New Material: Black High Definition Acrylate

We're very excited to announce our 55th material: Black High Definition Acrylate!

You can read our blog post about it here

or what our sneak peak on Shapeways Live here

and check out the design guidelines here



What do you think? What will you order?

Any other questions please share them here, we're going to be putting together an FAQ as this material moves forward.

Like the material characteristics, design rules, the color, ...

Would be the ideal material for my items, but since sprues are not allowed and multiple parts will sell for $5 each, unfortunately no chance to reach my needed Price Segment.

Do you intend to introduce also other materials or Colors with DLP printing.

I've learned from my tests with a Resin Printer that Resin can be very brittle, how would you describe your used Kind of resin.

Woody64

I guess when this goes fully public, then FXD has nearly no use (because it is worse and more expansive with smaller bounding box) ... just simulate some not-truly-glass material, which is just a fraction of real FXD usage on Shapeways.


For modellers, dark grey colour is better, because details are better visible. So you easily see where you need to put putty, where to sand.
In black, the shape is not so well visible, you have to apply primer at the beginning.

When I made plastic model kits, I never liked those made from black plastic (also white or very light grey). Darker grey is more pleasurable to work with.

As a first impression it looks like there is some serious potential here as a material but for me at least the Per Part cost and lack of sprues makes it hard to swallow for the kind of stuff I'd like to design, even with the slightly cheaper cost per cm2. If it was a case of "5$ for the first part and .50$ for each additional part up to X amount" I can see myself using it more as it is now but I'm not sure how feasible that is on your end.

Hard to say right now, I'll have to do some digging yet.

If you're doing a single part with no sprues yeah maybe, but the 5$ handling charge per part quickly drives up the price of something if it needs multiple parts.

CybranKNight>

Yes, I've notice that later, when checking my models (most of my models are in one part).
That means ... we have to be even smarter when modelling and setting up products

Hey guys little update:

The guidelines initially said flat out no sprues. Sprues can create geometry that are very challenging to generate support material. We're updating the guidelines to note this but we're not going to outright every model ordered with sprues, we'll take a look and see what we can and cannot do.

Seems too good to be true. I guess I'll order some stuff to see what the catch is.

Then I will definitely order a test piece. If the quality is like that one below (out of my private resin DLP printer) then it would be great to have this as industrial variant available.

Woody64

I think it would be interesting to see what (if any) support structures were needed to print the N-scale forklift featured on the materials page.
The solid supports could be a drawback compared to FUD, so it would probably help to get an idea where they would play a role - on any open structure (one of the various wireframe polyhedra or animal sculpts) or just long and thin appendages like a crane arm or spider leg ?

Definetively an interressting material.
I design tabletop models and up until now, i could use Shapeways (and FUD) only for testing purposes. The real products
i had to have printed on envision tec printers. Therefor i would be interessted if anybody has any comparison how
this material compares to envision tecs Photosilver or HTM140.

Are there plans to offer 25micron prints with this material ? That is at least what i have printed my models on envision tec
printers and to me, there is a visible difference in 25 and 50 microns.

Regards,
Christian

Posted physical properties happen to match Envisiontec Perfactory R5 Gray, so you can do your comparisons with their property datasheets. (Both thermal and mechanical stability of R5Gray appear to be lower than the two you mentioned - this appears to be master not mold material.)
I noticed that IF it is a Perfactory printer, it will handle most of the materials listed, with minimum layer thickness depending on the material used. R5 may simply be the cheapest general purpose material available for a meaningful test.

another vote for neutral grey and 25 microns!

Also very interested to see some printed kits with sprues.

Tried to order this, but it was denied with hint on the sprues.
https://www.shapeways.com/product/B58CLPLSH/7-x-american-civ il-war

Since I'm owning also a SLA printer I would assume that the used sprue is only a thicker supporting material part and adding further support material on the left and the right of the bearer would do the job.

Not sure if this discussion is interesting for all of us.But I feel that this will be a great material. But the $5 per part will be a hurden for a lot of smaller models.
(I assume that $5 will be charged for all of the parts inside the model. Am I right?)

Woody64

The 5$ flat per part does bother me too, but on the other hand i can understand why SW does charge them. Since this is printed with DLP
they have to add support structures and adding them can be quite time consuming. So can be their removal after printing.

I don´t know if that can be handled technically, but maybe - since i am used and prefer to add and to remove the supportstructures mysef anyways - it would be an option to reduce the flat per part to 1-2$, if the customer provides supported models and does remove the supports himself after printing...?

Regards,
Christian

Support structures can be generated automatically. (See attached picture from my printer).



I would state that for an object of the same size it's not a difference in number of supports if there's a single or a multiple model. In cleaning that can make more difficulties when there are several parts in one model.

But good question. What has to be done from designer side to support this material, gives SW the best opportunity for printing and cleaning and get rid of the $5 per piece?
(that would be a WIN/WIN situation)

Woody64

Have placed an order, but having read the preceding comments, I am now expecting it to be rejected.

Would like to know what machine these are being produced on and what the X-Y definition is.

It would like to know what machines are being used to and additionaly, if there are maybe other "DLP-materials" and better resolutions are planed for the future.

Five bucks per part is only a test to do the same in FUD soon. They were thinking about that from the day they did it with strong flexible.

Nostradamus, Centuria III

Note: ONE ONLY PART MODEL.

@HOLDEN8702 If you remember back to the whole WSF "machine volume" discussion, this happens fairly often.
That 40mm "escape hole" for WSF is often the cause of this.