Custom Tips for Rapid Prototyping

Ten years ago, the rapid prototyping industry was transformed by the launch of instant quoting for rapid prototyping services.  The technology allowed for easier quoting by engineers.  This allowed them to easily see what the costs were associated with rapid prototyping WITHOUT a significant time investment.  Being able to see pricing is important in any [...]

One of the questions we encounter a lot is “how should I paint my stereolithography parts?” That is a good question.  As you may be aware, a stereolithography part is created using a vat of liquid UV-curable photopolymer resin and a UV laser to build part one layer at a time. This creates a “stair-stepping” feature in the [...]

Recently there was a great piece wrote by David Maltz providing tips on selecting a rapid prototyping system.  The piece included some great information on the differences between the systems and benefits of each system.  I found the most useful information was the ilustration of the various finishes a user can expect from each machine.  [...]

We recently launched a new alternate rapid prototyping process at Quickparts.  Machined Plastic Prototyping (MPP). 
What is Machined Plastic Prototyping?
MPP is a subtractive rapid prototyping fabrication process for creating plastic prototypes. The plastic material is removed from a solid block by Computer Numerical Control (CNC) equipment that cuts away the unwanted material.
The MPP process is offered [...]

A very important step in producing a high quality prototype is to design with the process tolerance in mind. Each rapid prototype process has build tolerances that will affect the accuracy of the CAD model provided. If tolerances are not designed into the model, parts will not fit together as intended, wasting time and money.
The [...]

In the beginning before Rapid Prototyping….there was the evolution of 3D CAD.
CAD was first developed over 20 years ago with the development of personal computers. The first company to become a leader in the CAD world was Autodesk with a product called AutoCAD. This was the first software product that allowed the user to produce [...]

Standard Tessellation Language (STL) is a file format native to the Stereolithography software created by 3D Systems. This file format is supported by many CAD software packages and is widely used for rapid prototyping and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM).
STL is a facet-based representation that approximates surface and solid entities only with triangles (i.e., STL files describe [...]

Another finish option available for the stereolithography (SLA) process and additive manufactured processes in general is to have parts nickel plated after fabrication.  The process of adding a metal coating over an SLA model enhances the stiffness of the model.  In addition, it improves the overall strength of the part.  The strong stiff metal layer deposited on the outer surfaces [...]

Rapid prototypes are used for a number of different applications; functional testing, marketing show models, trade show models, etc.  With such wide number of end uses, the type of finish used on the stereolithography (SLA) model becomes very critical.  One of the often overlooked finish option categories is the WaterClear/QuickClear finishes. 
These finishes allow the parts to be [...]

One of the technologies out there that been gaining momentum in the additive fabrication space is Selective Laser Sintering (SLS).  Over the past few years this process has transitioned from being looked at strictly as a rapid prototyping solution to now being considered for rapid prototyping and final end use production.  The aerospace and industrial [...]