Carbon recently added new software features to its solution suite. Coordinating the interaction between printers, materials, and printing process parameters, the software suite helps orchestrate customer visions to create differentiated 3D manufactured parts. The software is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, with features such as a browser-based user interface, regular seamless software upgrades, and innovative design for manufacturing (DFM) tools.

Two tools that will improve the manufacturability of parts using Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis technology are the Advanced Auto Supports tool, which improves the manufacturability of parts and the ease of 3D manufacturing, and the Part Serialization tool, which helps with operational efficiency through easy part-data tracking and potentially simpler data integration of 3D manufactured parts into industry standard supply-chain processes and ERP systems.

Advanced Auto Supports

At the click of a button, customers can engage Advanced Auto Supports. Finite element analysis (FEA) simulation is the brains behind Advanced Auto Supports feature (Figure 1), analyzing potential failure and stress areas. Once these issues are addressed, customers can achieve higher first-time manufacturability of the parts and avoid material wastage. The parts manufactured using Advanced Auto Supports have inherent advantages:

–Parts have higher first-time manufacturability, resulting in more efficient utilization of labor and materials.

–The supports are easier to remove.

–The structures are tuned based on the mass of the part.

The support structures are usually better placed because Advanced Auto Supports simulates the printing process and places only the necessary supports on a part.

On the structures placed by Advanced Auto Supports, the tips have been optimized for easy removal, for strong support, and for better final surface finish.

The unique characteristics of each material in its green state are considered in how the software places the advanced auto supports.

Complex FEA simulations typically require substantial computing power. To speed up these simulations, Carbon uses an elastic, cloud-based computing architecture. Carbon’s cloud-based analyses finish in hours, and often within 90 minutes.

The Advanced Auto Supports tool leverages the existing Carbon-managed servers in the cloud, and all communication is through a secured and encrypted tunnel. This is the same architecture covered by Carbon’s printer subscription agreement, and includes the protections of the NDA.

No new software package or installations are needed to access the tool. It fits right into an existing workflow.

Part Serialization 

The Part Serialization tool improves the operational efficiency around part tracking.  It supports digitally adding a part-specific serial number. Customers can digitally track the products from the creation stage on the printer platform through to the final usage (Figure 2).

The tool offers customers a method to add a serial number to parts or build a number from dynamic data, such as:

The printer’s serial number

The project ID

The print ID

Or, customers can add a full serial that includes all of these identifiers

Traditional approaches to add a unique ID for every 3D printed part are cumbersome, expensive to pre-configure, and typically end up with a unique input file per part. For parts manufactured using traditional approaches such as injection molding and casting methods, adding serial numbers involves post-processing steps such as etching, engraving, or sticking a label.

Carbon’s software gives users the ability to 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. Moreover, the tool offers flexibility in placement, has the ability to follow curves and curved surfaces (Figure 2), and can even engrave surfaces that are directly attached to the platform.

Traceability can extend all the way from the printer level to the post-processing workflow. For example, an automotive customer can trace back which printer was used to print a connector part at which time, day, as part of which project, and even trace the specific wash cycle the part received. Recalls would be limited to the affected parts only.

Carbon
www.carbon3d.com