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The growing popularity is being galvanised by a number of factors - the maturity of the different technologies in use, lower cost devices appearing in greater numbers, and increased sales volumes as the printers enter the mainstream market - all driving prices down. Not just the hardware, either, as the cost of consumables is also coming down, making fabrication costs more affordable and encouraging yet more applications to emerge.

The growing success of 3D printing has prompted Nottingham-based ArtSystems to lend its expertise in printing systems to the wider distribution of such printers, and it has, accordingly, taken on board the revolutionary Ideas Series of 3D printers from world leading manufacturer, Stratasys. The printer range consists of the Mojo, uPrintSE and uPrintSE Plus printers which all use proven Fused Deposition Modelling to produce high quality 3D models.

IDEAS SERIES
The Ideas Series consist of three desktop printers, the Mojo being the most compact, capable of printing the most complex of objects in 3D in any of nine colours. The FDM technology printer uses ABSplus thermoplastic filament, which is laid down in 0.07in layers using a combination of heat and pressure to build up the 3D model up to a maximum size of 5 x 5 x 5 inches. The uPrint SE and SE Plus models have slightly larger chambers, and can print up to 6 x 6 x 8 and 6 x 8 x 8 inches respectively.

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) Technology is a powerful Stratasys-patented additive manufacturing method. It has traditionally been used to build concept models, functional prototypes and end-use parts in standard, engineering-grade and high performance thermoplastics.

It's the only professional 3D printing technology that uses production-grade thermoplastics, so parts are unrivalled in mechanical, thermal and chemical strength. Inside the 3D printer, plastic filament travels through a tube to the print head, where it's heated to a semi-liquid state and extruded with precision onto Modelling bases, which provide a smooth surface on which models grow. FDM uses two materials to execute a print job: the modelling material, which constitutes the finished piece, and support material, which acts as scaffolding.

Once printing is done, you simply take the recyclable base out of your 3D printer and snap off the model. The scaffolding material is washed away in a simple bath to reveal the part. An optional second material bay provides twice the uninterrupted print capacity.

FDM is a clean, simple-to-use, office-friendly 3D printing process. Thermoplastic parts can endure exposure to heat, chemicals, humid or dry environments, and mechanical stress. Soluble support materials make it possible to produce complex geometries and cavities that would be difficult to build with traditional manufacturing methods. A range of filament colours is available, and as these are housed on individual reels they can be easily changed, but only one colour can be used to print each component.

The printers use QuickPack Print Engines, which contain and deliver the model and support materials to build each 3D printed part. With every material change, the Mojo Print Engine provides a fresh print head to ensure optimum part quality, with snap-in capabilities for each Print Engine - much like the ink cartridge on an inkjet printer. Each foil bag contains 80 cubic inches of material.

The printers also come with Print Wizard software, used to prepare CAD files for 3D printing, and automatically generate soluble support geometries (which are washed away or otherwise disposed of after creation of each part). The software comes with a number of features that guide users through each process, and to improve workflows - such as nesting multiple copies of small components (real-time auto packing) that can be produced in one operation.

It provides a 3D view of the model, with intuitive and flexible scaling, 3D orientation previews and easy adjustments. It also enables users to select a sparse fill option to conserve material, dependent on the strength of the model required (solid fill is obviously required for the strongest models).

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