Bigger 3D printers

Velo3D has released Flow 3.0 print preparation software that supports larger models of parts that are able to be manufactured on the company’s Sapphire XC (Extra Capacity) printer. It can produce parts that are up to 400% larger than the Sapphire printer. Flow 3.0 also supports the scheduling of additional lasers to maximize the efficiency of the Sapphire XC’s eight 1,000 W lasers and increase productivity by up to 5x compared to Velo3D’s Sapphire printer.

“By providing an end-to-end solution we are able to let engineers focus on building the mission-critical parts they need,” said Daniel Russel, Velo3D Director of Engineering. “The 3.0 release brings support for the sorts of large models that can be printed on Sapphire XC, warnings and guidance to customers during build preparation, along with tools for managing build preparation on clusters, Amazon Web Services, and many other improvements.”

Velo3D’s Flow 3.0 print preparation software enables engineers to upload a traditional CAD file of a part they want to print, rather than having to spend additional resources designing the part for additive manufacturing (DfAM). By eliminating the need for DfAM, Velo3D enables its customers to design the parts they want and then print them with precision.Flow 3.0 accomplishes this by utilizing a generalized set of recipes to prescribe and simulate the layer-by-layer build for the desired part. The software’s composer detects geometric features and applies the corresponding process to achieve that desired outcome.

With Flow 3.0, the print preparation software can reliably generate and leverage meshes of models containing up to hundreds of millions of triangles. The capability is made possible by offloading the computation of larger files to Amazon Web Services. The customer sends a CAD file and receives back a compacted file that can be used on any printer to build the part.

www.Velo3D.com