Digital light processing (DLP) specialist and open platform 3D manufacturing company atum3D, based in the Netherlands, introduced the latest version of its intuitive Operator Station print preparation software, complete with proprietary MAGS AI technology, at formnext 2018. The software makes it easy to duplicate parts, or fill available build volume, and comes with a slicing preview feature, while MAGS AI will automatically adjust a part’s orientation and generate the necessary supports, based on surface markings made by the user.
Now the company has announced its first onsite installation of the newly updated software solution. Sirris, a Belgian industrial collective center started by the technology industry for the technology industry, provides companies with a high-tech testing infrastructure and is also a partner organization in the Family of the Future project. The collective, which also has a DLP Station 5 3D printer from atum3D, will expand its current offering with the updated Operator Station solution.
“A barrier for printing parts are often the high costs related to the monopoly of or restrictions of material suppliers,” explained Maxime Legrand, Engineer Additive Manufacturing at Sirris. “With this equipment Sirris wants to support companies in the development and the production of their new AM applications at an affordable cost due to the higher flexibility in potential printing materials. This will enable new possibilities that couldn’t be met before. This atum3D setup allows us to demonstrate it’s now possible to quickly create high quality prototypes and end-products with a wide range of different material properties in a cost-efficient way, all with an investment around the € 25k mark.”
Sirris is made up of 150 tech experts, who work together to help around 1,300 companies a year achieve success in their innovation projects. By combining atum3D’s updated Operator Station with the open platform of the DLP Station 5, the collective and the companies it assists will benefit from easier print preparation.
“Operator Station guides you through the job preparation steps, from importing and supporting a part to selecting a resin and from duplicating or filling the build platform to slicing and exporting the job for DLP Station,” said Legrand. “It’s incredibly easy to use.”
The latest release of Operator Station, which uses an algorithm to consider not only the part’s geometry but also its resin properties, also includes a new object scaling functionality.
“We are thrilled to add DLP Station 5 with Operator Station to the state-of-the-art solutions offered by this Belgian innovation leader. Preparing for print has never been easier, with Operator Station’s intuitive touch-ready user interface and atum3D’s proprietary MAGS AI technology, which takes an entirely new approach to print job preparation,” said Guy Nyssen, channel manager at atum3D.
By pairing Operator Station software with the DLP Station 5, which features high accuracy, a free selection of build materials, and print speed up to 90 mm an hour, print preparation is a breeze, especially for new users like those at Sirris.
atum3D delivered the Operator Station to the Sirris Liège location, and installed both the hardware and the software there for the collective. In addition, the company also provided a user training session, which the new users at Sirris found to be “very self-explanatory.”
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This year’s formnext wrapped up last week in Frankfurt, and many companies were there to showcase their latest products, including Colossus, a multinational 3D printing startup based in Belgium. At the trade fair, the startup introduced its aptly named Colossus 3D printer, which it calls the largest and first fully integrated transportable 3D printer in the world. The Colossus was built with flexibility in mind – it’s easy to add on features and upgrade it, and the transportable 3D printer works as a fixed unit as well.
Yannick Aerts, CTO of Colossus, said, “We wanted to build a printing system that really adjusts to our customer needs, so making it as transportable and upgradeable as possible was a main priority.”
Everything on the Colossus, from extruder output and screw types to heated bed, software add-ons, and print volume, is configurable, which makes the system a good fit for a wide variety of industry applications.
The Colossus, with a 4 m³ build volume, is able to support impressively fast print speeds of up to 15 kg an hour, and was designed with what the startup says is “a special accent on materials for furniture, construction applications and large size 3D objects.”
Thanks to the startup’s partnership with the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), ten material compound profiles have been pre-tested on the Colossus, and it’s the first 3D printer of its scale to print with rPET and rPP profiles. Additionally, it can also print with recycled plastic materials.
“Young designers often lack partners to realize their ideas due to the high entry barriers in this market,” said Philippe Mérillet, the Co-Founder of Colossus. “Clients also requested a way to make furniture and other large-scale objects from plastic waste, so we searched the market and a large-scale printer and everything we found was either too slow, too expensive, or could not work with high-temperature materials like rPET or CarbonP which are difficult to extrude. So we decided to develop a printer that would do just that a made for materials.”
After research showed that these kinds of massive, cost-effective 3D printers just aren’t readily available, Colossus had a vision to make a cost-effective, fast 3D printing platform that could also provide a second life to plastic waste. The 2.67 x 1 x 1.5 m Colossus 3D printer features a 3200 x 1300 mm liquid heated bed for easy print removal, along with a granulate-fed extruder print head and a dehumidification unit for achieving better print quality.
“Half of the quality of a print is the state of the material which is why we have a fully integrated drying unit to prep your material so you can get the most out of your print,” Colossus wrote in a release. “Capable of temperatures of up to 400C gives you the flexibility to print almost any plastic material.”
The Colossus 3D printer comes with logging software, in addition to remote connectivity and internet debugging with data points and cameras, so problems can be solved and upgrades can be completed remotely in real-time. The startup provides training, along with contracts for service and maintenance, so customers should feel at ease that the Colossus can run 24/7.
Additional tech specs for the Colossus 3D printer include:
Safety glass window
Heater
Optional air conditioner
1-10 nozzle sizes
The Colossus is adaptable to specific customer requirements and has a fully customizable exterior. There are different lighting and flooring options, and the size of the extruder, window, and dryer can all be changed. You can even order the 3D printer with an extra cooling nozzle. As with most large scale, high throughput 3D printers (3D Printed Canal House, Dirk van der Kooij, etc.) the nozzle has been designed and made by Servan Bakker of Xtrution.
Now that the Colossus 3D printer, which is available for pre-order, has been formally introduced at formnext, the startup plans to improve upon the design and has already completed a prototype. The team is currently researching more options for the system, such as improve retraction, a multi-head system, and a higher print output of up to 25 kg per hour.
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Happy Halloween, fair readers! We’re giving you a treat today instead of a trick – our latest edition of 3D Printing News Briefs. First up, Materialise has completed a mammoth 3D printing project, and Australian manufacturing company C-Mac is embracing the technology for the first time. atum3D has revealed what new product it will be bringing to the upcoming formnext 2018. Finally, a group of French researchers compared powder bed fusion and binder jet 3D printing as possible methods for fabricating sand molds.
Materialise Unveils Life-Size 3D Printed Mammoth
The massive Mammoth of Lier, named for the Belgian city where it was discovered, lived during 20,000 BC, and has been on display at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels since 1869. But thanks to the hard work of Belgian 3D printing company Materialise, the woolly mammoth skeleton is now back home in Lier…a 3D printed version of it, anyway. Earlier this summer, a multidisciplinary team of Materialise engineers and production operators, paleontologists, and archaeologists began work on the mammoth 3D printing project, which is Materialise’s largest yet at 3.5 meters tall. Materialise optimized the 3D scans of each of the mammoth’s 320 bones in order to replicate its fossilized skeleton, then digitally reconstructed it and prepared each file for 3D printing.
“When I heard that the mammoth of Lier would be 3D-printed, I was amazed. 3D printing has already been used for reproducing missing bones, but here we were talking about an entire mammoth, and I think it’s the first time this has been achieved,” said Dr. Mietje Germonpré, paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. “3D printing gave us the opportunity to create a new, more scientifically accurate reconstruction of the mammoth’s anatomy.”
Fittingly, Materialise used nine of its large-format Mammoth SLA 3D printers, the only machines it makes but does not sell, to complete all 1,260 hours of 3D printing. The company’s Design & Engineering team also created a modular carbon fiber structure that could support the skeleton from the interior. Now, the 3D printed replica of the mammoth is back in Lier, just in time for the doors to open at its new city museum.
C-Mac Embraces 3D Printing
Australian manufacturing company C-Mac Industries Cooperative Ltd, headquartered in Sydney, recognized that times were changing in the industry, and not exactly for the better. Between 2008 and 2013, the country lost one manufacturing job every 19 minutes, and C-Mac realized that it needed to evolve. So in the middle of 2017, all of the staff members agreed to become business owners, and C-Mac went from being a family-owned company to a more socially responsible workers’ co-operative. In order to sustain and keep growing its business, C-Mac spent a ten-month period adopting 3D printing and creating parts for over ten different industries, as the technology is rapidly becoming a preferred approach to developing product models.
“You have to embrace change,” said C-Mac’s General Manager Steve Grlyak. ” We have seen so many manufacturing companies in Sydney go bankrupt because they are not willing to change or are slow to adapt to change or have over capitalised on the wrong equipment.
“It is only the beginning. We are also looking into having a 3d printing scholarship award to provide help to students in Australia along with striving to build a bridge between knowledge and practice. The future is upon us.”
It’s not easy to adopt a new type of thinking, but C-Mac knew that 3D printing was the future of the industry and, with the help of its 50 years of experience in manufacturing, stepped up to the plate.
atum3D Introducing Latest Software at formnext
At the upcoming formnext 2018, open platform DLP 3D printing specialist atum3D will be introducing its new, redesigned Operator Station software, which comes with proprietary MAGS AI technology. Thanks to an intuitive user interface and touchscreen support, the software makes it easy for users to prepare print jobs for the company’s DLP Station 3D printers. Operator Station lets users duplicate parts, or fill available build volume, with the click of a button, and its MAGS AI will automatically adjust a part’s orientation and generate the necessary supports.
“We’re very excited to be back in Frankfurt for the third time in a row to show our most recent developments. This year, the main spotlight is on software, one of the three pillars on which atum3D was built, together with hardware engineering and resin chemicals. When creating the all new Operator Station software from the ground up, we took special care to incorporate our user’s feedback and requests. That’s why we created a highly intuitive interface that takes you from part import to final print job in just a few clicks. The intelligent approach of our proprietary MAGS AI technology, which is the abbreviation of Mark, Adjust & Generate Supports, plays an essential role,” said Tristram Budel, CEO at atum3D.
““MAGS AI now analyses the part’s shape, keeps my selection free of supports, suggests the optimal orientation and adds the necessary supports. That’s about as fast and easy as it gets!”
At formnext, atum3D will also be introducing its new Industry Excellence Pack for material scientists and research institutes, as well as an open resin platform for the DLP Station 5, which will be showcased at the event. Visit atum3D at booth 3.1-B19 to see its new Operator Station with MAGS AI and the DLP Station 5.
Comparing Powder Bed Fusion and Binder Jetting for Sand Molds
A trio of researchers from Centrale Nantes and École Normale Supérieure de Rennes in France recently published a paper, titled “A review on the additive manufacturing of sand molds by binder jetting and selective laser sintering,” that analyzes the current techniques of the casting industry for using 3D printed sand molds. Specifically, they looked at SLS and binder jet 3D printing. In the paper, the researchers analyzed patents, case studies, and scientific articles, as there is limited data about 3D printed sand molds in other studies. The research team got together because there’s a lack of resources and interest in 3D printing sand molds, and they wanted to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the topic. The paper highlighted the current gaps in the field, as well as proposed some key perspectives for possible social implications.
“The review investigates new factors and methods for mold design, looking at mechanical properties and cost analysis as influenced by material selection, thermal characteristics, topological optimization and manufacturing procedure,” the researchers state in the paper. “Findings in this study suggest that this topic lacks vigorous scientific research and that the case studies by manufacturers thus far are not useful.”
Co-authors of the paper are Tugdual Amaury Le Néel, Pascal Mognol, and Jean-Yves Hascoët.
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“A barrier for printing parts are often the high costs related to the monopoly of or restrictions of material suppliers,” explained Maxime Legrand, Engineer Additive Manufacturing at Sirris. “With this equipment Sirris wants to support companies in the development and the production of their new AM applications at an affordable cost due to the higher flexibility in potential printing materials. This will enable new possibilities that couldn’t be met before. This atum3D setup allows us to demonstrate it’s now possible to quickly create high quality prototypes and end-products with a wide range of different material properties in a cost-efficient way, all with an investment around the € 25k mark.”
By pairing Operator Station software with the DLP Station 5, which features high accuracy, a free selection of build materials, and print speed up to 90 mm an hour, print preparation is a breeze, especially for new users like those at Sirris.
