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3D Printing Unicorns, Part 2: Carbon

When a privately held startup hits $1 billion in value, it magically transforms from an ugly mare into a beautiful unicorn (or so the legend goes). In the 3D printing space, there are three such creatures and we’ll be profiling each one. This time, we’ll be taking a look at Carbon.

Carbon’s CLIP Technology

Though the company was founded in 2013 (originally named Carbon3D), Carbon broke news and brains in 2015, when co-founder and CEO Joseph DeSimone gave a TED talk showcasing a prototype for the firm’s ultra-quick Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) technology. What was so brain-breaking about CLIP at the time was the fact that it was claimed that it could fabricate complete layer less objects in less than 10 minutes, 25 to 100 times the speed of other technologies on the market.

CLIP is now considered a form of continuous DLP 3D printing. The way it works is that a UV LED projector is cast through an oxygen permeable membrane onto photopolymer resin. Between the item being printed and the window is what Carbon calls a “dead zone” that consists of uncured resin. While light passes through the dead zone and cures the part, resin flows beneath into the dead zone to maintain the “continuous liquid interface”.

Unlike CLIP, with its continuous liquid interface, traditional DLP features the use of a mechanism to cleave printed parts from the print bed with each layer. Instead of spending time slicing the layer from the print bed, CLIP technology just keeps on going, allowing for seamless prints.

The speed is just the most obvious advantage of CLIP. The layerless nature of the process means isotopic parts, something previously virtually unseen in polymer 3D printing, typically hindered by weakness along the z-axis. Due to the unique chemistries developed in-house by Carbon, additional heat treatment in a forced-circulation oven applied to their 3D-printed parts activates engineer-grade strength. As a result, these parts are not just strong all around, but match the physical characteristics mass manufacturers are looking for in some end use components.

CLIP was brought to market with the M1 3D printer (build volume 144 x 81 x 330mm, resolution 75μm), which also introduced Carbon’s novel pricing scheme. Rather than purchase printers and materials, customers subscribe to them. With the M1, this meant $40,000 per year with a minimum three-year term got clients the printer, materials, software and support. Installation and training was $10,000. And an initial accessory pack was $12,000. Discounts were applied to the purchase of multiple systems.

From left to right: the Smart Part Washer, the M2 and the M1.

After the M1 came the M2, which offered twice the build volume of its predecessor, as well as a Smart Part Washer, an automated method for cleaning parts after printing. With the new machines, DeSimone also explained that Carbon was developing modular technology that would make it possible to upgrade, attach, or automate systems.

The subsequent L1 3D printer, released just this past February, now serves as Carbon’s production-level machine, with ten-times the build volume of the M1 and five times that of the M2. Now, the M2 is billed as more of a prototyping or small-batch printing machine. Carbon advertises the fact that customers can now prototype using the exact same technology with which they will manufacture, providing a streamlined pathway from design to production.

A row of L1 3D printers.

Along with the printers, Carbon has released a number of materials that range from high-temperature resistant and stiff cyanate ester to flexible polyurethane to a range of FDA-compliant dental materials. Also, somewhere around 2017, Carbon began differentiating between its 3D printing process (CLIP) and the hardware that enables that process, referred to as Digital Light Synthesis (DLS).

Since Carbon’s launch, numerous other companies have unveiled their own form of continuous DLP 3D printing, some boasting benefits and speeds above and beyond CLIP. Prodways, Carima, and EnvisionTEC all demonstrated forms of continuous DLP. A Chicago-based startup called Azul 3D has designed a 3D printing system that prints even bigger and faster than CLIP.

What many challengers don’t have are the names that Carbon has brought on board in the form of partners, investors and members of the executive team. The firm’s four fundraising rounds between 2014 and 2017 have included Google Ventures, GE, Adidas, BMW and Johnson & Johnson. Craig Carlson from Tesla joined the company to lead its engineering team in 2014. Carbon’s board of directors includes former Ford CEO Alan Mulally and former DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman.

Adidas’s Futurecraft Speedfactory

The partnership that seemed to catch some of the most headlines was that with Adidas, who, in 2017, announced that it would use Carbon’s DLS to create “Speedfactories” as a means of re-shoring European manufacturing. The effort was designed to replace the thousands of low-wage workers performing manual labor in Asia with a combination of Carbon 3D printers and other robots run by just 160 local Adidas employees. The goal was to produce, by mid-2017, 500,000 shoes with 3D-printed midsoles per year.

As we’ve recently learned, however, an aspect of the Speedfactory initiative has ended, specifically shoes with Boost midsoles. Joris pointed out that $43 per 3D-printed midsole was a hefty price for a company dependent on cheap goods for maximum profits. He also exhibited concern for the longevity of the materials used for 3D-printed midsoles. Adidas has said that it will continue the use of Carbon technology for the production of midsoles and even plans to scale up in total.

The outlook for 3D-printed midsoles may not be as bleak as Joris initially speculated, or at least not on the surface, but it really is worth considering how much 3D printing will ultimately contribute to the re-shoring of jobs in the Global North while humanity simultaneously strives to repair our ecosystem. Can we continue to invent and implement new technologies for the production of wasteful consumer goods made from petroleum-based plastics if we want to reduce fossil fuel use and prevent ecological collapse? While we attempt to answer (or ignore) that question, our blissful unicorns can continue galloping forward onto new valuations.

Since fundraising efforts began in 2014, Carbon has raised a total of $682 million, with its latest Series E funding round in June of this year bringing in $260 million. The company is now valued at nearly $2.4 billion. That’s more than two whole unicorns!

The post 3D Printing Unicorns, Part 2: Carbon appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Joseph DeSimone Out as Carbon CEO, Replaced by Ellen Kullman

Sometimes executives wish to spend less time with their families; today, Joseph DeSimone is stepping down as Carbon CEO. Joseph will instead become Executive Chairman of the Board. His replacement is Ellen Kullman, who will also remain on Carbon’s board (as well as a number of other boards that she sits on, such as Goldman’s). Ellen seems like a perfect candidate given her background as a mechanical engineer and in senior positions at GE, GM and DuPont. Indeed her experience at automotive firms, polymer firms, and her extensive network are very valuable to the firm. It is a bit unclear at this point, however, if she is a “placeholder” until a full-time CEO has been found or if she will change from serving on boards and councils to go back to the day-to-day running of a company. Either way, she is a safe pair of hands to run the firm and to lead this transition at this time.

And it will be quite the transition. Joseph founded Carbon six years ago. His TEDX speech made a huge impact and immediately the company was launched into the stratosphere. Expectations were high and the company has shown itself to be a master at marketing. Creating inevitability is something Carbon has done very well. With its CLIP (DLS) technology, it has a potentially faster method to print SLA parts and the firm parlayed this into a self-reinforcing hype around making manufacturing possible. Hundreds of millions were raised and the firm expanded quickly.

I’ve gone on the record extensively as being skeptical of Carbon’s claims and the suitability of its technology as a manufacturing technology. At this point, I don’t believe that the world wants a thermoset plastic that can not be recycled as a huge volume manufacturing technology. I do not think consumers will stand for it. I also do not believe that Carbon can work well with parts that have a significant cross-sectional area or indeed are very large. Whereas Carbon’s materials portfolio is very impressive with stronger, specific and flexible materials, I’ll always be skeptical of the real-life performance of these parts as end-use parts. The firm’s leasing model is innovative but the TCO is simply too high as in the cost per part. If the firm had always maintained that it was an effective technology for some geometries of small SLA parts for dental and molds then I’d be fine with it. The idea however that CLIP/DLS specifically would unlock a manufacturing revolution in end-use parts always filled me more with dread than optimism. 3D printing is manufacturing technology. There is a concrete floor somewhere waiting for machines to make things. You can interest people through promises and overinflated expectation but in the final analysis an entrepreneur or company will have to spend money on something that works. In the face of reshaping our world, we as an industry should be humble, truthful and clear.

It is the hyperbole and self-congratulatory nature of the firm that has always bothered me. Don’t get me wrong, Joseph’s scientific work and Carbon’s process is innovative. Carbon’s ability to market itself and push the conversation about 3D printing forward is awesome. I’m very impressed with the firm’s accomplishments and Joe’s role in taking a technology (of several) and raising an incredible $682 million. Carbon is a real achievement but then the firm spoils it all. The press release states, “I am privileged to have spent the last few years on the Carbon board working alongside Joe, one of the greatest entrepreneurs and scientists of our time.” Yes, he’s super impressive but he didn’t discover DNA, people. Come on.

“For the last six years, I have led Carbon as Chief Executive Officer and am enormously proud of what we’ve accomplished during my tenure/ I know what we will accomplish under Ellen will be even more extraordinary. Ellen is the right person to lead Carbon today. She has broad experience across multiple businesses, cycles, and geographies. Her vision, outstanding leadership traits, and distinguished track record will continue to drive Carbon’s growth into the future. In assuming the Executive Chairman role, I will be able to focus on evangelizing the platform and driving adoption more widely.”

So what has happened here? There are broadly, three scenarios.

As espoused by a formerly quite impressive magazine: this could be a logical planned step for the next phase of the company’s development. That drops during Formnext. Without an event or extensive canapes and drinks. Without being pre-whispered to the press in advance? Without a nice round of OMG it was amazing interviews before. I’m skeptical about this because Joseph wasn’t some WeWork cray-cray-peneur. He seemed to be on top of the firm’s growth and development and had credibility in our industry. He was optimistic sure, but not nuts.
Performance at Carbon could have been disappointing investors. If I look around then it wouldn’t surprise me if the number of initially shipped units would not have all of a sudden done a hockeystick and increased as projected. A manufacturing technology is perhaps not as predictable in its growth as an app. It is difficult to find applications customers and firm and industrialize 3D printing processes. With limited sizes and geometries, the number of possible applications Carbon can tackle remains limited. I know of only one customer using Carbon as some scale to manufacture end-use parts, but that probably just my limited knowledge of the industry talking.
I really do hate to have to bring up the Speedfactories again but the closure of the Speedfactories (along with a post-closure as hoc announcement that they will be continuing with Carbon) plus the impending departure from Adidas of Board Member Eric Liedke may have dented investor’s confidence in turning hope & friends into dollars in manufacturing.
As someone stated to me only yesterday, fear surrounding returns after WeWork has made boards and investors much more critical of deployed capital than in the past, and perhaps this review has also occurred at Carbon.

All in all, Joseph DeSimone has really propelled our industry forward. As a scientist and business leader he has shown us as CEO what one could do by asking “What if 3D Printing Were a 100 Times Faster.” Still a valid question.

Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.

The post Joseph DeSimone Out as Carbon CEO, Replaced by Ellen Kullman appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Carbon Releases the L1 3D Printer

Carbon has been making progress rolling out its 3D printers worldwide. The company has new directors, expanded its partnership with Ford and boldly reduced the prices on its resins. The company now takes a new step with the release of its L1 3D printer. The L1 has ten times the build volume of the M1 printer and five times the build volume of an M2 and is meant to be a manufacturing device. Interestingly the company says that “Products need to be validated by Carbon in the design phase in order to be printed on an L1 to ensure quality.” For certain industries not being able to validate their own designs could be a limitation. We reached out to the company for comment and they responded to tell us that,

“Validation is comprehensive and addresses all parts going into production. For adidas, that means different sizes and left and right models of the same shoe. For Riddell, every helmet is custom designed, so a broad array of designs are validated. For other applications, validation of one part could be sufficient to validate a closely related family of parts. Validation is an integral part of designing each Carbon Solution and is included in pricing the solution.”

Carbon’s power washing tools and the integrated software that comes with the system can be used in conjunction. Carbon’s materials will also be available. The solution comes replete with QA tools and monitoring to assure that you can control your production. Carbon’s products are developed in lockstep with each other and this level of tight integration means a tightly controlled ecosystem and should entail better ease of use. Carbon has always done this kind of thing in a very Apple-like way. This does mean that firms can go from a standstill to volume quickly but once we start targeting hundreds of thousands of parts wouldn’t companies want more control and more ability to use their own materials, settings, and procedures?

The company reports that:

“adidas and Carbon partnered to design and manufacture the adidas 4D midsole, and the L1 printer was one of the key innovations that made this possible. Together, we produced 100,000 pairs of the 4D midsoles in 2018. Our plan is to further scale the production of 4D shoes to millions in the coming years.”

If they pull off making millions of shoes then this indeed would be quite the coup for the technology. Only a few years ago I was very skeptical of Carbon being able to make 100,000 midsoles. I appear to stand corrected on that front, and with regards to Carbon apparently having made 100,000 midsoles for shoes that people are wearing today I congratulate them. I still am skeptical of Carbon being able to make shoe soles and midsoles that work in the real world, however. One firm that may make me partially more positive on this is Riddell. The American Football gear group is turning to Carbon to make helmet liners.

“Riddell and Carbon have partnered to be the first to bring customized, digitally printed helmet liners to market. Riddell’s SpeedFlex Precision Diamond is the first football helmet to have a digitally manufactured football helmet liner.”

The SpeedFlex Precision line is customized precision fit football helmet and indeed liners would seem to be a more doable application for the technology. It is precisely this kind of a combination of using 3D printing to develop mass customized higher functionality products that will deliver a lot of value for 3D printing in the future. Riddell itself has been working on custom made football helmets for a number of years now. By making a conventionally manufactured helmet and custom liners the company has a separation of concern which means that the process will not be costly and be relatively straightforward to implement. This paradigm is an excellent way of thinking about enabling mass customization for consumer goods.

The seven custom 3D printed pads that make up the liner.

Carbon definitely seems to be making progress in delivering increased yield and throughput to customers. On the business development side, the company also seems to have laser-like focus in finding those clients on the cusp of significant mass customization initiatives and partnering with them. What do you think? Is my caution unwarranted and should I be more optimistic?

The BIG IDEAS for UV + EB Technology Conference is the Place to Learn About Photopolymers and 3D Printing

The Radtech BIG IDEAS for UV+EB Technology conference takes place on Tuesday, March 19th and Wednesday, March 20th in Redondo Beach California. The BIG IDEAS for UV+EB Technology is the place to learn about advances in photopolymer material development for 3D printing and Additive Manufacturing.

By being specialized and focused on UV curable materials, this two-day conference is the one place in the world to find out what is happening in UV curable 3D printing technologies. This is the most efficient way for you to in one to be up to speed with the current state of UV curing in 3D Printing. All of the critical leaps in photopolymer technology from new materials to new industrializations of products and new applications will be discussed here. You can learn from companies such as Ford, Carbon, Formlabs, Fast Radius, Origin, Sartomer, Allnex, NIST, and more. At the conference, you can also learn directly from exhibitors, other attendees, and of course the speakers. The technologies Inkjet, stereolithography, DLP as well as emerging technologies will be covered.

Some speakers will include Darryl Boyd, of the US Naval Research Lab who will talk about “Photopolymerization of Thiolyne Polymers for Use in Additive Manufacturing.” While Ali Khademhosseini of UCLA will discuss “Light-Enabled Materials for Regenerative Engineering.” Ellen Lee, of Ford, will talk about, “Driving Additive Manufacturing Towards Production of End-Use Parts.” You can have a look at the complete program here.

Dr. Mike Idacavage is the Session Chair for Additive Manufacturing at the conference. We reached out to him to find out what is happening in the UV curables for 3D printing space.

Who are you looking to reach?

“We are looking to reach anyone within the entire photopolymer supply chain that is looking for a big idea in materials and processing to transition their SLA, DLP, and inkjet 3D printing from prototyping to production parts. We want the chemistry suppliers, material developers, equipment builders, and users of 3D printing and additive manufacturing to work together to build a stronger photopolymer supply chain and this is done through sharing big ideas.”

Is there anything unique or special about the conference?

“While many other 3D printing and additive manufacturing conferences focus on all the different printing processes, we focus only on photopolymer materials, and we bring together the experts and industry leaders to discuss big ideas. It is this deep dive into the science and applications of photopolymer 3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing that makes the BIG Ideas conference unique when compared to just about any (all?) other conferences in this field.”

What makes photopolymers exciting right now?

“Like most areas of chemistry, research on expanding the boundaries of what photopolymers can achieve has been steadily moving forward. However, what has accelerated the rate of development in photopolymers has been the demands of a wide range of industrial applications. Due to the tremendous pull of new applications, including Additive Manufacturing, Raw Material supply companies have focused on pushing the performance of photopolymers to meet the needs of the end user.”

What are the advantages of printing with photopolymers?

“Several advantages differentiate the use of photopolymers as a base material in 3D Printing from other methods. One f the most significant is that objects printed using photopolymers are typically stronger in the Z directions. During 3D printing using photopolymers, a chemical reaction takes place in the confined area where the UV energy interacts with the UV curable raw materials. The increased strength results from chemical bonding that takes place between the printed layers. As most objects printed by Additive Manufacturing require strength that is at least comparable to objects made by traditional methods such as injection molding, the increased strength in the Z direction is important. Another advantage in the use of photopolymers is the increase in resolution that results from focusing a very narrow region of UV energy in a liquid resin formulation to start the formation of a solid photopolymer. This gives a higher level of layer resolution than other more common forms of Additive Manufacturing such as FDM or SLS. There have been published reports of resolution in the nanometer scale using photopolymers in academic labs. While this is not yet practical in industry, it does indicate the potential for photopolymers. A third advantage is a result of the higher resolution. When properly tuned with the printer, an almost smooth surface can result which minimizes or eliminates any need for surface finishing of the printed object.”

What are some exciting developments in photopolymers?

“In my opinion, the two most exciting areas of photopolymer development work are improvements to the raw materials used in the resin formulations and work being done in formulation labs to creatively combine different chemistries to achieve performance not yet obtainable from a single class of UV reactive materials.”

Are materials improving?

“Yes! Most raw material manufacturers are investing research time in the development of new materials that extend the performance of the fully cured photopolymer. An example of this is the current work being done by different companies to produce a liquid UV curable material that is both tough and flexible after cure. This target is extremely challenging, but results are being reported at conferences such as Big Ideas that clearly show that the cured performance properties are being expanded to the levels required by end-use.”

What kind of new manufacturing applications do you see emerging in 3D printing photopolymers?

“The majority of the current efforts in photopolymer Additive Manufacturing are focused on targeting industrial applications where individual/single or short manufacturing runs are needed. In addition, the performance of the object in the application requires properties currently obtained by bulk polymers using traditional manufacturing methods such as injection molding. Examples of the marriage between individual production of an object that must perform in the field and customization would be in the automotive industry in the custom replacement of hard to get parts, the shipping industry in preventing idle time of trains/ships by quickly making a replacement part and the electronics industry in the custom manufacture of earphones.”

Would you like to learn more? See all of the exhibitors, scheduled talks and pricing information on the Radtech BIG IDEAS for UV+EB Technology Conference here.

University of Michigan takes on CLIP 3D printing with “single exposure” fabrication

Scientists at the University of Michigan have developed a high speed 3D printing technology that can be scaled to achieve the production of large objects. Tipped to be 100 times faster than other commercially available technologies, the technique is also capable of rending a 3D object with just a single flash of light rather than layer […]