Hi Dwight,
Having had a ZP450 here for a while I can share some of our experiences in running costs etc. the ZP650 is basically the same technology/process.
The print process can be broken into 5 stages –
1. Model fixing
2. 3D printing
3. Drying/baking
4. Depowdering
5. Fixing
The first stage is a software based process to analyse the 3D model and correct any errors. In reality it is not correcting model errors so much as preparing and adjusting the model for 3D printing, Zcorp sell Zedit for this purpose. There are several things that the software does, it checks to see all vertices meet correctly and that there are no holes in the model, checks that all normals are correctly orientated and checks for a consistent shell. The 3D printer is printing from surface models, and for these to be structurally sound the surface needs to be thickened in the opposite direction to its normal. Now consider an ArchiCAD window frame sat within a reveal, the reveal would be one surface and the frame would be another, two surfaces in the same plane each with normals heading in opposite directions. In 3D print terms this is an error. You can see from this,that even using a great modeller like ArchiCAD, the model will come in with hundreds of errors to be fixed.
3D printing involves three products – Powder, binder and ink. The powder costs £310.00 per 8kg, The Binder - £150.00 per 100ml and Ink is about £25 per cartidge. You can probably work out the approximate quantities of each, I would say the above would cover about 4 large Architectural models, allow to replace the binder print head (£35) with every job as it will clog if left unused for more than a few days.
The next stage is the really tricky bit. The “green” model is extremely frail, we normally remove it from the chamber whilst still in an envelope of powder and bake for a couple of hours, this helps a great deal. Then it is into the depowdering chamber, how the model is depowdered is critical to the finished product. Compressed air is blown across the surface, fine detail can very easily be blown away at this stage (the damage to Jessetho’s model looks like a depowdering issue, it is almost impossible to get fine details out without loss.
The surface of the model will be very coarse at this stage, we would brush and or sand the surface to bring it to an acceptable standard.
Finally the model is fixed using infiltrant (£110 per 500ml) this again requires extreme care, I recently lost a piece of model because one drop of infiltrant was too much weight for the piece of model in question. Getting infiltrant into all of the nooks and crannies of an Architectural model, without breaking it, is exceedingly difficult, it involves hand brushing with your fingers (with very secure protection of course) as spraying or painting is out of the question.
The models produced by Zcorp as examples were generally done by dipping in a vat of infiltrant, which is much easier, but hugely expensive, as once exposed to oxygen the infiltrant goes off very quickly. One job could easily use £400 worth of infiltrant.
Once finished, allow a good half an hour to clean the machine. I hope that gives a flavour, it is a great bit of kit, but compared to the Laser sintering machines it is extremely expensive and labour intensive.
Gary
AC 17
Windows 7 Pro
Intel i7-2600
16GB RAM
