It may happen that a company, after having designed, created and placed on the market an innovative product, decides to improve it.
It may happen that, over the years, a series of improvements are made to the product, without these being introduced in the original drawings.
To speed up the process, once again, you can resort to 3D printing. In particular: the combination of three-dimensional scanning and prototyping through additive manufacturing.
A product in a trap. Freed with additive manufacturing.
The protagonist of this article is Steelte: an Italian company that, thanks to its team with twenty years of experience, mainly deals with the design, prototyping, testing and production of milled objects, design services, dimensional control, reverse engineering and additive 3D printing (FFF) (for the latter service, as we will see, the company relied on 3ntr, opting for an A2v4 3D printer).
Steelte mainly operates in the mechanical and automotive sectors, in which the use of 3D technologies has grown considerably in recent years. It happens, however, that the company also operates in other sectors, just like in the case we are writing about.
Updated project, optimized product.
Steelte was called upon to make functional changes to an existing product, which evolved over time without, however, these changes being tracked in the original designs. Projects that, in this way, have ended up being obsolete.
The product in question was a rodent trap that needed optimization at the safety bait dispenser. Simultaneously with the product update, Steelte took care of reverse engineering and the creation of new technical drawings and 3D models updated and responding to the new functional characteristics of the trap. Starting from these, the manufacturing company was able to develop the new product.
Scanning, modeling, printing. All in 3D.
To succeed in the recreating a 3D model and technical drawings of an existing product, Steelte did the following:
- Scanning of the existing rodent trap (via Creaform HandySCAN 3D laser scanner and VXelements data acquisition software)
- Reverse Engineering activities on the acquired model.
- 3D modeling, to correct some manufacturing errors in the product.
- Inserting the functional changes requested by the customer and reconstruction of the CAD model of the new rodent trap model (using Dassault’s CATIA V5 software).
- Prototyping of the new model by 3D printing (with Fused Filament Fabrication technology). Specifically, for this activity Steelte used a 3ntr A2v4, a 3D printer ideal for additive manufacturing in large format (with a print volume of 600x325x500 mm), equipped with a heated chamber and three extruders that allow it to print in 3D a large variety of polymers, with multiple combinations within a single process. This machine has been combined with a STORM modular drying system which – in addition to housing a print server and a UPS – contains up to three VENTO drying units, to keep the filaments safe from humidity, dust and UV rays.
- Dimensional control of the prototype and reporting (using Creaform’s VXelements software).
3D printing: create, update, renew products and companies.
The story of Steelte which, thanks to the many technologies that orbit around 3D printing, manages to innovate a product and update technical projects is just one of the many examples that could be done, to show the positive impact that the technology of additive manufacturing has given to companies.
Professional-grade additive manufacturing
To learn more about our brand and the range of products we offer, please visit the page dedicated to the range of 3D printers. Other stories of companies that have chosen 3D printing are waiting for you in our blog. To talk to 3ntr, you can use our Business Page on Linkedin, or through our website, a starting here.
Someday, this story could be your story. Contact us to discover our professional solutions for 3D Printing. With the help of our consultants we will find new solutions for your design and production.
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