Video Tech Tips for 3D Printing Page 1

Working remotely is more common than it used to be. Many companies have implanted this policy throughout a couple of years and designers, engineers and manufacturers are some of the positions that have transitioned into this way of working. In this 3D printing Tech Tip, we go over GrabCAD Workbench and how to use it to coordinate and monitor your printing jobs remotely.

Raw 3D printing material symbolizes infinite possibilities unlocked by the user’s creativity; however, if the raw material is mistreated and improperly handled, that potential vanishes. Making sure to take proper care of raw materials and store them in their intended conditions is the best way to ensure high quality prints. In times of extended shutdowns, or simply long hiatuses between prints, it’s imperative to store material properly.

Stratasys’ PolyJet 3D printing technology can produce some amazingly detailed parts that can mimic a wide range of rigid and flexible materials – even full-color and transparent parts. With some simple post-printing steps it is easy to obtain a stunning high gloss finish on even the matte surfaces of PolyJet parts. In a previous overview, we showed you how to clear coat complex shaped parts to obtain a gloss surface without any sanding or polishing. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create high gloss, even optically clear finishes, on parts the old fashioned way, with some elbow grease.

When creating multiple iterations of a part, it can be helpful to apply a label for identification purposes. Using SOLIDWORKS, we can apply a label to our part with color and finish, then transfer those settings directly to our printer software for 3D printing on our Stratasys PolyJet machine.

When 3D printing, you can sometimes run into issues trying to work with extremely thin features. Most of the time, good design practices can help to fix these issues. Two GrabCAD tools, the Thick and Thin Wall command and the Variable Width Fill command aid in resolving these issues more efficiently, leaving you with a sturdy, high-quality design.
In this video, Application Engineer Ricky Shannon demonstrates just how to utilize these built-in tools on a multi-bodied SOLIDWORKS part using a straight 3D CAD file.

When printing a transparent material using a Stratasys PolyJet 3D printer, any surface where support material touches the model will result in a matte surface that doesn’t transmit light which can stand in contrast with any glossy surfaces. The part can be post-processed to achieve a higher level of light transmission with an even and glossy surface. In this article, we look at a quick and relatively low-effort method for giving a part an even, smooth and transparent finish.

Have you ever needed to make a modification to an STL file but didn’t have the ability to directly edit the mesh? Using SOLIDWORKS 2020, you can now directly add or remove features just as you would on a solid body model. In this article, we go over how to remove the slot feature from a bracket model and re-export the file as a mesh STL.

Monitoring your print jobs remotely has gotten easier than ever before with GrabCAD Print. There are some amazing features within the software that can help you plan and check your projects from wherever you are. In this article, we go over some of those features that will help you easily monitor your GrabCAD 3D printing projects remotely.