Hey guys, we are hosting a 3D Hubs HD presentation and meet up over at Ocean State Maker Mill next week. It would be great to see members of the New England 3D Hubs community come out to check it out. The event will be on Wednesday the 10th and doors will open at 7pm. Your ticket will include a $20 voucher for use on a 3D Hubs HD order.
More details about the event can be found at 3DPPVD, our monthly 3D printing meet up for Rhode Island and the rest of New England.
You can find get tickets HERE.
I hope to see you all there!
Matt Stultz
Providence, RI 3D Hubs Mayor
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We had a great night last night talking about 3D Hubs HD with a fantastic group. Thanks to @Nikki for helping to put this all together, Providence looks forward to more 3D Hubs themed events later this year. Regular 3DPPVD meetings happen on the second Wednesday of every month and the next will be on March 10th.
A photo as attendees starting getting to the event: https://twitter.com/mattstultz/status/697579905509363712
A few Questions that came up during our talk about SLS:
- What is the strength of these parts compared to injection molded Nylon or FDM printed Nylon?
- Other than Polyamide what other materials can be used with the SLS process?
- How can parts be finished for a smoother texture?
- How many times can the un-sintered powder be reused and what process does it need to go through to reuse it?
Now let’s get a Polyjet HD event!
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Nikki
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Looks like you had a great time @MattStultz!
Hey @SculpteoFR and @Troadey, I know you both have SLS Hubs, are you able to jump in and answer the questions that came up at the Providence workshop this week?
Troadey
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Hey,
Sure!
So the strenght of SLS parts depends on the specs of the powder. There are different nylons with different mecanic properties. In general our nylons are more rigid than other softer nylons, mostly in injection molding. We also have flame retendant nylons and glass-filled nylons that make the parts very performant.
Technically, any powdered material that is themrosetting can be printed. In fact, most metal printers use very similar technologies. In practice, Most of the useful powders are nylon, filled nylons (glass, aluminium, etc) and ceramics.
When parts need to be smooth, we generally print in SLA when possible. If we have to use nylon and make it smooth, we will sand it and we can add different coatings to finish it. Normally the client takes care of that because they know what they want. We still do it from time to time.
About reused powder, it depends on your quality assurance policy. We always make sure we have 50% new powder and 50% used powder at the minimum. If we can’t do that we throw out some used powder to asssure we have optimal parts. For our most technical clients we will use 100% new powder.
I hope this helps!
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