Carbon Platform Improvements: January 2024

Carbon, the idea-to-production platform, is helping you at every stage of digital product development and manufacturing. We are excited to share some of our latest innovations now available to you.

Expanded Range of Functional Materials

Improved Efficiency

Ability to Restrict Who Can Update Printer Software

You can now specify that only Administrators can accept and install software updates for your printers. This feature may be useful to organizations that have restrictions around when and how software updates are accepted.

To enable this setting, an Admin user should navigate to Edit Company Feature Settings, toggle “Only Admins can update printer software” to ON, and then press UPDATE at the bottom of the page to save the new setting.

When this setting is enabled, Users and Operators will no longer see notifications about pending software updates. Please ensure that Admins are aware of and respond to new software, because Carbon printers must be using current software versions to receive full support.

This feature can be enabled or disabled at any time. Admin-only software update acceptance applies to installations of printer software v1.42 or later. Printers must have v1.41 installed for the feature to work as intended (updating to v1.42 from an older version may not restrict access as expected).

More Accurate Print Time Estimates for L1, M3, and M3 Max Printers

To improve customers’ ability to accurately estimate the cost of projects and effectively plan production schedules, time estimates for L1, M3, and M3 Max printers have been improved. While print time estimates for these machines can never be perfect due to the impact of using force feedback technology to adjust the print plan in real time in response to in situ print forces, quoted estimates are now more accurate. This update accounts for general print time improvements for both rigid and elastomeric resins enabled in recent software releases.

Improvements to Gen2 Auto Layout (BETA)

Gen2 Auto Layout can now achieve better packing density. In most cases, Gen2 Auto Layout will be more effective than Gen1 in successfully placing as many models as possible on the print platform.

Additional control also is available for part rotations. By default, Gen2 Auto Layout tries four rotations of all parts (based on each model’s starting orientation). If you do not want Gen2 Auto Layout to rotate parts, you can now disable rotation, or allow only a single 180° rotation. This behavior may be desired if you have oriented parts specifically for cleanability.

View Options in Carbon Design Engine

You can now toggle between useful new views in Carbon Design Engine™ software. Input meshes can be viewed as shaded or by triangle mesh. Generated strut lattices can be viewed as a volumetric preview, a line view of paths & nodes, or by gradient as a representation of strut diameter.

Operation Options in Carbon Design Engine

Two useful options are available where applicable in the Carbon Design Engine operations menu.

1. “Generate To Here” allows the option to generate only up to a particular operation in your list to save the processing time of subsequent operations.
2. “Download” now provides multiple file type options, including OBJ and PLY where applicable, in addition to the standard STL file type.

Better Part Quality

Improved accuracy for Dreve Fotodent^® Gingiva, SIL 30, MPU 100, and Henkel Loctite^® 3D IND405 Clear resins

Print settings for these resins have been updated to improve accuracy and consistency of parts printed across different printers.

Texturing in Carbon Design Engine

Adding a texture to the surface of a part can make a part more aesthetically pleasing, improve functionality, and/or help to hide certain manufacturing artifacts. Random “noise” textures can now be applied to parts in Carbon Design Engine. Multiple options are available to fine-tune the textures to your needs.

You can learn more about applying random noise textures in Carbon Design Engine from the Design Engine Tools and Features course.

Improvements to texture tools available in Print Preparation software (an optional software feature; contact support@carbon3d.com to request access) are coming in future releases.

More Powerful Patch Selection Tools in Carbon Design Engine

The Extract Patch interface allows you to create surfaces from your part model within Carbon Design Engine. There are several tools available to make selecting the patch quick and easy. The patches are useful in support of other tools and features such as texturing and hex mesh-based lattices.

Easier Access to Lattice Search in Carbon Design Engine

Carbon offers a robust Lattice Search tool to help you identify an effective metamaterial (a combination of a material and a lattice design type) for your application based on desired performance and design requirements. Lattice Search can help you get started on a new project by quickly narrowing the vast field of potential lattices to the ones most likely to accomplish your goals.

Lattice Search has long been accessible from within the latticing operation; you can now access Lattice Search directly from the top-bar menu.

Learn more about using the Lattice Search tool (including an example of finding a lattice to substitute for a specific foam material) from the Design Engine Tools and Features course.

See November 2023 platform improvements here.