We’re starting off your Friday edition of 3D Printing News Briefs with some 3D printing business news, then moving on to some pretty cool 3D printed projects to get you to the weekend. Ultimaker has joined the GE Additive Education program, and 3YOURMIND opened an office in France. Stratasys is forming an additive manufacturing joint venture with SIA Engineering, while Prusa is giving the world a look at its new 3D printer farm and a company has reached its Kickstarter campaign goal for 3D printable RPG tiles. An engineer 3D printed a chandelier inspired by SpaceX, and a complex, full-color 3D printed computer game map that you need to see to believe has been completed.
Ultimaker Joins GE Additive Education
Greg LaLonde, President of Polar 3D, said, “As we enter year two of the AEP, we have seen the benefits of enabling schools with additive technologies. Students are learning at a young age to use digital tools to help boost creativity and productivity, and to prepare themselves for the quickly-changing workplace. Ultimaker has a proven track record of making 3D printing affordable and accessible across broad bands of education and professional settings, and we’re proud to have them join the effort.”
The AEP is now accepting entries from colleges and K-12 schools for this year’s cycle; applications can be found here. Packages for the schools include educational activities and modules, professional training, and Polar Cloud-enabled 3D polymer printers.
3YOURMIND Opens French Office to Support Industry 4.0
“France has been a pioneer in additive manufacturing with the first patents issued in the 1980’s,” explained Alexandre Donnadieu, Business Development Manager – France, 3YOURMIND. “As companies shift to industrial 3D production, 3YOURMIND’s platforms are a much welcome foundation to ensure smooth growth for France as they increase production efficiency and maintain their position within global manufacturing.”
3YOURMIND has already begun to integrate French suppliers into its global network, such as Lyon-based x3D Group, which specializes in 3D printing services.
Stratasys and SIA Engineering Form Joint Venture
“We are excited to be working with such an innovative and ambitious partner. By drawing on industry knowledge at SIAEC, we have tremendous opportunity to deliver unique solutions in this high requirement and highly regulated segment,” said Ilan Levin, Stratasys CEO. “The joint venture will benefit from Stratasys’ near 30 years of additive technology, materials and application development, enabling it to stay at the forefront of its product offerings.”
A Look at Prusa’s 3D Printer Farm
“When you take a look at our huge 3D printing farm you might ask yourself, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to just use injection molding?’ Well, in some cases, it might,” Josef Prusa writes. “Even though a single mold can cost tens of thousands of dollars, it could be more effective. However, using 3D printing gives us one huge advantage – thanks to 24/7 heavy load we can keep innovating and upgrading our printers as we have to resolve every found issue. And in that case, injection molding is no longer a better solution. A 3D printer can also create much more complex parts than injection molding. And our workflow is also way simpler. As soon as we come up with a part improvement, we just test it, upload new gcode to the print farm and within hours we start shipping improved printers to our customers. Basically, we are leveraging one of the biggest advantages of 3D printing to the maximum.”
Campaign for 3D Printable RPG Tiles Reaches Funding Goal
“All the files on offer use the OpenLOCK license, which is open source and used of many other projects, it is a great addition to the RPG/Wargame 3D printing community and allows you creators (with permission) to create awesome terrain and scenery,” Rob Mehew, with Epic Dungeon Tiles, told 3DPrint.com. “The rewards range from only £4 for all the floor tiles up to £32 for the Epic Pledge level, providing you with an Epic gaming experience. The files are relatively cheap compared to a lot of other campaigns, especially considering how much these tiles give you in terms of gaming experience.”
Engineer 3D Prints Chandelier Inspired by SpaceX
McCalip wrote, “Ship dates will be based on order #. We can manufacturing approximate 25 sets per month right now. First batch will ship approximately 6 weeks after order. As most of you are probably familiar with, we may slip the schedule to the right to ensure assembly and launch goes off without a hitch. Hopefully our schedule will be faster than the Heavy launch date!”
3D Printed Video Game Map
Jerry Ropelato, CEO of White Clouds, told 3DPrint.com, “We just finished up one of our most complex full-color 3D print we have ever done – it is for a video game (Dota 2) map model.”
Discuss these stories, and other 3D printing topics, at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.