FUD - The surface stripe issue - Answers please

As anyone who has read my previous posts on the subject of the FUD surface stripe defects will know, I've been trying to get an answer on this from Shapeways for some time. I first raised it back in July with CS when I recieved a poor quality batch that a reprint coupon was issued for (the advice then was actually to use a different material, as they had been unable to get a response from their own production facility!).

In the thread about "FUD print orientation is critical" ( https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=6747&a mp;start=0&), darthviper107 has kindly passed on second hand what CS have said to him about the serious surface defects - "unavoidable at the moment, but they may be able to fix it in the future"

However I would have expected someone from Shapeways to have addressed this serious issue directly. They are very good at popping up on the forum for other things, but on this FUD issue the silence has been deafening. I've had no response passed to me on the email Nancy sent to Production after the last Shapeways Live chat-room session nearly three weeks ago.

I know at least two other people who would be prepared to order FUD material prints for use as casting masters, but the lack of technical feedback is preventing that. The answers we'd like answering are;

1) If its permanently unavoidable, will Shapeways find a different printer/material combination that will deliver a quality product?

2) Is it an issue only with FUD when used in a particular make of machine? Do other materials in the same printer create similar problems?

3) Is it an issue that dissapears when higher res/slower print settings are selected? - If so give us the option of a premium material that actually delivers the quality FUD is supposed to.

4) Is it consistent on all printers Shapeways use for FUD printing?

5) If it is an ongoing issue, until it's fixed, will a warning be placed on the materials page to warn people of the risk they are taking?

We can live with cleaning the slimy support material residue off, but the surface issues are as bad as I got from prints 4 years ago. They were off previous generation machines that were obviously going out of alignment after laying down a batch of layers.

If this continues Shapeways reputation for producing quality prints will be severely affected. After all there have been several negative experiences reported on this forum recently.

I have provided Shapeways CS with detailed feedback on the issue, including close up photos. Please provide as detailed a response as you can on this issue. For some of us it is a major key to proving that you actually want our invlovement in improving your business.

Andrew

I'll forward this link on to Nancy. Hopefully she can help you.

Hey! Really sorry, it was my fault for dropping the ball on this.

The "rough texture" is most noticeable on parts that come into contact with the support material, and the slides to a lesser extent show that.

We are working a some solutions, but no guarantee that it will fix this particular problem. The details of what we are doing is confidential right now, so I'm afraid I have to leave you with an ambiguous answer.

We've only tried this material with this printer, we haven't tried other materials. Right now, all the printers are being used for production since we are still working on our backlog, not research.

I can place a warning on the FUD page. Do you mind if I use your models as an example of the roughness?

Thanks,
Nancy

Nancy,

Thanks for your response. The interesting thing is the stripes appear in places other than just at the rough surface interface with the support material.

I fully understand that you want to keep details of what your doing confidential, but just that sort of feedback is reassuring. Yes I'm happy for the pictures to be used on the materials page. Let's hope you can find a solution, and hopefully the backlog will clear soon, because one of my orders is among them!

Many thanks

Andrew

My FUD prints have aslo got "the stripes" and are useless as master patterns without several hours of work to rectify the faults.
SW seem to have lost the plot , prices are up and quality down.
It is now cheaper to use my original supplier for RP.

As far as I can see the ProJet machines that Shapeways uses to produce FUD are the best all round machines on the market. While other machine may have better resolution or surface finish or price none can match all the characteristics of the Projet.
If you want 'perfect' patterns for casting I'm afraid you are going to have to accept that you will need to clean up surface imperfections. Though the amount of cleaning up needed with FUD will be a whole lot less that the builds produced by almost any other machine.

Bill

I am well aware that the layering process will always leave some cleaning up to do when preparing a master, most noticeably when you have a flat surface at a slight angle to the printing orientation. We all accept that as a limitation of the whole additive 3D printing technology. Obviously the thinner the layer the less the effect.

The best I've personally commisioned was using a Envisiontec Perfactory at 60µm in x/y planes and 15µm in z plane. I attach a reference image, with a Lego figure for size reference. Unless under magnification, or really close up in bright light, the layering was all but invisible to the naked eye, and required minimal clean-up. I am not expecting that level of quality from Shapeways mass printed FUD models.

However the issue here is a surface striping that is additional to the layering effect.

Do the Projet printers create this striping effect when used by companies other than Shapeways? If so, is it documented anywhere that you can refer us to? I, and my fellow designers, are trying to establish the current limitations of the technology as offered by Shapeways, not expecting perfect masters we don't have to work on.

Andrew

Bill that statement is ill-considered .
I was getting SLA patterns made of better quality and with detail requiring magnification to see properly ,over 3 years ago albeit at a higher cost.
For me the SW attraction was price , and I have been , and still am , quite happy with models in SWF.
When UFD was offered I had patterns made immediately to evaluate their use to me and was impressed.
There was no noticeable striping effect , although I did have an issue with silicone rubber poisoning which is still not totally solved.
I accept that SW's prices were un-realistically cheap at start-up and am prepared to pay more but if the quality , and this is not just the striping but the cleaning of extraneous material from the model , is not improved then the overall cost to me is no longer attractive.

Good morning everyone. It looks like everyone here has something in common. Passion for quality. I know Nancy will work hard on solving the issue as soon as possible.

SLAs and Envisiontec use solid suports, so while the upper surfaces have better resolutions than FUD, the lower surface the lower surface need much more cleaning. So as I said this is all about compromises.

FUD is great, Shapeways just has to figure out how to perfect it over time. The parts of FUD that print correctly are some of the best and perfectly smooth. It seems to be a matter of consistency and the burden the machines are under to print consistently smooth given the diversity of the models.

Multiple, multiple issues with FUD have been noted, from stepping, to stripes to fused material to various orientation problems:
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=6225&a mp;start=0&
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=5959&a mp;start=40&
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=6900&a mp;start=0&

Maybe SW should also consider testing the Objet printers with other materials than current ones, and set mode to quality instead of speed, if FUD keeps being a "great... when it works" compromise. Objet has launched some new materials and treatments recently.

Hopefully when they get caught up with back logged items they can test it pretty good and seal the deal. Can't wait!

I've seen similar issues on parts built with Invision Si2 and Invision HR machines, which are predecessors to the ProJet. Resolution has increased from 656x656 DPI to 750x750 DPI but the machines use the same materials, same build technology, and they have similar issues.

To see a documented example with striping on some surfaces, check the "Invision HR" box and view some closeups in Fineline's Technology Comparator page:
https://www.finelineprototyping.com/intro/technologies.php

(The pictured samples were built in VisiJet HR200 material. I think Shapeways uses VisiJet EX200 so it might have different properties.)

The Invision machines didn't have a 'true' resolution of 656x656. That is to say, they couldn't resolve 656 individual voxels per inch; rather they could dispense 328 droplets per inch with a position-accuracy of 656 DPI. High-resolution parts built on the Invision Si2 tended to have very smooth top walls, rough bottom walls, stripes on the front and back, and faint diagonal or herringbone patterns on the sides. You can find some of those faults if you click the closeups in FineLine's comparator.

Here's an Invision HR part from my blog. The parts were built standing on the end at right, so the top surface is actually a side wall. The white residue is leftover support material. The stripes and herringbone patterns are visible.


There are more pictures in the my blog entry. The ProJet is an improvement over Invision HR, but the underlying technology just seems to be prone to these artifacts.

First, thanks for the photo and explanation.

Their site reports 656 for the HD3000 in UHD, and 328 in HD (800 and 606 for Z axis, respectively). Which machine does 750? Typo?

Gah T_T they cheated. If still the same approach with the HD300, that would explain a lot about the waves, they fire "thick" blobs and change the firing location as the layers increase, creating repetitive patterns.

Down faces are a problem with SLA, but they seem to also be with the Invisions SW uses (support interacting with material, and worse, because it also affects sides). One solution for some applications is splitting the model so all detail is printed looking up and then the two parts are glued back to back. A design challenge just like plastic injection also requires figuring how to orient parts, but not impossible if the material is precise enough to have a fine joint line when glued. Of course, not all models could be done this way, and it requires orientation control which so far is not avaliable.

Their May 2011 brochure gives 750x750x890 for UHD and 750x750x1600 for XHD (HD3000 plus).
https://printin3d.com/sites/printin3d.com/files/downloads/Pro Jet_HD_3000_Brochure_UK.pdf

I don't know when they bumped up the specs to 750, but the numbers have similarly increased for the SD3000, HD3000, and CP3000.

An SD3000 user once told me 3D Systems uses essentially the same 'print head' for all 3000-series models, and the critical differences are the servos and control circuits. I'm guessing that's true, since they increased the specs on all models in the same way at the same time.

(I interact with ProJet users occasionally because my Solido SD300 blog continually attracts traffic from ProJet SD3000 users, doubtless because of the similar names SD300 and SD3000.)

FineLine Prototyping mastered their Invision machines so well that they used to sell leftover build slots at a (relative) discount via a second Printapart.com web site, priced by build schedule. That service was discontinued when FineLine retired their Invision equipment, but I'll bet Shapeways will eventually achieve sufficient mastery over the ProJet to fill the void.

Scott (aka VeryWetPaint)

Many thanks for the really useful information (inc your blog) that you've referred us to. This is the sort of detail on the surface issues that we needed.

So it appears that until Shapeways can achieve a miracle with their current printers/materials, we'll have to just use the Envisiontec Perfactory for printing ready to mould masters (well with limited work needed). If the models won't fit into it's build envelope, then careful splitting into parts will be needed.

Even if Shapeways could guarantee print orientation with the current FUD setup, major cleanup work would still be required. Whilst some of the surface problems can be corrected after printing, the cost in time far exceeds the cheaper cost of a FUD print versus other technologies.

As Bill said we have to accept compromises, and I fully agree with him. I accept that Shapeways' business model is based on using machines to full capacity to keep the cost to the customer as low as possible. I also accept there is a business differentiation between those of us who who want/use Shapeways as a drop ship manufacturer sending direct to customers, and those who use it as a service for prototyping, making one off masterpieces, or creating masters for manufacture by other processes. I admire the way Shapeways tries to balance these different customer bases, as witnessed by the steady increase of materials they have introduced.

Regarding Bill's comment about the Envisiontec needing solid supports, I personally have already learnt to plan that into my designs. It took a while to get used to the concept of printing downwards from the equivalent of a ceiling rather than upwards from the floor of a machine (i.e. it can't start printing part of a model that is essentially hanging in thin air). I think of it as going into "hanging bat" mode! In fact I even go as far as inlcuding the initial model/machine base layer into my models to ensure that I've got it okay with the minimum of supports I can get away with. That way I plan supports where they will be easiest to remove.

Hopefully Shapeways will be able to offer a solution to these issues in due course, but until then I'll restrict any further Shapeways orders to WSF. It may have a surface like sandpaper, but its strong and relatively cheap. Unlike some others on the forum who have justifiably highlighted it so well, I can put up with the print orientation problems that occur as I'm not using it for a high quality model for sale.

Andrew

I can tell the artifacts aren't due to the support material. My last print had the lines across the entire model, regardless of whether they would need support or not.

If something is printed above your part, then you would get support marks... to support the other part.

Yeah, there's lines all along every side whether there is something above it or not.