Cimquest Partners with XACT Metal
Cimquest has teamed up with the State College, Pennsylvania-based Xact Metal to bring their low entry cost and small footprint, laser powder bed fusion metal 3D printer to budding enterprise shops and manufacturers without sacrificing quality or accuracy. For a number of years, Metal Laser Powder Bed Fusion technologies have been somewhat out of reach to small to mid-size machine shops due to cost, space, or inaccurate perceptions about what it takes to adopt the technology. LPBF has been highly popular in industries like medical device and aerospace who are looking for highly complex metal geometries that may be difficult or near impossible to machine, for the benefit of weight reduction, component consolidation, efficiency, and reducing cost in low volumes of highly specialized parts. The founders and engineers of Xact Metal saw an opportunity to create an easy to use, space-saving, and most importantly a low-cost point of entry into this capability with the XM200C. Driven by the patent-pending Xact Core™, a high-speed precision X-Y gantry system, as opposed to traditional galvanometer ones, that allows light and simple mirrors to move quickly, consistently, and always perpendicular to the powder bed to maintain accuracies down to .002”. The 125in³ volume is big enough to [...]
How To Choose Your First 3D Scanner – Part 3
Welcome to Part 3 of our Metrology Minute series. In parts one and two of this three-part series, we explained several key components in choosing your company’s first scanner; Field of View (FOV), Accuracy, and Resolution are the first considerations. For a quick review . . . Field-Of-View (FOV) is the volume envelope that your scanner can ‘see’. Ideally, the FOV is large enough to scan your largest parts yet still maintain the accuracy and resolution you require. Accuracy is the actual tolerance of the points acquired on the surface being scanned. So if a scanner’s accuracy is +/-.001”, then the data points collected from that scanner in a calibrated state are all within that tolerance. Resolution is a scanner’s ability to capture fine detail. Resolution is sometimes referred to as ‘Point Spacing’ and controls the tiniest features a scanner can capture. Sometimes it is easier to consider resolution as the density of the point cloud. For example, capturing a car door’s surface requires a far less dense point cloud than capturing the detail on a coin. The next two considerations are Repeatability and Color/Texture. Testing for repeatability is fairly straightforward. Ideally, multiple individuals can participate in the testing / resulting accuracy and everyone's [...]
3D Printing Proves to be a Powerful Tool for Egar Tool and Die
Based in Cambridge, Ontario Canada, Egar Tool and Die is a leader in the production of automotive stamping dies, production stampings and welded assemblies. The company has been supplying North American Tier 1 and 2 automotive companies for more than 40 years. The Challenge The automotive industry consists of a vast network of suppliers and vendors producing millions of parts for the thousands of assemblies and subassemblies that go into every vehicle on the road. While some of those components are cast, forged or machined, a large percentage are stamped or formed from various types of sheet metals using large stamping presses, capable of bending, cutting, forming, coining, and piercing the raw material. To deal with constant iteration in automotive design and the demand for huge numbers of parts, suppliers must be able to quickly retool and refit manufacturing lines to minimize downtime. And for many companies, that’s where Egar Tool and Die comes in. At Egar Tool and Die, the challenges are two-fold. First, the company must be able to quickly produce dies to meet customer requirements. But as a producer of more than 15 million stamped parts and welded assemblies annually, Egar - like many of its customers - must be [...]
Innovative Manufacturing with BASF Ultrasint TPU01 and HP 3D Printers – Webinars on Demand
Innovative Manufacturing with BASF Ultrasint TPU01 and HP 3D Printers Ultrasint® TPU01 is a multi-purpose thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) powder, ideal for the production of parts requiring shock absorption, energy return or flexibility. 3D Printed TPU drives prototyping, customization, and manufacturing by opening the design and functionality of parts that could never be injection molded. This gives manufacturers the ability to customize plastic parts for the individual, including leveraging lattice internal structure to lighten or help cool parts. TPU01 is extremely easy to print, has a very high process stability, and one of the highest throughputs for flexible materials in the 3D printing market, making it a perfect fit for serial production with HP Jet Fusion 3D Printers. https://cimquesttv.wistia.com/medias/uoltf15s0h?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640
Mastercam is the Most Widely Used CAM for the 26th Year in a Row
More shops and schools invest in Mastercam than any other CAD/CAM software package in the world. According to CIMdata, an independent research firm specializing in the NC industry, Mastercam is the number one CAM software used worldwide for 26 years in a row. In the latest report, Mastercam retained the top spot for CAM software in three categories: industry, education, and support network. Mastercam topped the list in both the educational and industrial categories, with nearly twice as many installed seats as the nearest competitor*. “With more shops using Mastercam and more schools teaching Mastercam, students are being prepared for a fluid transition to the job market with practical skills and reduced learning curve,” says Meghan West, President and CEO of CNC Software, Inc. “This is a win-win situation for education and industry to contend with the skills gap and fill the glut of jobs available in manufacturing.” If you run a shop, using the most widely used CAD/CAM software is important. You want reliable code to run your machines at maximum performance for precision and efficiency, and you want access to training and support to keep your shop optimized and business growing. If you work in education, you want to prepare students [...]
HP Full Color 3D Printing for Tooling and Prototypes
Let’s take a look at HP 3D printing for full-color tooling and prototyping. Satair is a leading provider of aftermarket solutions for civil aerospace. Airplane repairs are an essential element of their business and they are always looking to accelerate repair times. One of their main bottlenecks can be in the production of tooling. Traditional methods are both timely and costly and Satair has a unique safety requirement in which tools have to be colored to a certain spec of orange or red. While they used 3D printing in the past, the machines only allowed them to print in solid colors, which required post-processing like painting or dyeing. By adopting the HP Jet Fusion 580, they were able to start printing fully functional tools in vibrant full color. The 580 system was a great fit because it provided both high-strength material and colored features right out of the printer. Satair sees the opportunity for 1000 of tools to be converted from traditionally manufactured to additively manufactured. The 500 Series is also great for prototyping. Oakley, the sports eyewear company, uses the HP to print full-color prototypes. The PA 12 material is lightweight yet durable, making it similar to injection molded Nylon parts. Some [...]