3D Printing Tour at Protolabs

Take a quick tour through our additive manufacturing facility in North Carolina, one of the largest 3D printing operations in the world, to see how we build high-quality prototypes and fully functional end-use components and assemblies. You'll see all of our 3D printing processes including stereolithography (SLA), PolyJet, Multi Jet Fusion, selective laser sintering (SLS), and direct metal laser sintering (DMLS).

Transcript

00:00:04 Manufacturing. Accelerated that's what you'll see as you walk through any Protolabs facility. By automating the front-end of the manufacturing process, our injection molding, sheet metal fabrication, CNC machining, and 3D printing services can produce prototype and low volume production parts in as fast as one day. Let's visit our manufacturing facility in North Carolina, one of the largest 3D printing operations in the world. We'll start our tour in the west wing of the building where our stereolithography and PolyJet teams are located. We have a dedicated team of engineers and technicians for each 3D printing technology we offer. Our fleet of stereolithography, or SLA, machines consists of several 3D Systems

00:00:57 models: Vipers, ProJets and iPros. The machine used for each build is determined by part size, resolution, and material requested by the customer. in the room adjacent to the SLA production floor, we have a UV oven which is a post build process to fully cure parts since they're built from a liquid thermoset resin. Next you'll see our PolyJet 3D printers. These machines can print highly complex geometries with variable properties such as colors and hardnesses. The technology is often used to prototype overmolded designs. Next to the PolyJet machines is the finishing station where a water jet is used to remove support structure material. Before we head over to the east

00:01:52 side of the building, let's stop at the SLA post processing stations. There are a number of ways to improve cosmetics of SLA parts after the build is complete. Here we remove support structures sand and grit blast parts for a consistent surface finish. If you require a specific color for your part, you can choose to have SLA parts painted. Painting offers multiple surface finish options like matte, semi-gloss, glossy, and soft touch. Now let's move to the east side of the building. First you'll notice our Multi Jet Fusion, or MJF, printers. MJF is a production grade additive technology developed by HP. The process builds nylon parts by applying fusing and detailing agents to the powder bed and then solidifies the

00:02:43 parts with heating elements.This results in faster build speeds for more cost-effective parts and improved isotropic mechanical properties. Just a few steps away is our selective laser sintering area which contains several 3D Systems sPro 140 and sPro 60 machines. These are used to build parts from engineering-grade nylon powder. This process also supports TPU for durable elastomeric components like hoses and seals. After SLS parts are built they move to the breakout station where our technicians remove the parts from the powder cake and bead blast the final parts to remove excess material. Finally we'll make our way to the metal 3D printing section. We use Concept Laser Mlab and M2 machines to 3D print parts in aluminum, stainless steel, titanium,

00:03:45 cobalt chrome, and inconel. Once the build is complete, the build plate is removed and placed in an oven for heat treatment. This alleviates internal stresses in the parts that develop during the sintering process. In a nearby room we have several tools that we use to machine parts off the build plate and remove support structures. Before your parts are shipped, dimensions are measured and recorded as part of our quality control process, this is consistent with all of our manufacturing processes at Protolabs. We hope you've enjoyed seeing how digital manufacturing is pushing 3D printing to new heights. Visit protolabs.com to learn more and get started on your next 3d printing project. If you'd like to see one of our facilities in

00:04:36 person, just email or call customer service or your account representative. Thanks for joining us!