Mimaki’s award-winning 3DUJ-553 UV curable inkjet system Full Color 3D printer 3DUJ-553 is bringing in new students and creating more interest for current students, according to Professor Olaf Diegel, director of the Creative Design and Additive Manufacturing Lab (CDAML) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
'Life in plastic, it's fantastic: 3D printed anatomical models' won a CDAML engineering award
The lab started out with several powder-based 3D printers, focusing on projects in engineering. “We always wanted colour, but we made do without,” Diegel said. “The colour prints are what draws people in during the open days.”
Although 3D printing is typically used by engineers within the university, the 3DUJ-553 has also opened the lab up to art students as well.
The American Graffiti 2.0 guitar printed in full-color on the 3DUJ-553, eliminating the need for hand painting
Installing the 3DUJ-553 has also added new applications to the CDAML’s printing services, including 3D scanned human figures, full colour prototyping and mockups, as well as medical modeling. Outside the university, doctors are using the lab’s print service to model visual aids for surgeries from patient CT scans.
Another project the lab decided to take on that was impossible before installing the 3DUJ-553 involves replicating Māori artifacts through 3D scanning and printing for cultural preservation. They recently scanned a conch shell trumpet, an heirloom of a Mauri family, and printed it into a playable full colour replica.
With 4 permanent staff and over 20 PhD, postgraduate, and undergraduate students from different disciplines working in the lab, a wide variety of research projects are undertaken.
Some include high efficiency gyroid based heat exchangers, automated designs for prosthetic sockets, and 3D printed food supplements from meat powder for the elderly.
The 3DUJ-553 has opened the CDAML to medical applications such as visual aids for doctor-patient communication
The biggest deciding factor for the university was the running cost. ”For universities, it’s not really the price of the machine, but the ongoing costs,” said Diegel. When the professor was looking at comparable printers, he noticed their material cost was almost double that of the 3DUJ-553.
Professor Olaf Diegel contemplating the next full colour project
The CDAML also functions as a 3D printing service provider and educator to external industries, helping businesses expand their production opportunities through additive manufacturing.
