Bridge manufacturing with the Ultimaker 3
3D printing can be used to produce small batches of products
so you can launch right on time.
By optimizing the workflow with our first Ultimaker 3s,
we improved on our own product design and significantly reduced the time-to-market.
We’re currently at the Zaltbommel premises, where we assemble the Ultimaker 3.
We're assembling here for the European market and the rest of the world.
One of the things that we did is that this filament has been equipped with a tag
and in the tag it identifies the material.
This allows us to tell the machine directly what the filament is
and that helps the machine to immediately determine the settings particularly designed for that material.
That isn’t something small - we have about 300 settings.
So it’s a big deal. It really improves the throughput time for prototyping for developing new prints.
But what we learned then is that we planned to have the antenna in the machine
and the antenna wasn’t capable of reading the tag.
So what we had to do was equip the reel holder with the antenna.
But then it was very obvious to us
that we wouldn’t be able to produce a sufficient number before the launch date
let alone for the beta period.
We simply couldn’t accept that we would delay the launch until February/March
that would take us another 5 months.
So we decided to have the Ultimaker 3 print its own reel holders.
The first machines that we produced, the 0 series
were immediately collected into a print farm
and the print farm allowed us to produce such a number
that we were actually able - first of all - to start the beta testing in time
and we were able to provide the reel holders for the first number of machines.
The print farm is easy to manage and can be maintained and supervised by just one person.
Ultimaker 3s connectivity feature allows you to print wirelessly
and monitor the process via a live camera.
With a total of 28 3D printers, we could produce 700 spool holders for the first customers
in less than 4 weeks.
With everything set, we could achieve a print success rate of over 86%
and our shop floor operators have calculated an average of 92% of uptime.
How? First, the right material choice.
Ultimaker 3s let you print using two different types of materials:
a build material and a support material.
In our print farm, we use black PLA and water-soluble PVA.
After the print is complete, to speed up the production and post-processing
the operator removes big blocks of PVA support structures, manually or using pliers.
To dissolve the remaining PVA, we put the parts in a bath under 30 degrees Celsius with water pumps.
We can leave the parts there overnight,
then the next morning dry them and do the final quality check before assembly.
It’s actually a wonderful idea that
the first reel holders that come with this machine are actually the ones that the machine produced itself.
Had we not been able to produce the reel holder with the Ultimaker 3 itself,
no doubt we would have to postpone the launch for another half a year,
so we’re pretty proud that we actually did that.
We delivered the redesigned reel holder on time, at low production cost.
Using the print farm proved that Ultimaker 3 was accurate and reliable
and delivered consistent quality prints even before the official launch.
If you purchase one of the first Ultimaker 3s,
you’ll receive the 3D printed spool holder.
The injection-molded version will be supplied shortly after.
Thanks to bridge manufacturing and Ultimaker 3s high performance,
you can start using your Ultimaker now.