Generating ideas - a mood board

During our last group meeting we were supposed to generate wild ideas connected with our project. For this aim we used mainly Brainstorming and Brainwriting methods. You can see our session mood board above. Later, we started to analyse our ideas. We created first task lists. The most important ideas for further development were:

-Sweden vs Finland AM market analyse and worldwide companies comparison

-creating and implementing a survey research

-presenting a Persona.

One of our tasks is to map the Finnish industry and make a comparison to other countries. In the first step we will look global and then more closely just to Sweden and Finland. For this purpose each of us will study another continent and show the results in an electronic version. Later, we will focus on Swedish and Finnish industry.

Furthermore, our group thinks that it is important to get to know the customers needs and expectations. It is also significant to recognize the companies marketing strategies, customers and other companies features. We are trying to find the best way to carry out such a survey to get as many answers as possible to further analyse.

In addition, we want to create a Persona who will show our potential customer. It will represent its needs, expectations, conditions, channels to reach, interests, dreams, skills, relationships with technology, its reasons to use or buy a AM product and motivation. 

For now these are some of our most important ideas. We will try to do our best to develop and implement them :) 

Mind Map

In this grup task we were supposed to create a mind map and comment a peer group's one. We chosed to write about the ''A new animal nutrient" project mind map. Firstly, their illustration is colorful, simple and clearly. It includes arrows, speech bubbles and cycle description. The diversity of used shapes and colors creates a nice visually looking figure. Furthermore, we really liked that the whole mind map is well planed and it shows a logical story. It is for sure not an ordinary mind map. Good job "A new animal nutrient" group! :) 

Idea tree

In this task we should have done an ''Idea tree" and comment a peer's one. We chosed SATEL OSPF Analysis Project. Their "Idea tree" is drawn by hand, what makes it very special. The fonts are clearly and good looking. We like the fonts shadows. A person who was writing them made effort to achieve this design. Furthermore, there are a lot of ideas in each speech bubble. This group has spent a lot of time creating the illustration what we really appreciate.

Lean Canvas

During the group meeting we discussed on the most important issues and solutions. We decided that the main problems are that:

1. Additive manufacturing method is not yet accepted/acknowledged in Finnish industry

2. Marketing of additive manufacturing

3. Promotion of additive manufacturing.

Moreover, we created solutions. We need to make a promoting plan, a market analysis and a calculated business case for a customer application. 

Here you can see our Lean Canvas:

Peers group's blog finding

For the peers group's blog finding we picked to describe the +E- Project post. The group is working on evaluating improvements to Battery Management System performance and costs. They studied an article named ''Balancing management system for improving Li-ion batteries capacity usage and lifespan" what we consider as a very interesting issue. 

In their project they are supposed to use the Li-ion cells with a voltage drop between 3 and 4.3 V. Below the voltage of 3 V there is a high chance of entering into a deep discharge state. The recovery time is very long. Moreover, above voltage of 4.3 V the cell may be destroyed because of the overheating. Parallel cells are self-balanced, what does not happen when they are put in series. Furthermore, the balancing methods-active and passive are being discussed. In the passive way of balancing the cells are discharged when the battery is not being used or an alternative path for the current flow is provided while it is being charged. In the active balancing methods we can highlight two main procedures- balancing with the help of capacitors or converters. The processes are based on switches in order to control cell balancing. Modularized switched capacitor method transfers energy from cell to cell on the first tier capacitors and from pack to pack on the second tier capacitors which is efficient and modular but on the same time hard to implement. Converters separate into isolated and non-isolated which are bigger and more expensive, but easier to control. What is more, it can be set apart 3 charging methods: CC-CV (constant current - constant voltage), multi-stage and pulse charge. CC-CV method has three main phases, first phase is trickle phase which is implemented when cell voltage is low. Phase two consists of a constant current power supply and phase three uses constant voltage which reduces charging current. Multi stage charging consist of having multiple stages where in each stage there is a different current. This method can vary on the currents and the conditions for changing the stage. There is also pulse charge method, most advanced and efficient, which is implemented by controlling its frequency or its duty cycle. In these methods it is possible to see that they consist of finding the best duty cycle or frequency during a searching process based on minimizing impedance and maximizing charging current. 

Source link:
https://pluse-project.blogspot.fi/

Can you eat 3D print?

Food Ink located in London, Great Britain declares to be the first restaurant which uses 3D printing. Not only the food, but also the furniture is created with the help of 3D printing. A nine course menu costs 250 GBP. On their website, Food Ink says that their mission is to explore the overlap between dining and technology-enhanced user experience. The only disadvantage(?), expect of the price, is that the dishes are in form of a paste. 

Would you like to taste it? :)

Share your opinions in comments and check the links below!

Kasia

Source link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3685998/Is-future-fine-dining-Restaurant-food-table-3D-printed-cost-250-head.html
Related links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9YY2S0SygM
http://foodink.io/

3D printed jewelry - The future begins today

What if you could have anything you want printed by a company for you?

It is possible.

What is 3D Metal Printing technology?

3D Printing, also called as additive manufacturing, is an innovative manufacturing method of parts from digital mode by using layer-by-layer build-up approach. It produces in a very short time dense metallic parts with high precision. 

Metal AM processes can be classified as Powder Bed Fusion based technologies PBF and Directed Energy Deposition DED based technologies. Main parameters of this process are type of input raw material, for example metal powder, and energy source used to form the part, for instance arc, electron beam.  

Powder Based Fusion technology thermal energy selectively fuses regions of powder bed. Main processes of PBF based technologies are Direct Metal Laser Sintering DMLS laser cusing and electron beam melting EBM. As the sintering material DMLS uses uncoated pre-alloyed metal powders and a high power laser. It allows to produce very dense parts. In EBM heated powder bed of metal in a vacuum is melted and formed layer by layer using an electron beam energy source.

Direct Energy Deposition based technologies use thermal energy to fuse materials by melting. To DED belongs: Laser Engineered Net Shaping LENS, Direct Metal Deposition DMD, Electron Beam Free Form Fabrication EBFFF, arc based AM and much more. DMD depends on injecting a powder coupled with a fiber laser on a robotic arm. It is best for producing new parts, repairs or adding new features. It uses a focused electron beam in a vacuum environment to create a molten pool on a metallic substrate. 

EOS manufactures equipment for metal AM focused on their Direct Metal Laser Sintering technology. What is exacly DMLS? It is a most preferred powder bed fusion technology because of short manufacturing time, cost effective assembly and wide variety of metal parts. It does not require castings. It is a laser-based rapid prototyping and tooling process. Net shape parts are fabricated in a single process and complex parts can be produced from 3D-CAD models by layer-wise solidification of metal powder layers. The principle is to bring the thin layer melt down by a laser beam. Building platform, dispenser unit, the laser system, precision optics, a high speed scanner and a computer with process software are forming the DMLS machine. Metal powder is stored in dispenser unit and the recoater is used for coating of metal powder of uniform layer thickness on steel base plates. A steel base plate is mounted on building platform. Prototype part or mould is built on building platform. A layer of metal powder of grain size is spread on a steel base plate. The laser beam sinters the first layer. The building platform moves down. The build rate depends upon accuracy and roughness. The recoater moves towards the dispenser. The dispenser moves up so that sufficient powder is taken by the recoater to spread a new layer of powder on the already sintered layer.The laser sinters the second layer and thus the process continues till part gets completed. The accuracy of builded parts is up to 0,05 mm. The steps of building a prototype include:

-Creation of 3D CAD model of prototype part/mould

-Converting the CAD model to .STL format

-Support structure definition and smoothing of corners/edges is required

-Slicing the .STL model in to thin layers

-The layer file .SLI is fed to DMLS-AM/Rapid Prototyping machine.

What does influence the price of the products? Typical factors are: laser scanning speed, laser power,number of laser and scanners, overlap area of multiple lasers, required roughness(layer thickness) and base plate preheating capability. Furthermore, the productivity is influenced by the powder handling and exchange in combination with the required cleaning of the build part in order to remove the remaining powder. 

There are many applications of 3D printing technology. It can be applied in various industries- aerospace, automotive, dental, jewelry, oil and gas and much more. There are also a lot of advantages of additive manufacturing. Freedom of design, complexity for free, potential elimination of tooling, lightweight design, part consolidation by reducing assembly requirements... There is no doubt why 3D printing is becoming much more popular. 

Kasia

Useful links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5IsmZZ-tw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIIdzKZEWKE

Source link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.turkuamk.fi/science/article/pii/S2405896316325496

Executing a 3D Printing strategy

The users of the additive manufacturing are divided into two different categories: General Users and Power Users. The secon category is defined by its advanced performance in 3D printing. They take adventage of both the potential and possibility of the additive manufaturing better than General Users. An ecpertise is importantly required for most of the professionals as Power Users to work in the 3D printing industry. To become a high performer, you need to follow up quickly with new techniques. Using new materials, which perfectly fit your needs, can help you increase your performance significantly. You can also decide to use a less common 3D printer. 3D printing can help you a lot with product development. But to increase your performance, it is supposed to fully embrace the potential of this technology, for every moment of your product's lifetime. Producing with 3D printing will especially be helpful if you release short series or products with complex shapes, or if spare parts management is an important challenge for your activity. Investing in 3D printing shows great results: Return on investment is good for our respondents, and it is increasing year over year. Using this technology is a good way to differentiate yourself from your competitors and to gain a competitive advantage over other companies. 

Kalle

3D Printing in automotive industry

3D printing in automotive industry

Usage of 3D printing is popular in automotive industry, in which it is used for manufacturing prototypes as well as finished parts. For example, car manufacturer Koenigsegg uses 3D printing to manufacture the variable turbocharger for their One:1 model. The model has one on one power/mass ratio (HP/Kg). The fully metal parts are lightweight and endure high temperatures and racetrack conditions demanded from hypercar. Also some Formula 1 racing teams used 3D printing for prototyping, testing and ultimately, creating custom car parts that are used in competitive races.

Metal 3D printing enables manufacturing of high quality parts with complex structure, lightweight composition and endurance of high temperature.

First project presentation

You can find our first project presentation under this link:

http://www88.zippyshare.com/v/E9zw9em8/file.html

Who are we?

Getting to know the project

Hi everyone!

We are a group of ambitious and passionated students working on a 3D-printing project in cooperation with the company EOS. Why are we doing this? This year more than 300 students are taking part in the Innovation Project CapStone. We are creating real products for various companies. The goal for the project is to introduce and promote the products of our company to other partners in Finland because 3D printing for mental is not so familiar to Finland.

EOS is a German based company, one of  the branches is located in Turku close to the Turku University of Applied Sciences. The company is developing high quality products based on industrial 3D printing technologies.

During the first meeting we discussed about the group rules, we wrote down the letter of agreement. Moreover, we created this blog. More posts coming soon :)