www.3ders.org

Feb 15, 2018 | By Benedict

3D printing pioneer Carbon has introduced two new software tools for its Digital Light Synthesis technology: Advanced Auto Supports and Part Serialization. The tools are designed for Carbon’s M Series printers and materials.

Carbon, a Silicon Valley 3D printing company that recently raised a staggering $200 million in Series D funding, has introduced a couple of new software tools to make life easier for users of its M Series 3D printers.

The two tools, made to improve the manufacturability of parts using Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis technology, are an Advanced Auto Supports tool and a Part Serialization tool.

Advanced Auto Supports

This tool uses finite element analysis to achieve higher first-time manufacturability of parts and avoid material wastage. The automatically generated supports are tuned based on the mass of the part, are “usually better placed than those placed by even highly trained engineers,” and are easy to remove after printing.

The auto supports tool uses a 3D printing simulation feature to identify the areas of a 3D printed part where supports are needed to withstand encountered forces. However, since Carbon uses an elastic, cloud-based computing architecture to run these simulations, they do not require a huge amount of computing power. The detailed analyses often finish within 90 minutes.

Part Serialization

This tool improves the operational efficiency around part tracking, letting users digitally add a part-specific serial number. “The feature is especially useful for customers in medical, dental, automotive, and consumer products verticals that need a robust system of records to track the part history,” Carbon says. “Additionally, tracking part provenance and complete manufacturing history is also a requirement in highly regulated industries.”

The tool makes the addition of serialization essentially free, giving manufacturers access to a capability that previously required a great deal of money and resources.

Carbon’s Part Serialization tool can apply the correct serial number at the last moment in a way that corresponds exactly to the print ID that can be used to track the part later. It also offers flexibility in placement, has the ability to follow curves and curved surfaces, and can engrave surfaces directly attached to the platform.

“The latest FEA Advanced Auto Supports tool is testimony to our efforts to ensure customers can print parts easily and successfully the first time using Carbon’s M Series printers and materials,” Carbon says. “Moreover, leveraging secure tunnels to run complex FEA simulations in the cloud demonstrates that Carbon’s computing architecture is designed with at-scale production in mind. Part Serialization delivers digital provenance on 3D manufactured parts and will be useful across industry verticals.”

 

 

Posted in 3D Software

 

 

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