While I realize that its usually us gals who enjoy a decent sale, I can’t help but to believe that all of you will take some serious interest in the following.

Last week Dimension announced that they have several Demo/Tradeshow units now available at a significantly reduced price. (Imagine Black Friday one month early and only for printers.)

How significant you ask? Significant enough to get this girl excited and in this economy that’s saying a lot.

Right now you have a shot at the following, but remember, these aren’t going to last for long so I strongly encourage you to call your sales rep immediately if you are thinking of making a purchase in 2009.

uPrint Personal Printer – $11,920
BST 768 – $14,000
BST1200ES – $15,120
SST1200ES – $26,320
Elite – $23,920

Happy shopping!

CatalystEX allows you to take full control of how to build your part. The Properties window is accessed from the General Tab.

Layer resolution – height of each layer of material extruded to produce a part. Available resolutions are based on printer type.
.007 inch (.178 mm) Elite Only
.010 inch (.254 mm) Elite, 1200, and uPrint
.013 inch (.330 mm) 1200 Only

Resolution will effect build time and surface finish – A shorter height creates a smoother finish, but will take longer to build.

Model interior – establishes type of fill used for interior, solid areas of the part.

Solid - used when a stronger, more durable part is desirable. Build times will be longer and more material will be used.

Sparse - high density (Elite, 1200es, uPrint 3D Printers only) – this is the default model interior style and it is highly recommended. Build times will be shorter, less material will be used, and the possibility of part curl for geometries with large mass will be greatly reduced.

Sparse -low density- the interior will be “honeycombed/hatched”. This style allows for the shortest build times and lowest material use.

Support fill – support material is used to brace the model material during the build process. It is removed when the part is complete. Support fill options will affect the support strength and build time of the print.

Basic - may be used for most parts. It uses a consistent spacing between the support raster tool paths.

Sparse - minimizes the amount of support material. Sparse uses a much larger spacing between raster tool paths than basic supports.

Minimal - is used for small parts that have small features in need of supports. It is designed to make support removal easier on these small parts. Do NOT use minimal supports on large parts or parts with tall columns of support.

Break-away – similar to sparse supports without a closed tool path-perimeter curve. They are easier to remove than other support styles but build slower than sparse supports (not available for all printers).

Surround - the entire model is surrounded by support material. Typically used for tall, thin (narrow) models (e.g., pencil).

Number of copies – select the number of copies you want to Print or Add to Pack. The number of possible copies will be limited by the size of the modeling platform. Multiple copies sent to Print will first be saved as a Pack_.cmb file. If using the Add to Pack button, each click will send the same number of copies to a Pack – if space allows. From the Pack Tab you can view the arrangement of the part(s) on the Modeling Platform.

STL units – select ‘inches’ or ‘millimeters’ units of measure for your STL file. STL files do not specify units of measure. You need to specify the units as either inches or millimeters.

Example: An STL file of a cube designed with a dimension of 100 X 100 X 100, opening with a unit of measure set to inches, will not fit within the build envelope. By changing the units of measure to ‘millimeters’, the part will be resized – and fit within the envelope.

STL scale – before you process a part for printing, you can change the size of the part within the build envelope. Every part has a pre-defined size within the STL file. After you have opened the file you can change the size of the part produced from the STL file by changing the scale. The Scale always relates to the ORIGINAL (or “Save As”) STL file size definition.

The most noticeable difference, other than price, between the uPrint and Dimension printers is the size. The uPrint’s build envelope measures 8″x6″x6″, the Dimension Elite measures 8″x8″x12″, and the 1200es measures 10″x10″x12″. Dimension noticed that 80% of the parts printed on Dimension machines fit inside this smaller envelope size. The smaller build envelope also means that the machine can heat up to the 77 degrees Celsius required for modeling faster.

The uPrint only offers one layer resolution .010. The means that every part is sliced into layers measuring .010 thick. The Dimension line offers the ability to choose between .007 and .010 on the Elite and .010 and .013 on the 1200es. In most cases Dimension users only use the lower of the two choices so the uPrint is a great option for most users.

The uPrint is built off the 1200’s technology so both are up to 30% faster than the Dimension Elite printer. The uPrint and 1200es also offer the ability to rotate your part 90 degrees after slicing. That means you can pack more parts onto one tray without slicing a part once in one direction and then slicing the same part in the opposite direction. The Elite does not offer this because the head does not toggle between model and support.

All three machines use the same ABSplus model material. The uPrint currently only offers one color, white. The Elite and 1200es offer White, Black, Blue, Olive Green, Nectarine, Fluorescence Yellow, Steel Gray and Natural. The uPrint and Elite only support the soluble support material. The Dimension 1200es offers the option of either breakaway OR soluble support.

The uPrint material comes in spools containing 30 cubic inches. Dimension material comes in cartridges containing 56.3 cubic inches. With the uPrint you can choose to add a second material bay which doubles your capacity to 60 cubic inches and gives you the ability to build with one spool while reloading the second.

If you haven’t yet had the chance to check out the Dimension line of products I encourage you to check them out for yourself.