We just updated the Design Guidelines for B-HDA, to learn more click here.
Say hello to Black High Definition Acrylate, our newest material launching today! It’s a high detail material similar to Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD), but smoother and more durable.
Who is it for?
While anyone can use Black High Definition Acrylate [ak-ruh-leyt, -lit], it is perfect for those designing miniatures because it provides very high detail in even the smallest designs and the smooth surface takes to paint very well. A few examples:
- Model trains
- Miniature furniture
- Figurines
Black High Definition Acrylate is also really great for phone cases and jewelry prototyping because of its beautiful finish.
What is it?
Black High Definition Acrylate is a UV sensitive acrylic polymer similar to Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD), but with slightly different material properties and printing processes. Unlike FUD, which is printed using a Multijet Modeling process, this new material is printed using Direct Light Projection (DLP) which provides excellent resolution and accuracy. It also provides a smoother finish which lends itself really well to painting. This material is more durable and flexible due to a combination of its strength and elongation properties, and is perfect for designers who want a more customizable material for miniatures and other high detail products.
How is it made?
Printed using DLP technology, the process uses visible spectrum light to cure the liquid resin one layer at a time. A resin bath sits above a high resolution projector which projects cross-sectional images of your model. The resin cures with exposure to visible light, curing an entire layer with a single pass. Since the entire layer is cured at once, build speed is generally faster than other technologies such as laser sintering or stereolithography which trace the slice of your model while sintering or curing at precise locations. After printing, models are removed from the build platform and are post-cured by a UV light.
Check out the video below to hear Blair, our Materials Project Manager, talk about this exciting new material:
For more information on how this material is made, be sure to check out this week’s Shapeways Live segment and ask any questions you may have in our forum!
Black High Definition Acrylate is being released first to the Shapeways maker community to test out the material and provide feedback. Once we’ve optimized the process, we’ll release the material to the entire community for printing.
What are you most excited to make in Black High Definition Acrylate?
Would this material work for snap fit parts? Or is it not durable/flexible enough for that like FUD?
I think it will depend on the geometry and wall thickness of your model. For instance, there is enough flexibility to insert my phone into a tight fitting phone case. It does have a higher flexural strength than XSF or FUD that will enable some bending. However, the elongation at break is much lower than XSF so it will likely not work for every application.
It looks like a great new material, I hope to try it with new orders in the future. I plan to start painting my 3d prints so this also sounds ideal.
Awesome! I would love to see some pictures posted on the forum once you receive your models!
Wow, that looks good. Is it the equivalent of what another online manufacturer calls “Prime Gray”?
Hello – as far as I am aware, this is not the same material as “Prime Gray” offered by others. We hope you try it out!
Wow! This is fantastic news and I’m starting to fill my basket up with things I want to see in the new material to compare with FUD and FXD – I’m looking forward to stronger parts where the full resolution of FXD is not necessary but the extra strength, opacity and smoother finish will really help. Things like wheels, chassis and bogies on model trains. However, I think there might be a problem with the pricing algorithm in BHDA for multi-part models. For single part models the price in BHDA seems to be the same as in FUD, or slightly lower, which is great, but for multi-part models the price in BHDA seems to be higher than in FUD or FXD, implying that it might save me money to split up my multi-part models to single parts to order them in BHDA, which doesn’t make sense. Please could you look into this before I try doing that? The effect is slight in two-part models but gets more severe with 4 and 8 part multi-packs.
Hello! Yes, we are excited about the benefits of this material as well. The price is structured slightly different than FUD due to the added labor of generating support structures and removing them manually for each model. For FUD and FXD, the support structures are melted away, which minimizes touch labor per part. Due to the extra labor components for Hi-Def Acrylate, we have a price per part, rather than per file as we do for FUD. This should explain the price differences you are seeing.
The material specifications and surface qualities appear nice.
The pricing however is definitely not good. Especially multiple part models (often needed to get a proper surface quality and to be able to properly paint miniatures) get extremely expensive. It is not likely that our customers are willing to pay 50% to 250% (!) more for sets printed in B-HDA instead of FUD.
SW really has to look into the pricing philosophy.
Material looks interesting & useful. Will have to try out.
When I looked at cost for my existing design the HDA was twice cost of Ultra Crystal.
Would this material work well for dice?
A question about the process: When using DLP processes the resolution can vary with the size of the part, e.g. a part approaching the maximum allowable size will have larger ‘voxles’ than a part only half the maximum size – if the projection is adjusted accordingly. How is Shapeways handling this? Is the projection always the maximum size or is it adjusted to each print? What is the resolution of the DLP? Thanks, Nick
Super cool guys !
More material means more opportunities for the designers.
We are super excited and we will certainly place an order in this new material very soon.
Thank you Shapeways for the Great work you are doing in helping us bring our dreams from out of the shadows and into the light.
You are the Best !
Cheers!!!
Just ordered some stuff. Basically to test this new material. How useful it will be will be for me very much depends on the minimum wall thickness. 0,5mm is too much for a lot of scale models. Decided to follow the FUD rules (0,3mm) and just see what will happen. For €10 it is a risk I’m willing to take.
Assuming the design will be accepted for HDA, I will post photos as soon as I get the print.
I tried that and 6 out of 6 previously successful FXD or FUD printable models that I ordered in BHDA, although passing the automated design checks without even a warning, got rejected at manual check for too thin walls or too thin wires. I can understand why greater manual involvement removing support materials will make it harder to get away with fine structure and detail in BHDA than FXD and FUD, but I am still very disappointed. I may try to adapt some of my designs to get around the problem, but I’m a bit concerned that if I address just the areas indicated in the manual checks this time, there may just be other areas in the same models that will cause rejection next time. If I address all possible concerns right down to 0.5 mm everything, I will lose a lot of detail compared to the FXD and FUD models. Will I have to create and add a second design to my range, for every model that I want to try in BHDA?
Would it be okay if I use the image of the locomotive and penny on my blog post promoting this material? (pembroke87.wordpress.com) Thanks!
Go for it!
Is there any though E.T.A. of when this will be available?
Its available for to order on your own designs now, will become available for marketplace materials at a later date TBD.
Will you be offering parts without cleaning up the supports in future? I’d rather do this myself, especially if it can save money on labour associated with you guys doing it. This looks like a great material, but it’s still pretty expensive at the moment.
I like this idea. I hope it gets more support and can be tried out, please, Shapeways, at least for makers. After all, we have to clean FXD and FUD to make sure all traces of wax and oil are removed before painting those materials, and this seems conceptually similar. We know the vulnerable bits of our own models and of course would have to accept that if we break them, the responsibility is ours, so we repair, accept, reorder, or redesign!
This is really great news! If this material can indeed take paint, it will solve a lot of the issues i have had with FUD! I loved the detail of the FUD material, but there were insurmountable issues with paint resistance.
Thank you Shapeways for continuing to push the boundaries with new printing materials.
This is very exciting! I work in polymer clay and need small 2D items. Would this be applicable for that or just 3D? Also how small can it copy (looking for something 1/4″ in diameter. Thanks in advance!
If there is a new material that I would like to see then that would be glass! We can print in porcelain but how about crystal-clear glass? I know it is different from other ceramics but would it be possible?
Still, high-def acrylate is still nice, but why black?
We started a comparison test with a FUD and a B-HDA model.
[img]https://railnscale.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/b-hda001.jpg[/img]
Read more about this in the forum: https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=39421&prevloaded=1&&start=80
hm, links don’t work here.
Just go to the Forum > Official Announcements > New Material: Black High Definition Acrylate