3D Printing News Briefs: April 23, 2020

We’re talking about 3D printing in education, partnerships, and RC planes in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs. First, Y Soft has announced premium lesson plans and an EDU bundle, while Nexa3D and Henkel partner up. A husband and wife cosplay team share their latest project on Reddit, and finally, a maker shows you how to 3D print an X-100 Infinity Wing on his YouTube channel.

Y Soft Premium 3D Lesson Plans and EDU Bundle

Today, Y Soft announced new premium 3D lesson plans in its YSoft be3D Academy, along with a special 3D/2D EDU bundle that can help educators adopt 3D printing in STEAM curriculum. be3D Academy is an online library of curriculum with guides, videos, lesson plans, presentations, and models. Standard 3D lessons are available for anyone to use for free, but the exclusive new premium lesson plans are only available for eDee customers. Additionally, the affordable EDU bundle includes everything that a school requires to adopt 3D printing: YSoft be3D eDee desktop printer, DeeControl layering software, a Beginner’s accessory kit, 3,000 grams each of black, white, and orange filament, ID Card Reader, three years of free access to the premium 3D lessons, and intelligent YSoft SafeQ software, which allows schools to save money by combining print management for its 2D and 3D printers.

“This bundle helps schools create an opportunity for students to excel in STEAM subjects and ready them for their future careers at an affordable cost,” said Elke Heiss, Y Soft’s Chief Marketing Officer. “When a school chooses the be3D eDee solution, they get YSoft SafeQ to manage their 2D and 3D print needs, a unique value only Y Soft can offer.”

Nexa3D and Henkel Partnering for Ultra-Fast Functional 3D Printing

Nexa3D announced a partnership with Henkel today to expand access to its ultra-fast functional stereolithography 3D printing, and to create a family of co-branded performance photopolymer materials available through its global channels. Nexa3D is the newest member of Henkel’s open material partners platform, so that together they can convert Henkel’s high performance Loctite resins, and Nexa3D’s 3843-xABS Black high modulus material, into functional production parts and durable prototypes using its flagship NXE400 3D printer. Together, the two companies will work to tailor more of Henkel’s 3D printing resins to the NXE400 to help manufacturers and designers create functional parts for more applications.

“Partnering with a great global powerhouse of the caliber of Henkel represents orders of magnitude of progress in our collective abilities to deliver additive manufacturing solutions that push the boundaries of what’s possible with 3D printing for manufacturing. We very much look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with Henkel making industrial-scale 3D printing a reality for manufacturers around the world,” stated Avi Reichental, the Co-Founder and CEO of Nexa3D.

Husband and Wife Cosplay Team – Mk49 “Rescue”

Now for a different kind of partnership – a husband and wife cosplay/builder team have shared an amazingly detailed 3D printing project. The Mk49 “Rescue,” also known as the Mark XLIX, is the armor that Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, designed for Pepper Potts, who wore it on the big screen in the Avengers: Endgame movie. This couple loved the look so much that they spent about $1,500 in materials and consumables, including roughly 3,600 mm of PLA, paint, and lots of buckles, LEDs, and straps, to build their own version over a period of nine months. According to CBR.com, they purchased the files from Do3D.com, and printed everything on an Anet A8 and a Creality CR-10S Pro; while the moveable parts were made with Ninjaflex TPU, everything else was printed out of Hatchbox PLA. They used 123Design and Meshmixer to make their models, and Armorsmith helped them fit the suit to her proportions. They completed all of the post-processing themselves, including tons of sanding to make the suit as shiny as possible.

“The chest & back connect together with magnets. Same for the abs & lower back, and the behind & codpiece,” they answered another Reddit user when asked how the wife gets in the suit. “We made a nylon strapping system with magnets to wear underneath so each piece stays in place.”

You can see the full build details here in their Instagram story highlights.

3D Printed Infinity Wing RC Airplane

Eric Haddad runs YouTube channel and eCommerce store 3DAeroventures, where he encourages customers to “never stop exploring” by using model aviation and engineering technologies. The site features 3D printable, functional RC aircraft designs, which can be built on hobbyist desktop printers out of common materials. Haddad makes new designs available every couple of months, like his latest – the X-100 Infinity Wing. SOLIDWORKS sponsored the making-of video for this aircraft, which has a 50″ wingspan, weighs 1,390 grams when loaded, and an Eflite Power 15 motor. It took 60 hours of design, and 100 hours of 3D printing, to complete, and you can purchase the digital files, and build instructions, on the website for just $30.

“I set out to design a simple, 3D printable concept flying wing. But, as I am wont to do, I made the design a bit more complex in a shallow effort to make it look cooler,” Haddad wrote in the description for the YouTube video. “What I ended up with isn’t technically a flying wing since it has a distinguishable fuselage. It’s more of a tailless, stagger wing glider, with wrap-around winglets…or something like that. Whatever you want to call it, I think you’ll agree it looks pretty awesome. And, all joking aside, there is some science behind this design. The symmetrical biplane design will provide extra lift, and the wrap around winglets should make the tips of the wings less prone to stalling in slow flight scenarios. So it should be a pretty stable flyer. Will it fly? Check out the video to find out.”

About 7 minutes and 20 seconds in, we see the answer – no. You see Haddad scrambling away as the 3D printed X-100 Infinity Wing loops in the air and heads right for him, crashing instead into several pieces on the ground. After he recovers from the shock, the video admirably continues as he explores what went wrong, fixes the design, and has a successful second flight. Check it out below!

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