3D printing, now in living color!

3D printing, now in living color!
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Computerworld – Industrial 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys today announced what it called the world’s first multi-color, multi-material
printer capable of making objects of hard, soft and flexible polymers.

Stratasis’ Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer features a triple-jet technology that combines droplets of three base materials to produce parts with virtually unlimited
combinations of rigid, flexible and transparent color materials in a single print run.

Previously, manufacturers could print multi-colored parts using many different materials and assemble them after completion.
Stratasys’ new printer ushers in an all-in-one technology that speeds production by combining the materials at the print head.

“This ability to achieve the characteristics of an assembled part without assembly or painting is a significant time-saver,”
Stratasys said in a statement. “It helps product manufacturers validate designs and make good decisions earlier before committing to manufacturing, and
bring products to market faster.”

Stratasys’ Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer and supporting material bays.

Trek Bicycle in Waterloo, Wisc. is currently beta testing the Objet500 Connex3 printer for creating accessories such as bike
chain stay guards and handlebar grips prior to actual production.

Mike Zeigle, manager of Trek’s prototype development group, said the multi-material printer changed the way the company manufactures,
augmenting its “traditional, time-consuming CNC processes with fast, iterative and realistic prototyping and functional testing.

“Now we produce bicycle parts that look and feel like production parts,” Zeigle said. “We are particularly excited about 3D
printing our models directly in color. This gives our designers the ability to graphically display color contact pressure
map data on rider contact parts like seats and grips.”

Stratasys offers three colors in the new printer that are similar to 2D inkjet colors: VeroCyan, VeroMagenta and VeroYello.
By combining the colors at the printer head, the Objet500 Connex3 can produce hundreds of shades.

A bike helmet 3D printed on the Objet500 Connex3 in one print job using VeroCyan, VeroMagenta, and VeroYellow material

Stratasys has for years had a range of photopolymer materials, including digital materials as well as rigid, rubber-like,
transparent and high-temperature materials to simulate standard and high temperature engineering plastics. The company said
a new “flexible” color polymer is also a first for the 3D printing industry.

The Objet500 Connex3 printer also features six palettes for new rubber-like Tango colors, ranging from opaque to transparent
colors in various shore values use in the automotive, consumer, sporting goods and fashion markets.

“The Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer produces models and parts using photopolymers in vivid colors so you
can create colorful models from investigating concepts to pre-production pilot runs,” said Igal Zeitun, Stratasys’ vice president
of product marketing and sales operations.

Netflash

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Low pay UK: 5 million Britons earn less than living wage

Published time: September 04, 2013 12:39

Workers pack bricks at the Wienerberger Brick Factory in Dosthill, central England August 8, 2013. (Reuters/Darren Staples)

A further 1.4 million UK workers are now earning less than a living wage compared to 2009, new research shows. The Labour Party says that many of the new jobs created in recent years are in low paid sectors.

Twenty percent of the working population, or 4.8 million Britons, are now earning below the so-called living wage, up from 3.4 million in 2009, according to the think tank the Resolution Foundation.

At present the living wage is set at 7 pounds 45 pence per hour outside London and 8 pounds 55 in the capital; although in the period covered by the report (April 2012) the living wage was calculated at 7 pounds 20 outside London and 8 pounds 30 in it.

British employers are legally obliged to pay the minimum wage set at 6 pounds 19 pence, but there is no obligation for them to pay the living wage.

The think tank found that 2.9 million women, 25 percent, and 1.9 million men, 15 percent, were paid beneath the living wage in 2012. Seventy-seven percent of employees under 20 and two thirds of people working in the hospitality industry were not paid a living wage.

There were also significant disparities between the regions, with 16 percent of workers in London and the southeast paid below the living wage, compared to 20 percent in other areas of Britain and 23 percent in Wales.

The report also identified that those receiving the living wage or above, but who are still deemed ‘low paid’, had remained stable at 5.1 million employees. ‘Workers on low pay ‘is an internationally-recognized measure, which is defined as those earning below two thirds of the median hourly rate (11 pounds 15 in the period covered by the report).

“Britain has a sorry story to tell on low pay. Only a handful of our close competitors do worse and the large majority has much lower rates of low pay – sometimes half as much,” said the author of the report economist Matthew Whittaker. “For most of the working population real wages have been flat or declining for many years and as a result more and more people have dipped below the level of the living wage.”

Labour believes that too many people are poorly paid in Britain. Shadow treasury minister Rachel Reeves said that research by the House of Commons library suggested that as much as 60 percent of the jobs created since May 2010 have been in low pay sectors.

She said in a statement Tuesday that government ministers were presiding over “an economy that, for too many people, seems only to offer work that is insecure, poorly paid and – in the worst cases – simply exploitative.”

Labour will lead a debate on the economy after prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, where it will argue that the government has failed hard working families. 

They have also asked the deputy chairman of international auditors KPMG, Alan Buckle, to consider how a future government can introduce “living wage zones” to make sure more of their staff earns a living wage.

But the coalition government says it has done more to raise the quality of life of the low paid than its predecessor. It has raised the minimum income at which people pay income tax to 10,000 pounds per annum and is considering giving tax breaks to companies paying more to employees than the national minimum of 6 pounds 19 an hour.

“We encourage employers to pay above the national minimum wage when they are profitable and when it’s not at the expense of jobs, which is what the Low Pay Commission takes into consideration when it sets the national minimum wage. Despite being in tough times, this government is doing absolutely everything it can to help people on low pay with the cost of living,” said a government spokesmen responding to the findings.

RT – News

Low pay UK: 5 million Britons earn less than living wage