This has now been followed up very nicely indeed with the 650. Z Corp has been refreshing its product line since the introduction of the Spectrum 510 a few years back, and the 450 saw the entry colour models bring greater office friendliness with an integrated finishing station. Z Corporation, who, alongside players like Objet, has consistently shown that there is room for innovation in a market that some RP vendors seem to be abandoning. While the transition to rapid or direct manufacturing is going on, there’s also a huge re-emergence of pure rapid prototyping and some serious advances are going on for those looking to build prototypes for use in the design process. Personally, I’m not convinced that the demand is as big as many are expecting but there is huge potential there. Many vendors are looking to shift their businesses from simply providing prototypes to providing end-use components and rightly so. There’s currently a transition happening in the Rapid Prototyping sector. There is also a chamber to the right of the build area where users can safely de-powder the models from the build chamber, use an air hose to blow off additional powder and carry out post-build infiltration (models require an infiltrant be painted over them to make them more sturdy). With the ZPrinter 450 Z Corp addressed this by introducing powder cartridges that make loading the machine much easier as they simply click into place. After all, shovelling white plaster or, as was the case back then, starch, into a machine, then digging a model out of it a couple of hours later, was always going to be a messy business. If there’s been a criticism levelled at the Z Corp machines since they came onto the market, it’s that they could be a little messy in those early days. The addition of a black binder will make features much crisper and colours richer. Previous machines used the combination of colours to make up black, so a lot of binder was used and it didn’t give the best colour match.
While colour has been a revolutionary feature of the Z Corp machines for some time, the 650 steps things up a notch by introducing a black binder, in addition to the existing Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Clear binders. 102mm, good, high quality models can be produced in a very short space of time. With layer thickness anywhere between 0.089mm and. The good news is that the build speed hasn’t been compromised and still retains the inch per hour tag that Z Corp is renowned for. As you’ll see from the images accompanying this article, it’s big enough for most. While by no means the biggest in the industry, the chamber, measuring 254 x 381 x 203mm, is much bigger than most and with the ability to stack it out, gives you plenty of room to breathe. Previous ZCorporation 3D printing machines used Cyan, Magenta and Yellow to make up black, so a lot of binder was used and it didn’t give the best colour matchįirstly, the build chamber is much bigger than any other machine Z Corp has had to date. So what’s new for the 650? The answer is in three parts. By using separate colour binders, the system can print colour directly into each layer at its periphery where required, allowing full-colour, high-resolution models. The system uses standard inkjet print heads from Hewlett-Packard and this also gives the Z Corp machines their huge advantage: colour.
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As each layer of between 0.089 and 0.102 mm is put down the layer form is solidified, and the next layer built on top of that.Īs the model is encased in a block of powder, this means that the system can be utilised to the full by ‘stacking-out’ the build chamber (as can be done with most powder-based systems) and much of the ‘unused’ powder can be recycled for subsequent builds. The 650 relies on the layer-based printing of binder onto powdered material. The basics, as with all Z Corp 3D printing machines, are as follows. So let’s take a look at what it can do and how it does it. The release of the ZPrinter 650 now brings full colour capabilities to a large build volume for the first time. While this started at the lower end, it has now been extended to the high end, larger build volume machines, which previously lacked one big USP, that of full colour.
Recently, Z Corporation has expanded its 3D printing products to include both high-resolution colour capabilities and facilities for model post processing – such as powder removal, treatment/infiltration and recycling of unused powder.
Al Dean takes an in-depth look at the ZPrinter 650, which brings the most recent innovations in high-definition colour and integrated post processing to Z Corporation’s high-end 3D printing offering for the first time.
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