TriMech Blog

The new J835 and J850 PolyJet 3D printers from Stratasys are the latest machines in their popular and expanding J-series. These PANTONE Validated™ 3D printers have the capacity to print color critical parts with incredible accuracy and realism. This new addition to the PolyJet portfolio builds on the previous printer platform and allows you to create models and prototypes with more material options, more realistic finishes and draft projects up to 2x faster than before.

Stratasys announces the newest member to their J-series of PolyJet 3D printers: the Stratasys J750 Digital Anatomy Printer (DAP). This latest addition combines the outstanding realism of the popular J750 with anatomical simulation that is so life-like it can replace actual cadaver parts for practice and study. With hundreds of anatomical presets to choose from, this advancement allows you to practice procedures at 70% of the cost of cadavers and other medical models. The J750 DAP is the only printer today able to produce full-color, multi-material, textured models in a single print on a production scale. 

Do you work with living hinges? If you’re in the consumer products space, it's likely that’s a “yes.” A living hinge is simply a one-piece hinge—just a thin, flexible piece made from the same material as the rigid components it connects. Living hinges are found in plastic packaging, dispensing caps, thermoformed clam shell packaging and more. Manufacturing guidelines are easy to obtain for a variety of use cases.

Manufacturing Day is celebrated every year on the first Friday of October, this year falling on October 4^th. It is a day to boast the amazing and valuable work that is created in America’s manufacturing and fabrication sectors and to change the public perspective on what it means to have a career in manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing continues to be an asset in developing products in many industries due to the quick turnaround for creating prototypes which saves both time and money. Universities are also using additive manufacturing in the classroom to better prepare students for their future careers. We've looked at several schools and institutions that are using this technology to create a culture of innovation and accountability where students can explore their design solutions through trial and error with physical prototypes to test. 

Stratasys PolyJet 3D printers and specialty dental materials create multi-color dental models with unmatched accuracy that can mimic gum textures and print complex geometries. These multi-material models enable a variety of applications including orthodontic models, implantology case planning and cast partial frames. This additive manufacturing technology can empower you with more cost-effective interventions, enhanced efficiency, fewer risks and optimized patient outcomes.

The Stratasys J750 is capable of all sorts of amazing things, as we’ve seen recently with our articles involving the application of real-to-life textures and eyewear prototyping. An amazing new application for the Stratasys J series of printers that I’ve been running into quite a bit is the creation of full-color topographical maps that display visual data on top of satellite imagery, similar to how GIS software overlays data onto a two-dimensional map, but with the bonus of being able to quickly display elevation as well! What we’ve found in our initial studies of this application is that these three-dimensional maps are great at displaying data in a way that can’t quickly be understood when looking at a two-dimensional variant, such as census data regarding population density in relation to mountains and valleys. To get a good idea of what goes into this process, we’re going to overlay street data for the area surrounding Boston onto a topographical map of Eastern Massachusetts. 

Stratasys GrabCAD Print is a sophisticated 3D printing app that allows designers and engineers to prepare, schedule and monitor 3D printing jobs. Since its release, GrabCAD has continued to make exciting updates to this software and we will be updating you every other month on its new features. In this set of release notes, we will be looking at versions 1.29, 1.30 and the just-released 1.31.

From Unimate (the first robot placed on the factory floor by General Motors) to Roomba™ the robotic vacuum, there is no question that the field of robotics has drastically changed our culture over the past four decades! The industry is estimated to hit $135.4 billion in 2019, according to International Data Corporation. While robots have played an important role across various industries and even in our homes, there is a whole new category of robots, soft robotics, which could cause exponential growth over the next decade.

The VeroFlex and VeroFlexVivid family of materials are an unbelievably unique set of new materials available on Stratasys J Series 3D printers, which are capable of producing parts that have improved strength and flexibility while retaining great shape memory. Similar to how our simulated rubber-like Agilus material works, parts produced in either VeroFlex or VeroFlexVivid do not need to be handled as gently as other material parts and will hold up with little fear of them breaking. However, unlike Agilus, this material produces parts that are rigid and will snap right back to their original shape after being flexed in any direction. This makes them a great material to print high-quality full-color parts that are thin, like eyewear and small action figures, so today we’re going to show these new materials in action as we make some incredible Fourth of July sunglasses!

Printing amazing full-color, real to the touch textures using the Stratasys J735 or J750 printer and Agilus30 White simulated rubberlike material is truly amazing. Previously, we discussed some ways to create colored 3D texture files for printing through the use of wood and stone 2D image files. In this article, I’m going to show you some tips and tricks when creating your full-color 3D models in Adobe Photoshop to create a leather texture. Additionally, I’ll share some things to look out for when you are creating your models to avoid not-so-appealing final models, and what you can do to fix these issues.

Congratulations, you just finished designing your CAD model! Now, what's the next step? Prototyping! It's the next phase in the design cycle that helps you mitigate and reduce errors and issues. Prototyping allows you to test your model for functionality and design features. It has become more affordable and accessible as this trend continues at a non-linear rate. This phase decreases the time to market and increases productivity. Newer enhancements offer a more functional prototype and ability to rapid manufacture. Let’s review several things that you can leverage today to help make your prototypes in an efficient and affordable way.