Otter Products has been beta testing the new Stratasys J750 3-D printer to quickly make prototypes that look like the final product. In some cases, that has cut down prototyping times from three days to 30 minutes.
The new Stratasys J750 3D printer at Otter Products test lab in Fort Collins.
One 3-D printer.
Six different materials.
And 360,000 colors.
The number of product combinations for the new Stratasys J750 3-D printer? Unlimited.
The new printer, announced by Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Stratasys on Monday, has been quietly printing all sorts of smartphone cases in Fort Collins. Designers at Otter Products beta tested the machine for about the past five months and are pleased. For the first time, Otter Products can print prototype cases that look like the final product using the technology to mix and match colors and materials and print a product in one shot.
Brycen Smith, Otter Products engineering technician supervisor, explained that life before the new Stratasys 3-D printer meant a three-day process requiring masking tape, painting, curing and waiting just for a phone case prototype.
Before, said Brycen Smith, engineering technician supervisor for Otter Products, he would fashion cases out of clay and take those to buyers. By 2011, the company turned to 3-D printers. But those were limited to one type of material — a white plastic — and color. While smartphone cases were prototyped on the printers, designers had to do a lot of prepping before sales staff could share the prototypes with customers (kind of like this Stratasys example).
"Before, we had to have one of our technicians mask off this bright green line one both sides (of the case), spray paint it, let that cure, do another coat, take that off, mask it for another color and paint that," said Smith, who took sewing lessons to help with prototyping. "To print up this one case would take three days to finish it all. All those different colors. Whereas now, we're doing it in maybe 30 minutes."
A realistic prototype lets designers quickly test camera openings and other holes in the case to make sure they are correctly configured. Previously, some of that precision couldn't be measured until the design was at the manufacturer and even a slight redesign could be costly.
Inside the Stratasys J750, the machine can print multiple parts and cases using a variety of colors and m ix of materials. Photo by Kathryn Scott Osler/The Denver Post
This also benefits sales employees who can take freshly printed cases to customers and buyers and share what the product will look like — and get an immediate yay or nay for orders.
Otter Products has used 3-D printers in the past. But the new one from Stratasys is a stunner. A large building area — 19.3 by 15.35 by 7.9 inches — allows companies like Otter Products to print multiple cases or parts of a case in one print. It has room for six cartridges, to access numerous types of "ink" materials. The resolution is down to 14-microns, or 0.00055 inch. Comparably, a consumer 3-D printer like MakerBot, which is owned by Stratasys, prints a resolution of 100 microns or .0039 inch.
About 5-inches long, this 3-D-printed shoe was made from a mix of six materials tweaked digitally for rigidity, flexibility, shine, color and translucency.
The company shared a sample print of a doll-sized tennis shoe. The sole is, as a tennis shoe's sole should be, flexible like rubber. The body feels like hard plastic (the J750 doesn't print fabric) but looks like different layers of fabrics sewn together — from a white mesh heel to a lime-green vest where parts of the lime green are so translucent you can see the white mesh holes underneath. The inside has a wavy design that is part shiny, part matte. The rubber sole also has a glimmer of lime-green in the treads, while thin-white crevices reflect possible air cushions.
"You can have different meshing produced in the same print. It could have a glossy top, a rough bottom. All those things can be done in one print and that's really what the breakthrough is," said Joshua Claman, Stratasys's chief business officer.
This cuts down on the post process of painting, drying and assembly.
"None of that is needed anymore so it compresses product development time frame pretty dramatically," Claman said. "Our past product could not do that (before) in terms of resolution of color and resolution of materials."
The new Stratasys J750 has 360,000 color options that designers can mix and match but print in one shot.
Stratasys shared another product printed on the J750: an anatomical model.
Large 3-D printers like the Stratasys J750 cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, compared to a smaller consumer version like Makerbot, which are in the $2,500 range. Claman, with Stratasys, said that the price tag is in the $300,000 range but is different based on the region and customer.
According to report by market researcher Gartner, 3-D printers are expected to grow 103 percent this year to 496,475 units. Printers are still expected to double in sales each year through 2019, when world shipments are expected to reach more than 5.6 million. Enterprise companies are already using these machines for prototyping new products, according to Gartner.
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