alignment, global alignment, merging, and saving off the results in an automated fashion make the C500 perfect to use for batch processing of scans for an automated inspection operation. Whether scanning for reverse engineering, metrology, 3D Printing, or other applications, the C500 sets the standard for quality and ease-of-use and with all four lens sets, supports from very small to fairly large part sizes. Click the button below for more details [...]
Formlabs Rigid 10K Resin: An Extreme Material for Extreme Applications
Rigid Resins: Strong, Stiff, Stable From prototype to production, Formlab's expanding library of materials supports you at every step of the journey. Their latest materials, Draft Resin and Rigid 10K Resin span the breadth of this portfolio and expand what is feasible with SLA materials. Rigid 10K Resin for Rigid, Strong, Industrial-Grade Prototypes Introducing Rigid 10K Resin, the stiffest material in the Formlabs engineering portfolio. With a stiffness simulating that of glass and fiber-filled thermoplastics, Rigid 10K Resin is a glass-filled material designed to maintain structural integrity under any condition. Consider Rigid 10K Resin for extremely stiff and strong industrial-grade parts such as short-run injection mold masters, aerodynamic test models, and heat or fluid exposed components. Rigid 4000 Resin for Stiff, Strong, Engineering-Grade Prototypes Glass-filled Rigid 4000 Resin simulates the stiffness of PEEK and prints with a smooth, polished finish. It is ideal for stiff and strong parts that can withstand minimal deflection. Consider Rigid 4000 Resin for general load-bearing applications like mounts, rackets, and thin-walled parts. Print Even Faster With Improved Draft Resin Bring products to market faster by leveraging Draft Resin early in the design process. This reformulation prints up to 4 times faster than Formlabs Standard Resins, allowing you to [...]
Using The New Edit UV Tools in Mastercam
Let's take a look at how to use the new Edit UV tools in Mastercam 2021. There is a common problem that occurs when using the surface finish flowline toolpath. This problem occurs when using flowline to finish multiple surface regions. As you can see in the image below, the cut direction is reversed on one surface set. This occurs when the UV directions of those surfaces are opposite of the rest. In previous versions of Mastercam, we would need to create a separate flowline toolpath to correct this issue. We can now correct this with the new Edit UV tool. Simply select all the blue surfaces and launch the Edit UV. This will display the UV directions of all the selected surfaces and allow you to modify each surface's U and V directions. You can modify all the selected surfaces using the buttons in the Operations Manager. You can also modify single surfaces by clicking on the UV gnomon. The center node will switch the U and V directions and you can change the direction of either by selecting its direction arrow. To solve the cut direction issue, you need to make all the UV directions match. You could easily use the [...]