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Jan 25

Empire Robotics, Versaball and 3D Printsmith

Posted by: Sean Tags: Posted date: January 25, 2015

"3D Printsmith got me my parts quickly and for a reasonable price. It's obvious that keeping their clients happy is a top priority and they are willing to go the extra mile to do so. You can't ask for more than that." John Amend, Ph.D. Chief Technology Officer Empire Robotics, Inc. Boston company Empire robotics are enjoying great success with their innovative robotic arm gripper "Versaball". The industry press has been buzzing about this amazingly versatile gripper, which instantly adapts to grip any shape, via a clever system of a soft outer bag containing loose particles which...

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Jan 18

DMI rHealthX Handheld Sensor

Posted by: Sean Tags: Posted date: January 18, 2015

At 3D Printsmith here in Boston MA, we sometimes need to operate in the dark on a "need to know " basis when it comes to making 3D printed parts for devices which are proprietary and in development. This can be handled via standard non-disclosure agreement, or simply on a trust basis. It's more of a challenge, but is a nice feeling to be "behind the scenes" as a new product develops, adding value as we do through fast iterations, advice on design limits for various processes and material requirements, and sometimes acting as a bridge to production or a limited production run of something. When...

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Sep 20

It can take miles to turn a huge tanker ship around.

Posted by: Sean Tags: Posted date: September 20, 2011

Habits can be hard to change, especially in industry, as the more ingrained a process or material use becomes, the more has been invested in it, the more it becomes comfortably "known"... the more inertia there is to accept something new, even if it's better! I've seen this in my own career experience with composite materials for aerospace, and how painfully slow the transition has been towards composites and away from traditional metals and alloys. Only in the last 10 years has that transition begun to be fully accepted by large industries. Good example: the level of composites use in latest...

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Sep 12

Add or subtract before you multiply? I say add.

Posted by: Sean Tags: Posted date: September 12, 2011

"Sean, why do they call it "additive manufacturing"? Don't I have enough buzz words to remember already?..." Ok, well now that these printed or sintered or layered parts are (in some processes) good enough for immediate actual use in the real world and not just test parts, there needed to be a new terminology to get away from "prototypes". Since it's all based on the addition of layers, and since you only build what's in the CAD model, it's "additive" in the sense that none of the primary material is removed. If you think of a typical metal machined part, you start with a chunk of metal and machine...

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Aug 01

First there was electric car range anxiety, now printed part anxiety… relax

Posted by: Sean Tags: Posted date: August 1, 2011

There's a moment when I unwrap for a client their finished printed parts, that they may be anxiously thinking "I just spent considerable money on a set of parts that need to work and look good, but can they really if they've just been printed from goop and magic dust in a box instead of being made at the machine shop??" — and then I usually see a palpable sense of relief and pride as they look them over in their hands and see exactly what they designed. It's all so new it can be difficult to trust in the technology over traditional methods, but the results don't disappoint as long as any limitations...

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