Vapor smoothing glossary: the words you will see in the guides

The process

• Vapor smoothing. A surface finishing process for thermoplastic parts. In AMT’s words, the rough surface of a printed part “is exposed to solvent vapors under controlled conditions. The vapor condenses on the part’s surface, eliminating peaks and troughs.” The result is a smooth, sealed surface.
• The four stages. AMT’s product pages describe a cycle as conditioning (parts reach processing conditions), processing (vaporized consumable is injected into the chamber), curing (the surface resolidifies) and drying (no consumable traces remain in the chamber).
• Sealing. Smoothing closes the open, porous surface of a powder bed part. AMT’s pages and customers describe the result as easier to clean and more resistant to water.
• Recipe. The set of process settings for a material and part. Your AMT application engineer sets recipes for your parts.
• Chamber. The space the parts sit in during a cycle. Its size decides how many parts fit in one run.
• Rack / hanging. How parts are held in the chamber so the vapor reaches every surface you care about.
• Closed loop. AMT describes the SF50 and SF100 as fully closed-loop systems, with a consumable recovery process.

Measuring results

• Surface roughness (Ra). A common measure of surface texture: the average deviation of the surface from its mean line, usually in micrometers (µm). Lower is smoother.
• Dimensional change. How much a part’s size changes through smoothing. Check it on the features that matter for your fit.
• Benchmark. AMT’s program for testing your parts before you buy.

Printing technologies

• PBF (powder bed fusion). Printing by fusing layers of polymer powder. SLS, MJF, SAF and HSS are all PBF.
• SLS. Selective laser sintering: a laser fuses the powder.
• MJF. HP Multi Jet Fusion: a fusing agent and infrared energy fuse the powder.
• SAF. Selective Absorption Fusion, a Stratasys powder bed process.
• HSS. High Speed Sintering, a powder bed process used by voxeljet.
• FDM / FFF. Material extrusion: a heated nozzle lays down filament.
• Loose powder. Unfused powder left on powder bed parts. Remove it before smoothing.

Materials

• PA12, PA11. Polyamide (nylon) 12 and 11, the most common powder bed materials.
• TPU, TPE. Thermoplastic polyurethane and thermoplastic elastomer: flexible materials.
• PP. Polypropylene, smoothed with its own consumable.

AMT products

• PostPro SFX, SF2X. The desktop systems. The SF2X has double the chamber capacity of the SFX.
• PostPro SF50, SF100. The production systems: the same machine with two chamber sizes.
• DMS (Digital Manufacturing System). Automated loading and unloading for PostPro SF100 systems.
• PostPro Pure (FA5802), FA326, FA9202. AMT’s vapor smoothing consumables. FA9202 is for polypropylene. See PostPro Pure, FA326 or FA9202: which consumable for which material?.
• HMI. Human-machine interface: the machine’s touchscreen.
• RFID. Radio-frequency identification. On the SF50 and SF100 it controls user access and recognizes the consumable.
• MES / ERP. Manufacturing execution and enterprise resource planning systems. The SF50 and SF100 connect to them.