Why We Use…

…An In-House Modeler

For 20 years, Parvus Corporation has specialized in providing products that are designed for embedded control environments — projects that traditionally require space-saving, rugged and highly functional components. Their customers include OEMs in aerospace, defense, energy, medical and transportation fields. When designing new or custom products, the engineers use solid modeling CAD software to develop 3-D computer models prior to manufacturing. This process not only minimizes time and material expense, but also provides customers an accurate rendering of a product to assure it matches their exact specifications. 

Until a year ago, product designs were then sent to a CNC mill to produce physical models to be shared with customers. Many times, the company was forced to iterate designs a number of times using the mill, an expensive process that was a drain on resources and put ongoing pressure on engineers to produce error-free designs early in the design process. 
“Whenever our engineers are working with the mills, we’re not designing new products,” said Troy Takach, chief technology officer for Parvus.

Today, the company uses 3D printing to produce physical models and functional parts within a matter of hours, saving money and better serving customers. Models can be quickly fine-tuned and revised with as many design iterations as are required. Parts are made of ABS plastic, which is durable enough to simulate end-product performance and in certain low-volume applications even serve as production parts. 

In one recent application, Boeing needed modified Parvus-made flat-panel LCD cockpit displays, currently used in T38 aircraft, for providing flight test data in a 737-900 test plane. Changes to the displays involved alterations to the unit’s case, and a fold-down mount that would permit relocations to other stations in the aircraft. After creating initial designs using IronCAD software, engineers immediately began creating multiple iterations of the product and testing ideas using a 3D printer.

“It’s one thing to see it on the screen, but to have it in your hand is another,” Takach said. “We had some other metal parts for the LCDs that we were able to interface with the models we produced, so the accuracy and durability of the models created by the machine were extremely valuable.” 

The engineers were able to easily and quickly make design revisions and share ideas with one another without having to go back and forth to the CNC mill. They avoided a number of productivity bottlenecks and completed modeling approximately 80 percent faster than using CNC milling. In the past, the complete design cycle for this project would have taken roughly a week, but using 3D printing, Parvus was able to produce a final prototype for Boeing approval within just a day.

Overall, 3D printing has helped accelerate the company’s product design and development, according to Takach. “Our design pipeline is much fatter now. We’re building two and three prototypes a day, and as a result, delivering products to market much more quickly.”

Parvus uses a Dimension 3D Printer, a networked, desktop modeling system that provides CAD users a fast, office-friendly alternative for building functional 3D models. The machine builds accurate models layer by layer using durable ABS plastic. Dimension is a business unit of Stratasys, Inc.

“We looked at various prototyping machines for years, but at $60,000 and up, they were well out of our price range,” Takach said. “When I found out we could get the Dimension 3D Printer for $30,000, we didn’t hesitate. It was a no-brainer.” Takach attributes much of 3D printing’s success within their design environment to the technology’s ease of use. “Dimension’s front-end processing software is almost invisible. We just export the STL file to the 3D printer. We really spend no time figuring out how to get the CAD model into a real part.”

—RM

Parvus Corp,

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Dimension,

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