VSHAPER’s 3D Printing Guides For Engineers

VSHAPER has released a pair of interesting 3D printing guides. 

VSHAPER is one of the many Polish 3D printing companies, and they’re noted for the development of a powerful 5-axis robotic 3D printer that is able to 3D print objects without the need for support structures. 

There are plenty of 3D printing guides for beginners available online from various sources, but the new publications from VSHAPER are somewhat different. Although they provide basic information about 3D printing, it’s done from an engineer’s point of view. 

One aspect of this orientation is that their examples are often done using professional 3D modeling tools, such as SOLIDWORKS, rather than free open source utilities that are so often used in typical 3D printer guides. 

Another twist to these engineer’s guides are the focus on high temperature materials, which are not usable on low-end 3D printing equipment. Typically materials such as PEEK are only used on more expensive gear that is able to produce and maintain the very high required operational temperatures. Thus you won’t see high temperature discussed often in other guides. 

What’s covered in these guides? It’s a collection of introductory topics that would be of interest to an engineer who’s never used 3D printing. Concepts such as support structures, rafts, finishing, resolution and more are presented. There are sections explaining the concept of 3D model errors and the need for repair, as well as actual techniques for doing so with professional 3D tools. 

One section on finishing discusses how to perform chemical smoothing on ABS 3D prints, including how to build a basic acetone bath mechanism. 

The documents contain a few unusual terminology changes that I did not expect. For example, they use “idle speed” instead of the more common “travel speed”. However, these are easily noted as you read through the documents. 

As the material is produced by VSHAPER, there does tend to be frequent mention of their products. That said, the material would still quite useful to engineers who are first encountering the technology of 3D printing and require explanations of basic concepts. 

VSHAPER provides the two PDF documents free of charge after registering. 

Via VSHAPER