“YOU CAN TALK DIRECTLY TO SOMEONE (FUJI XEROX) WHO KNOWS YOUR BUSINESS, WHERE THE MACHINE’S SITTING, AND THEY CAN VISUALISE WHAT’S POTENTIALLY GONE WRONG. MAKES LIFE EASY.” DARRYL VOOGHT, APL DESIGN AND INNOVATION MANAGER www.engineeringnews.co.nz 51 local support, and the finance options available to APL. After a demonstration in Fuji Xerox’s dedicated 3D showroom, the 3D Systems ProJet 2500 Plus quickly shone as the right device for APL. The ProJet MJP 2500 Series is designed to combine professional-grade 3D printing capabilities with an affordable price, an office-friendly footprint and easy part processing. It delivers high resolution models, prototypes and injection moulded quality parts on-demand. And with a generous plate size of 295 x 211 x 142 mm, APL can print more items in one go. The multi-jet printing (MJP) process behind the ProJet 2500 Plus creates precise plastic parts that are ideal for APL’s functional prototyping and rapid tooling, along with many other applications. It prints rigid parts with ABS-like plastics and elastomeric parts for real functionality and performance. APL print their models in a durable plastic from the VisiJet M2 range. SPEED AND QUALITY Fuji Xerox New Zealand had the device installed and up and running at APL’s Hamilton design facility by early 2017, and within hours the APL team was successfully printing prototypes. Now, quality and speed are at APL’s fingertips, and seven-day turnarounds are a thing of the past. “With the ProJet it now takes about a day to output a whole plate’s worth of prototypes,” says Mr Vooght. And the days of tediously removing supports by hand is over for the APL team as well. No scraping, high-pressure water jets, caustic chemicals or special facilities are required. “Once printed, we put them in a bath where the wax supports are fully dissolved. Within an hour, we have a model that looks like our design. And once painted, the models are indistinguishable from the real thing.” The only manual finishing involved is spray-painting the models at the end. Fuji Xerox has its own fully trained, local 3D engineers for on-the-ground support, and that’s something that Mr Vooght and his busy team appreciate very much. “You can talk directly to someone who knows your business, where the machine’s sitting, and they can visualise what's potentially gone wrong. Makes life easy.” SPEED TO MARKET While 3D prototyping is now standard in the window and door industry, Mr Vooght says the ProJet helps APL maintain their competitive edge with that all-important speed-to-market.“Prior to buying the ProJet, we would visualise designs using 3D imaging from the computer program or we’d send some of the designs away to be printed. We find that clients often struggle to understand a concept or product from a drawing, so we’re now printing a lot more, and in fine detail, which makes it easier to ‘sell’ the idea.” The ProJet also allows Mr Vooght and his team to come up with ways to quickly refine or improve product designs, and extend their range to suit specific customer requirements. CONVENIENCE AND COST Mr Vooght says that the ProJet is more expensive to run than expected. However, he admits, that’s because they print a lot more than they ever anticipated. Previously, they’d carefully pick and choose which models to send to Australia for printing. Now, the creative floodgates are open. “We can now print multiple iterations or design on one build, just to see which one does work slightly better. The ProJet’s reasonable build plate and cost supports our approach.” The cost though, he says, returns more payback in terms of commercial advantage. Today, the team applies a rapid process of continuous design improvement and innovation, resulting in savings on costly production tools or potential issues further down the track. “If we find our models fall short during testing, we can make changes right away, reprint them overnight, and have the successful design ready to sell to our customers the next day.”
ENsep17-eMag
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