3D Printing Blog

Info on Professional 3D Printing with Stratasys from the Technical staff of CATI

Reverse Engineering with Creaform and SOLIDWORKS

Posted By Tim Crennen
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Reverse Engineering with Creaform and SOLIDWORKS   The hand held Creaform scanners are a great addition to your Inspection lab to speed up bottle necks and get more info quicker on your parts, but they can also be used for quick and effective reverse engineering. Once we have all of this scanned data acquired, we can use the VXElements software to extract all of the useful information we might need to build up a new part or a variation of the existing Geometry.   In this case, we are going to be building a completely new product, but we want it to fit onto an already existing piece of hardware.

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Posted in 3D Scanning, Digital Prototyping, SOLIDWORKS Tips and Tricks

Pedal to the Metal: 3D printing with Desktop Metal

Posted By Emily George

Desktop Metal 3D printers are the latest addition to our lineup of best-in-class product development solutions. This groundbreaking line of metal 3D printers finally provides a solution to the limitations seen with other metal 3D printers currently on the market—limitations in speed, materials, and accessibility. We’re happy to provide 3D metal printing solutions with Desktop Metal that are quick, affordable, and offer a variety of materials, such as steel, aluminum, titanium, and copper.   There’s been a lot of buzz in anticipation for Desktop Metal’s debut, and it’s easy to see why. Early backers like GE, BMW, and Stratasys have been vocal about their support. Desktop Metal’s 3D printed parts

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Posted in 3D Printing, Rapid Prototyping

Stratasys 3D Printing: Splitting Large Parts to Print in Multiple Pieces

Posted By Cody Doiron

Splitting Large Parts to Print in Multiple Pieces   Bigger might be better, but it might not be necessary. When searching for the right 3D Printer, you should always to try to find a machine that can fit no less than 75 % or 80% of your parts. But it doesn’t have to fit every single one. Don’t sacrifice quality, price, or capability for a large unnecessary build volume. Printing parts in two or more sections is much easier than you’d expect.   Here is a quick tutorial on how you can best split your large parts into printable sizes:     Using Stratasys software, Insight, you can split an

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Posted in Digital Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping

Stratasys 3D Printing: F123 Series Camera Shroud Print and Install

Posted By Dominick Damato

F123 Series Camera Shroud Print and Install   If you have a F123 series machine and use the camera to view your builds through Grabcad Print software or the mobile app, you will notice in rooms with a fair amount of ambient light that there is a reflection. This stems from the double pane window and the camera being between them.   Stratasys has released a customer level fix for this issue and below are how you go about doing it. First thing you will want to do is make sure you have software version 1.3.5360.0 or newer installed in your printer. You can check this on the machine itself

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Posted in Digital Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping

Stratasys 3D Printing: FDM Part Curling – Lifting From the Tray

Posted By Dave Murawski

FDM Part Curling – Lifting From the Tray   From time to time, we see parts lifting off the build tray during printing.  There are two main causes. Both of which are related to air flow. If parts are positioned together tightly and air flow can’t move through the parts efficiently, it can cause parts to lift up. A  We also see part lifting in large flat parts. Printing in a SPARSE FILL will help with part curling. You can also see parts knocked over due to them lifting.     The 2nd possible cause is the chamber fans going out, which again, will impact air flow. All you need

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Posted in Digital Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping

CATI Serving the Community

Posted By Mark Abshire
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Serving the Community Computer Aided Technology, LLC is growing. We now have offices in over 20 locations, covering over 1/3 of the United States. With multiple offices, this gives CATI employees the opportunity and privilege to serve the many communities that we work and live in.     Recently the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri put on their 38th Annual Fashion Show to benefit inpatient and outpatient cancer services. Our office in St. Louis was proud to create many of the children’s accessories for the fashion show. gboth FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) and PolyJet printing equipment from Stratasys to 3D print bracelets, tiaras, bow-ties, jewelry, etc. for

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Posted in Modeling, Rapid Prototyping

CREAFORM 3D Scanning: Tips & Tricks – Scan-to-Print on the New Stratasys F123 Series

Posted By Owen Lu

Scan-to-Print on the New Stratasys F123 Series   As part of our CREAFORM blog blast, I’ll be talking about how to use a HandyScan 700 in conjunction with a new Stratasys F370 to get a printed replica of an existing part in just a few hours!   A lot of times, designers want to take an existing object or mockup, and bring it into a digital environment where they can make modifications. Often times, we aren’t looking for an in-depth reverse engineer, we just simply want to scale it differently, or remove a certain feature. Using CREAFORM’s HandyScan 700 and VXmodel software, we are able to easily capture a physical

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Posted in 3D Scanning, Rapid Prototyping

Stratasys 3D Printing: Metal Additive Manufacturing

Posted By Derek Ellis

Desktop Metal Extend Their Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Adoption of Metal Additive Manufacturing   As a result of this partnership, customers will be able to work with leading Stratasys resellers who will begin representing Desktop Metal solutions, including the recently announced Studio System and the Production System, alongside Stratasys’ broad family of advanced FDM and PolyJet solutions.   Expected to ship September 2017, Desktop Metal’s Studio System is the first office-friendly metal 3D printing solution. At up to ten times less expensive than today’s metal 3D printers.  For the first time, it’s possible to produce highly complex metal parts and assemblies with metal 3D printing without leaving the office.   What

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Posted in 3D Scanning, Digital Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping

Stratasys 3D Printing: Simplifying the 3D Printing Process with GrabCAD Print

Posted By Tim Crennen
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Simplifying the 3D Printing Process with GrabCAD Print   GrabCAD Print has been partnered with Stratasys make the entire process smoother from start to finish to managing everything in between. Even monitoring and reporting the usage of all the printers in the office too.     For as long as 3D printing has been around you have always needed to convert your CAD file into a STL file to be able to process and print it. It has always been this extra step involved that adds links to the chain and increases the possibility of file translation errors. But GrabCAD Print has been making good progress in this field.  

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Posted in Rapid Prototyping, SOLIDWORKS Tips and Tricks

INSPECTING 3D Printed Prototypes with 3D Scanner Technology

Posted By Bob Renella

INSPECTING 3D Printed Prototypes with 3D Scanner Technology   Within the last 10 years CAD software has risen to new heights, giving the user more control over their designs and allowing them to create more curved surfaces on parts. In the manufacturing world, manufacturing processes have evolved to meet the designers demands breaking through walls of tighter tolerances and high complexity.   What does this all mean? Well, if you’re you in the QC department, this means you have an unrealistic task of inspecting parts using traditional methods. For many decades, inspecting parts with calipers, micrometers, straight bars and even rulers have sufficed, but it wasn’t until CAD software gave

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Posted in 3D Scanning, Daily Dose.....of SolidWorks Support, Rapid Prototyping

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