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Do you think the Creatbot F1000 has a large build volume? No wonder you think so. After all, it's been used to print entire car bodies. More on this here. But in this article we'll explore a project that allowed printing an entire bridge.

A bridge with a 20-meter (65 feet) long 3D printed section appeared in Chengdu, China. The section is printed with a polymer composite material. The practical purpose of the bridge is not clear: it doesn’t connect two shores, both ends are located on the same side.

British company Filamentive added a proprietary PLA-filament to its portfolio. Its impact strength is 7.5 times higher than that of regular PLA (polylactide). It’s interesting that the company achieved this without the use of carbon fiber that is often added in order to improve the mechanical properties of Nylon. (Note: to print with CF-filled filaments one needs to install a hardened steel nozzle like the one here.)

Tumaker offers the Pro Dual line of FDM 3D printers with IDEX kinematics. The systems are offered in different sizes, being equipped with a wide choice of extruder combinations — direct and Bowden for 3D printing filaments and a pellet option for working with granular polymers.

Today, we will talk not about desktop CNC machines such as the Flux BeamBox 50W but about industrial installations. The KAMAZ automobile plant acquired the dual-spindle Unitwin 6000 CNC machining center by the Dutch company Unisign. This machine is designed for complex processing of truck front axles.

The vertical 5-axis CNC machining center with two swivel spindle units can perform a whole range of operations such as milling, drilling, boring, and reaming for both medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and buses.

Lead Process Engineer Dmitry Silantyev explained, “The device is set up for machining the front axles of the KAMAZ-6520, -65208, -4308, and -5262 models. Previously, we processed them on several CNC machines in our crankcase workshop, now they are replaced by one machining center. The free machines will be used to make other parts."

Nikolay Bardanov, Deputy Chief Technology Officer at KAMAZ, added, “The commissioning works being completed, the machine has been put into operation. The machining center is unique, so a company representative trained the maintenance specialists and operators who will work on it."

The equipment will increase the production of front axles for trucks by reducing the time for changeovers and improve the quality of products.

2021 was an action-packed year for Qrator Labs.

It started with the official celebration of our tenth year anniversary, continued with massive routing incidents, and ended with the infamous Meris botnet we reported back in September.

Now it is time to look at the events of the last quarter of 2021. There are interesting details in the BGP section, like the new records in route leaks and hijacking ASes, but first things first, as we start with the DDoS attacks statistics.

Autodesk, a leader in the development of solutions for design, construction, development, production, animation and graphics, held an annual conference that brought together professionals from all over the world.

Flashforge has released an upgraded version of the Creator 3 desktop FDM 3D printer — the Creator 3 Pro additive system with IDEX kinematics, featuring increased performance as well as a number of hardware and software improvements.

You thought that the Modix Big-180X was too large for your projects, hah? Yaroslavl-based Russian constructional 3D printing company AMT Specavia, a resident of the Skolkovo foundation, is building a whole housing settlement with the help of the in-house developed constructional 3D printer named S-300.

Scientists from the Perm National Research Polytechnic University (PNRPU) and the Mexican Autonomous University of Coahuila are creating a technique for automating the 3D printing process by electron-beam melting of metal wire (EBM) to print parts for aircraft, rockets, and ships. (Changes to such large parts after use are normally examined with laser scanners such as the KSCAN Magic II. Scan examples can be viewed here).

Designed by Olaf Diegel, professor of additive manufacturing at the University of Auckland, this instrument was manufactured using Forust's unusual 3D printing process using wood waste and lignin-based bioresin.

Goodyear is going to test the utility of airless tires on urban roads. The recipients of the new wheels will be Local Motors' 3D printed autonomous shuttles Olli (can scarcely be printed on equipment like the Craftbot Plus Pro;) ) put into trial operation in Florida.

South Korean company Stellamove, Inc. offers an automatic filament changing system for the Ender-3 3D printers (We wonder if the solution could work with the Creality CR-5 Pro H 3D printers). It’s now available for pre-order and supports up to eight filaments during one working cycle.

The automotive industry is a field with fierce competition. A car consists of many important components and parts, including a body, chassis, wheels and tires, interior and exterior elements, as well as an engine, transmission, electronics, mirrors, etc. 

From the design stage to the release, quality control is especially important to ensure that a part meets the requirements, client expectations and that a brand’s reputation has not been diminished. 

The Polish company Sinterit known for budget-friendly Lisa SLS 3D-printers released a new additive system using selective laser sintering technology — the industrial-grade yet fairly affordable NILS 480.

Ezeiza International Airport now has a statue of Diego Maradona, legendary football player who died in 2020. The statue is made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and was 3D printed. The place was surprisingly chosen by Diego himself while he was alive.  

Automotive manufacturer Škoda Auto received an award from the Czech Republic’s Confederation of Industry for its ‘More flexible with 3D print farms” project of integrating additive technologies into manufacturing. The company mainly uses domestic 3D printers by Prusa Research. 

A hip arthroplasty surgery involving the use of a custom-made titanium endoprosthesis was performed in the clinic of Samara State Medical University in Samara, Russia. The implant was 3D printed using locally manufactured materials.

Once again, we are going to talk not about familiar desktop CNC machines such as the Flux BeamBox 40W but about large industrial equipment.

The Kolomna Locomotive Works of Transmashholding put into operation a line for the manufacture of diesel engine fuel equipment. The machining centers and CNC machines of the new line will increase the production of parts by 40% and improve the quality of products. Precision fuel equipment is the most complex component of a diesel engine, which directly affects fuel consumption, environmental friendliness, and performance of the machine, as well as its service life.

The new equipment will increase processing accuracy and speed, reduce the number of finishing operations, and increase labor productivity. The production line consists of 24 units of high-precision equipment: machining centers and versatile CNC machines. The costs amounted to 2 billion rubles (about $26,280,000).

The program for the production modernization and the introduction of new equipment was developed by the engine-building center of Transmashholding.

The total volume of the investment program for 2018–2022 is about 12 billion rubles (~$157,720,000). Its implementation should ensure an increase in the quality of existing products, a decrease in production costs, and the creation of new competitive products.

Dmitry Mirny, CEO of the Kolomna Locomotive Works, stated, “We have purchased modern high-tech equipment that will allow the factory to accelerate the process of production modernization, increase production volumes, and speed up diesel engine repairs.”

Welcome all fans of clean code! Today we analyze the PascalABC.NET project. In 2017, we already found errors in this project. We used two static analysis tools (more precisely, plugins for SonarQube): SonarC# and PVS-Studio. Today, we analyze this project with the latest version of the PVS-Studio analyzer for C#. Let's see what errors we can find today, especially when our analyzer has become more advanced and got new features: it can find more exquisite errors and potential vulnerabilities.