Newsletter October 2007

In this issue:

• RedEye to expand its offering to international market

• Building custom designs with FDM

• Customer Application of the Month

RedEye to expand its offering to international market

RedEye Facilities

RedEye is growing and as a result, the organization is planning to launch two new divisions in late 2007/early 2008. RedEye shipped 13 high performance fused deposition modeling to Materialise's headquarters in Leuven, Belgium this year and plans to nearly double that number of systems in 2008. In addition to its Belgium headquarters, Materialise has locations throughout Europe, Asia and North America. The company offers a number of products and services, but is most widely known for its rapid industrial and medical prototyping capabilities.

The group will officially announce the new business unit this December at Euromold in Frankfurt, Germany.

"We receive a significant number of requests from the European market," said Greg Ackerman, director of RedEye. "We know there is a need for our technology and services in Europe and we are looking forward to advancing our brand, reputation and quality to those new customers."

In addition to the European market, RedEye is also expanding into Australia and will launch RedEye Australia at Rapid Pro's facility in Victoria. RedEye shipped three FDM systems to the facility in 2007 and will ship more in 2008, as the business unit grows. Rapid Pro has provided prototyping services to Australia for more than 25 years and serves a variety of industries.

"The Australian market was sorely under-represented by high-end FDM systems," said Jeff Hanson, manager of business development for RedEye. "With an industry that is growing by more than 100 percent year over year, according to Wohler's Report, we saw an immediate need to provide this rapid prototyping technology to that market."

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A note from Tim Thellin on…building custom designs with FDM

Tim Thellin RedEye

The Hot Jalapenos is the name that dubbed the Stratasys/RedEye band. Many of us here have a passion for music and we play a few tunes now and then at company events, such as holiday parties and picnics. A few years ago, we decided that it was time to marry our passions - our work and our hobby - using FDM technology.

It started out as a gimmick to build something really different that would stand out for use at tradeshows. So, we made our first two telecaster style guitars out of PC-ISO and ABSi red materials. The sleek, translucent look of the PC-ISO only added to its rigidness and durability. Then, we chose ABSi red to build something in a different color that we could send to Stratasys' European sales office for use as samples and at their tradeshows. We quickly learned how easy it was to create custom designs with intricate geometries using the FDM technology.

We couldn't stop with single color projects, so we worked on a truly custom design and build a double S-shaped guitar for Stratasys using ABS black and blue. We further enhanced the complexity using PolyJet Clear and Vero White for the knobs.

Then, RedEye was born (P.S. Happy Birthday RedEye - two years young Oct. 2007) and we wanted to continue the tradition of building custom guitars. Most guitars are made of wood and are manufactured using traditional processes. I thought it was time that we built a guitar where only FDM technology could truly handle the intricate geometries.

Having access to a technology as intuitive as FDM, makes it easy to create custom widgets and gizmos. In fact, many of us have designed replacement parts for home appliances, custom parts for motorcycles, even toys for our kids. With a little imagination and a CAD program, we can help you build your passion too.

To learn more about this process, see the video of the guitar and learn how you can build your custom designs, click here.

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Customer Application of the Month - Automotive models

Model Cars PolyJet

Wm. K. Walthers Inc. is a leading manufacturer and distributor of high quality model railroad and automotive equipment. John Mayer, senior product designer for Walthers, recently contacted RedEye to build prototypes of their latest line of model cars. Using our PolyJet technology, RedEye was able to accurately construct the prototypes with the fine feature detail and surface finish that Walthers required. "We use the prototypes that we get from RedEye to obtain approval on styles and for testing concept and style," said Mayer. "This technology helps us ensure that we have a quality, working product before we go to mass production."
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