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What's a SLIC Pin^®? Pin and cotter all in one!

The SLIC Pin (Self-Locking Implanted Cotter Pin) from Pivot Point is a pin and cotter all in one. This one-piece locking clevis pin is cost saving, fast, and secure. It functions as a quick locking pin wherever you need a fast-lock function. It features a spring-loaded plunger that functions as an easy insertion ramp. This revolutionary fastening pin is very popular and used successfully in a wide range of applications.
Learn more.

Engineering challenge: Which 3D-printed parts will fade?

How does prolonged exposure to intense UV light impact 3D-printed plastics? Will they fade? This is what Xometry's Director of Application Engineering, Greg Paulsen, set to find out. In this video, Paulsen performs comprehensive tests on samples manufactured using various additive processes, including FDM, SLS, SLA, PolyJet, DLS, and LSPc, to determine their UV resistance. Very informative. Some results may surprise you.
View the video.

Copper filament for 3D printing

Virtual Foundry, the company that brought us 3D-printable lunar regolith simulant, says its popular Copper Filamet™ (not a typo) is "back in stock and ready for your next project." This material is compatible with any open-architecture FDM/FFF 3D printer. After sintering, final parts are 100% pure copper. Also available as pellets. The company says this is one of the easiest materials to print and sinter. New Porcelain Filamet™ available too.
Learn more and get all the specs.

Copper foam -- so many advantages

Copper foam from Goodfellow combines the outstanding thermal conductivity of copper with the structural benefits of a metal foam. These features are of particular interest to design engineers working in the fields of medical products and devices, defense systems and manned flight, power generation, and the manufacture of semiconductor devices. This product has a true skeletal structure with no voids, inclusions, or entrapments. A perennial favorite of Designfax readers.
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Full-color 3D-printing Design Guide from Xometry

With Xometry's PolyJet 3D-printing service, you can order full-color 3D prints easily. Their no-cost design guide will help you learn about different aspects of 3D printing colorful parts, how to create and add color to your models, and best practices to keep in mind when printing in full color. Learn how to take full advantage of the 600,000 unique colors available in this flexible additive process.
Get the Xometry guide.

Tech Tip: How to create high-quality STL files for 3D prints

Have you ever 3D printed a part that had flat spots or faceted surfaces where smooth curves were supposed to be? You are not alone, and it's not your 3D printer's fault. According to Markforged, the culprit is likely a lack of resolution in the STL file used to create the part.
Read this detailed and informative Markforged blog.

Test your knowledge: High-temp adhesives

Put your knowledge to the test by trying to answer these key questions on how to choose the right high-temperature-resistant adhesive. The technical experts from Master Bond cover critical information necessary for the selection process, including questions on glass transition temperature and service temperature range. Some of the answers may surprise even the savviest of engineers.
Take the quiz.

Engineer's Toolbox: How to pin a shaft and hub assembly properly

One of the primary benefits of using a coiled spring pin to affix a hub or gear to a shaft is the coiled pin's ability to prevent hole damage. Another is the coiled pin absorbs wider hole tolerances than any other press-fit pin. This translates to lower total manufacturing costs of the assembly. However, there are a few design guidelines that must be adhered to in order to achieve the maximum strength of the pinned system and prevent damage to the assembly.
Read this very informative SPIROL article.

What's new in Creo Parametric 11.0?

Creo Parametric 11.0 is packed with productivity-enhancing updates, and sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact in your daily workflows. Mark Potrzebowski, Technical Training Engineer, Rand 3D, runs through the newest functionality -- from improved surface modeling tools to smarter file management and model tree navigation. Videos provide extra instruction.
Read the full article.

What's so special about wave springs?

Don't settle for ordinary springs. Opt for Rotor Clip wave springs. A wave spring is a type of flat wire compression spring characterized by its unique waveform-like structure. Unlike traditional coil springs, wave springs offer an innovative solution to complex engineering challenges, producing forces from bending, not torsion. Their standout feature lies in their ability to compress and expand efficiently while occupying up to 50% less axial space than traditional compression springs. Experience the difference Rotor Clip wave springs can make in your applications today!
View the video.

New Standard Parts Handbook from JW Winco

JW Winco's printed Standard Parts Handbook is a comprehensive 2,184-page reference that supports designers and engineers with the largest selection of standard parts categorized into three main groups: operating, clamping, and machine parts. More than 75,000 standard parts can be found in this valuable resource, including toggle clamps, shaft collars, concealed multiple-joint hinges, and hygienically designed components.
Get your Standard Parts Handbook today.

Looking to save space in your designs?

Watch Smalley's quick explainer video to see how engineer Frank improved his product designs by switching from traditional coil springs to compact, efficient wave springs. Tasked with making his products smaller while keeping costs down, Frank found wave springs were the perfect solution.
View the video.

Top die casting design tips

You can improve the design and cost of your die cast parts with these top tips from Xometry's Joel Schadegg. Topics include: Fillets and Radii, Wall Thicknesses, Ribs and Metal Savers, Holes and Windows, Parting Lines, and more. Follow these recommendations so you have the highest chance of success with your project.
Read the full Xometry article.

What's the latest from 3D Systems? Innovations for different industries, processes

3D Systems unveiled several new solutions at the RAPID+TCT 2025 show in April designed to change the way industries innovate. From new 3D printers and materials for high-mix, low-volume applications to marked improvements in how investment casting can be done, learn what is the state of the art from the original inventors of 3D printing.
Read the full article.

Clever! Indexing plungers with chamfered pins

JW Winco has developed a new type of indexing plunger -- GN 824 -- that can independently latch into edges and grooves. This is made possible by a chamfered plunger pin. When the chamfered pin encounters a raised latching geometry, it retracts and then springs back out again once it reaches the latching point. This new indexing plunger can be ordered with axial thread for fastening and a black plastic knob for operating the indexing plunger. In a clever design, the plunger pin can be adjusted by 360 degrees to ensure that it encounters the mating surface perpendicularly. This hardware is well suited for transport frames, mechanisms, or covers that need to be locked in place quickly and securely, especially without the need for manual intervention.
Learn more.

Tiny mechanical wrist gives new dexterity to needlescopic surgery

Vanderbilt engineers have invented a mechanical wrist less than 2 mm (1/16 in.) in diameter -- small enough for use in needlescopic surgery. [Photo: MED Lab, Vanderbilt University]

 

 

With the flick of a tiny mechanical wrist, a team of engineers and doctors at Vanderbilt University's Medical Engineering and Discovery Laboratory hopes to give needlescopic surgery a whole new degree of dexterity.

Needlescopic surgery, which uses surgical instruments shrunk to the diameter of a sewing needle, is the ultimate form of minimally invasive surgery. The needle-size incisions it requires are so small that they can be sealed with surgical tape and usually heal without leaving a scar.

Although it's been around since the 1990s, the technique, which is also called mini- or micro-laparoscopy, is so difficult that only a handful of surgeons around the world use it regularly. In addition, it has largely been limited to scraping away diseased tissue with sharp-edged rings called curettes or burning it away with tiny lasers or heated wires.

So a research team headed by Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert Webster has developed a surgical robot with steerable needles equipped with wrists that are less than 1/16-in. (2-mm) thick. The achievement is described in a paper titled "A wrist for needle-sized surgical robots" presented in May at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle.

The new device is designed to provide needlescopic tools with a degree of dexterity that they have previously lacked. Not only will this allow surgeon-operators to perform a number of procedures such as precise resections and suturing that haven't been possible before, but it will also allow the use of needles in places that have been beyond their reach, such as the nose, throat, ears, and brain.

"The smaller you can make surgical instruments the better ... as long as you can maintain an adequate degree of dexterity," said Professor of Urological Surgery S. Duke Herrell, who is consulting on the project. "In my experience, the smaller the instruments, the less post-operative pain patients experience and the faster they recover."

That has certainly been the case with traditional minimally invasive surgery (MIS), which has become increasingly common in recent years. This method, which involves operating with instruments inserted through incisions that range from 3/8 in. to 3/16 in. (10 mm to 5 mm), generally causes patients less pain, less tissue damage, less scarring, and shorter recovery periods.

The effort to adapt robotic technology to MIS has been dominated by Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, a robotic surgical system designed specifically for the minimally invasive approach. Depending on the type of surgery, it requires incisions that are 1/3 in. (8 mm) or 3/16 in. (5 mm).

"Although it works very well for abdominal surgery, the da Vinci uses a wire-and-pulley system that is extremely difficult to miniaturize any further, so it won't work in smaller spaces like the head and neck," said Webster.

For the past six years, Webster and his colleagues have been developing a surgical robot that uses "steerable needles." This is a system of telescoping tubes that are made out of nitinol, a "memory metal" that retains it shape. Each tube has a different intrinsic curvature. By precisely rotating, extending, and retracting the tubes, an operator can steer the tip in different directions, allowing it to follow a curving path through the body.

This design allows the needles to operate in areas of the body that neither manual endoscopic instruments, which are straight rods equipped with a variety of end effectors, nor the da Vinci robot can reach. However, its usefulness was limited by the fact that the needles didn't have a wrist.

"Adding the wrists to the steerable needles greatly expands the system's usefulness," Herrell said. "There are a myriad of potential applications in some really exciting areas such as endoscopic neurosurgery, operating within small lumens such as the ear, bronchus, urethra, etc. This would allow us to do surgeries that at present require much larger incisions and may even enable us to perform operations that are not feasible at present."

The researchers made a number of unsuccessful attempts to build mechanical wrists that were small enough. "We kept trying to build the wrists out of a lot of small pieces, but we couldn't get them to work up to our standards," said Webster.

"Then we realized we had to start thinking outside of the box," said graduate student Philip Swaney. "Instead of combining a bunch of pieces, we started with a tiny nitinol tube and began thinking about what we had to remove."

Video credit: MED Lab, Vanderbilt University

The tube is extremely rigid, but they discovered that if they cut a series of tiny slots down one side, the rigidity decreased substantially: Enough, in fact, so they could get it to bend up to 90 degrees by pulling on a small wire that runs inside the tube that is attached at the tip. The wrist springs back to a straight position when tension on the wire is released.

"Once we got the idea, we realized it could be a real game changer so we had to build it," Swaney said.

Vanderbilt University applied for a provisional patent on the design in May.

Team members would like to test the system by using it for "transnasal" surgery: operations to remove tumors in the pituitary gland and at the skull base that traditionally involve cutting large openings in a patient's skull and/or face. Studies have shown that using an endoscope to go through the nasal cavity is less traumatic, but the procedure is so difficult that only a handful of surgeons have mastered it.

"It should be useful for a number of other operations as well," said Webster. "We think once we give this tool to surgeons they will find all kinds of applications we haven't thought of."

By the end of 2015, they hope to have completed the control software and the interface that allows the surgeons to operate the device. They are actively looking for a commercial partner who will take the new instrument through the FDA approval process, including initial clinical trials. "Our best case scenario is that the system could be available to surgeons in four to five years," Webster said.

The research was supported by National Institutes of Health grant R01 EB017467.

Source: Vanderbilt University

Published September 2015

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