Application of SCAD Used in 3D Printing

Although 3D printing debuted in Mid-1990s, it developed slowly and unknown by people because of undeveloped computer technology and industrial control accuracy at that time. It was not until November 2012 that people got to know it when Scottish scientists firstly printed man-made liver tissue by 3D printer on human cells.

3D printing is the outcome of multiple fields of science which shouldn’t downplay the function of material. Different functional 3D printers use different materials due to different technologies. At present, 3D printing hasn’t reached the level of maturity that was unable to match varieties of materials in daily life. And for the high price, material becomes a critical limiting factor in 3D printing.

One foreign company developed 3D printer created a new trend with common plastics for printing in this industry, which made the large breakthrough of materials for 3D printer, but the material still needs drying and dehumidifying before processing.

3D printing process is different from common injection molding. In general, the printer has compact structure, so standard auxiliary machine can hardly be mounted on it. For its small dosage amount, it must ensure there’s no excessive cooling and drying of materials in the hopper for a long time, putting forward higher demands for control and heat insulation.

According to handling capacity, processing temperature and time from customer, we suggest Shini Compressed Air Dryer SCAD. It equips with P.I.D temperature controller with control accuracy reaching ±1℃/0.18OF, which could easily reaching the drying temperature. And the 24-hour auto timer is easy for customer operation. Collocating with Heatless Regenerative Dryer HAD, it could ensure drying air dew-point is below -40℃/-40OF and no bubble, burn or other defects of material during printing. Although these technological conditions are achieved, it’s hard to mount standard SCAD on the printer due to its compact design. So we customized a set of SCAD after redesigning. Separate control box and drying hopper, then install the control box and HAD on printer by embedded mounting, which fully taking the space inside and on top of the machine to reach ideal combination. While for the newly designed drying hopper, considering physical property and usage amount of materials, the hopper is made by PC pipes as to reduce its weight. Besides, fixed with detachable filter design, it is also convenient for material refilling and replacing. After continuous discussion and improvement by designer and customer, this customization finally achieves fine result. At last, SCAD has been successfully used in the 3D printing.

As technology developing, customer’s needs are also raising. Facing the age of industrial 4.0, we launched the inter-connection method for machines based on Shini developed slink technology, offering convenient and intelligent solutions for the customer. By this function, it’s able to integrate the SCAD and 3D printer to achieve conveniently full monitoring of the data.