3D Printing News Briefs: June 11, 2019

Starting with a little business in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, Materialise has signed an MoU with Sigma Labs, and Carpenter Technology Corporation launched an additive manufacturing business unit, while Ampower just released a metal 3D printing technology map. Moving on to news about 3D printers, 3D Potter has introduced a compact version of its Scara clay 3D printer, and a UK service bureau installed an HP Jet Fusion 4200 system.

Materialise and Sigma Labs Sign MoU

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in 2014, Sigma Labs signed an agreement with Materialise to integrate its PrintRite quality inspection technology into the Belgian company’s 3D printing software. Now, five years later, the two companies have entered into a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in order to evaluate this integration together.

The mission behind the MoU is, according to MarketScreener, “to create an integrated product solution composed of sophisticated control technology enhanced with in-situ process monitoring for metal additive manufacturing.” Materialise and Sigma Labs have a shared vision to ultimately set up a formal licensing agreement, or a formal joint marketing collaboration, for a truly integrated product.

Carpenter Launches Additive Business Unit

Carpenter Technology Corporation has been working to build on its reputation as a metal powder supplier in order to become a leader in the 3D printing industry, and it appears to have worked. Recently, the company launched a new business unit, called Carpenter Additive, which offers a wide range of products and services, such as finished component production capabilities, metal powder lifecycle management solutions, and integrated AM and R&D facilities. The new business unit even made an appearance at the recent RAPID + TCT 2019.

“From powder production to manufacturing and finishing parts, the full spectrum of our capabilities is what differentiates Carpenter Additive from the rest of the AM industry. We are revolutionizing how customers approach this disruptive technology by offering end-to-end solutions through an array of technical expertise, powder production, parts production, and material lifecycle management,” said Carpenter’s President and CEO Tony R. Thene. “Carpenter Additive is working with our customers and driving industry-wide change.”

Ampower Releases New Technology Map

Metal 3D printing consultancy Ampower is working to prepare for its metal additive manufacturing report, which will be released at formnext in Germany this fall. While compiling the report, Ampower closely studied all of the available metal AM technologies and counted them up, arriving at a total of 18 falling into seven different categories, including powder, wire, and granulate. In addition, Ampower analyzed the supply chain and counted up nearly 90 different metal AM machine vendors. Now, the consultancy has put all of its findings together in a high-resolution metal AM technology map, which can be downloaded from Ampower’s website.

“In our Technology Map for Metal Additive Manufacturing, we subdivide the procedures based on the ASTM / ISO 52900,” Ampower wrote on its website. “However, methods are now known that elude a known classification. Systems from vendors such as Vader and Fabrisonic use completely new approaches to energy input and raw materials. However, these technologies still have a relatively young degree of maturity. In addition, it should be noted that even with the same classification, the procedures may still differ. For example, the technology of 3DEO can only be classified as binder jetting as it incorporates a milling process at the same time.”

To learn more, download the metal AM technology map today.

3D Potter Launches Compact Version of Scara V3 3D Printer

Florida-based company 3D Potter, formerly known as DeltaBots, makes low-pressure, high-powered 3D ceramic printers. These delta-style printers are completely dedicated to 3D printing ceramics and pottery, and the company is now the 3D printer manufacturer for over 200 aerospace and defense entities, research facilities, and universities.  Recently, 3D Potter introduced a lightweight, compact version of its Scara V3 – the 3D Potterbot Scara Mini V1, which has no air compressor and features a single joint Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm (SCARA), which operates on a rotational x and y-axis. The printer’s 200 ml extruder is easy to clean, and there’s no weight limit for final 3D printed products, which achieve high accuracy and even consistency with no air bubbles. The Scara Mini V1 is fully capable of 360° multiple object printing.

“The other advantage for universities and architectural departments is that it can do architectural objects. It can actually print inside an object,” explained 3D Potter president Danny Defelici.

To see the new Scara Mini V1 in action, take a look at the video below.

Design Reality Service Bureau Installs HP Jet Fusion 4200

UK industrial design consultancy and service bureau Design Reality, headquartered in Wales, is made up of design and electronics experts who work to create products for clients in the medical, industrial, and consumer industries. Recently, the company made the decision to install an HP Jet Fusion 3D 4200 3D printer in order lower outsourcing requirements and improve upon its design and production capabilities, which will in turn provide its customers with a consistent, end-to-end solution and faster turnarounds. Since the system was installed, Design Reality has already attracted some new customers.

“Our ambition is to make lives healthier and safer with the products that we design. We want to leverage any advantage we can to improve product development quality, performance and speed of delivery,” said Graham Wilson, the Owner and Design Director at Design Reality. “The technology offered in the HP Multi jet Fusion HP 3D 4200 enables reliable prototyping and additive manufacturing, providing quality products into the hands of our clients, faster and at a lower cost. Our clients no longer have to wait for conventional tooling and manufacturing processes, and the investment that is associated with it.”

Design Reality is mainly sticking with HP’s Nylon 12 material in order to lower waste, and is using HP’s subscription pricing, which is the first pay-per-use subscription model in the industry, for its materials.

Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

Mimaki USA and Sindoh Introduce New 3DFF-222 Desktop 3D Printer

In 2015, Mimaki USA, an operating entity of Japanese company Mimaki Engineering, announced that it would begin development of its own full color 3D printer, which was then previewed two years later. The company installed its first photorealistic, UV-cure inkjet 3DUJ-553 3D printer in the Americas last winter at print technology company Pictographics in Las Vegas, and is now venturing into the world of desktop 3D printing with its latest product launch.

Mimaki is one of the top manufacturers of wide-format inkjet printers and cutters, along with 3D modeling machines, software, hardware, and associated consumables, like cutting blades and ink. Now it’s adding the new 3DFF-222 desktop 3D printer to the mix, which is co-branded with South Korean 3D printer manufacturer Sindoh.

“The new desktop 3D printer is designed to fit the needs of modern print production environments and it is suitable for a broad range of uses. This latest product introduction demonstrates Mimaki’s commitment to driving innovation and providing our customers with profit-enhancing solutions,” said Michael Maxwell, a senior manager at Mimaki USA.

The FFF 3D printing solution by Mimaki and Sindoh, which was developed to be used as an in-house design and production tool, obviously doesn’t have the more than 10 million color combinations offered by the full-color 3DUJ-553 printer, but it’s perfect for fabricating parts, like jigs, that are used in direct-to-object printing. The desktop 3DFF-222 can also be used to manufacture tools for producing 3D signage, as well as molds for vacuum forming.

The compact 3DFF-222 makes it possible for users to cut back on costs as they work to expand into more profitable markets, and was designed to reduce noise levels during operation, making it a good system for use in an office setting. The 3D printer’s fully covered design, which helps gets rid of any disruption of contaminants that might adhere to a model during 3D printing, and its installed HEPA filter also contribute to this.

The new desktop 3D printer by Mimaki USA and Sindoh, the latter of which also created a 3D printer in partnership with Stanley Black & Decker a few years ago, prints parts up to 8.27″ x 7.87″ x 7.67″ in easily loadable PLA filament cartridges, and also provides remote monitoring of each print through a built-in camera and included app.

“Flexibility and ease-of-use are key features of the new desktop 3D printer,” Maxwell stated. “This printer also complements our industrial printers seamlessly. The 3DFF-222 is capable of inexpensively producing customized print jigs, which can be used to stabilize print quality when printing on UV-LED flatbed printers from our UJF Series. Additionally, customers can create objects for decoration as well as a variety of signage.”

Additional features of the new desktop 3DFF-222 3D printer include a heated flexible bed, which has a built-in thermostatic function for easy model removal and stable formation during 3D printing, and semi-automatic leveling, which measures the table’s horizontal error and tells the color monitor how to maintain a level position.

A 5″ full-color touch panel provides illustrated instructions to make the system easy to operate, and the filament is automatically loaded and supplied to the 0.4 mm 3D printer nozzle after installation, with no manual feeding required. The 3D printer weighs 16 kg and comes with a built-in LED lamp and dedicated 3DWOX Desktop slicing software.

The 3DFF-222, which is the latest addition to Mimaki’s 3D printer portfolio after its full-color 3DUJ-553, is now available for order.

Discuss this story and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[Images: Mimaki]

Microlight3D Introduces New Altraspin 3D Printing System for High-Resolution, Microscale Parts

As you can probably guess by its name, French 3D printer manufacturer Microlight3D specializes in ultra high-resolution 3D microprinting systems. The company’s two-photon polymerization direct laser writing technology, which includes proprietary software specifically tuned for faster direct laser writing speeds with sub-micron resolution, allows a laser to move freely in three dimensions, performing uninterrupted 3D printing inside a polymer resist.

This week, Microlight3D launched the next generation of high resolution, microscale 3D printing with its new turnkey system – the compact Altraspin, a 3D printer that can produce extremely complex micro-parts with sub-micron resolution.

“Microlight3D designed Altraspin to respond to manufacturing demands for more customization and the rapid prototyping of submicron parts that are not constrained by their geometric or organic shape. We removed another constraint by extending user choice in the materials available for 3D microprinting. Altraspin is compatible with a wide range of polymers and biomaterials, including those of our customers,” said Microlight3D president Denis Barbier. “Without a doubt, the submicron resolution our technology obtains has been key to our growing success within the scientific community. We anticipate that industrial companies will also benefit from the advantages of our 3D-printer for micro-parts, geared to helping them overcome limitations and reduce time-to-market.”

The Altraspin can achieve a sub-micron resolution down to 0.2µm, which means it can 3D print micro-parts with a resolution that’s 100 times smaller than a single strand of hair, which is great news for applications that need a high-quality surface finish and exact precision, such as cell culture, micro-sensors, metamaterials, micro-optics, tissue engineering, and 3D printing shapes that can fit inside microfluidic devices.

The company’s technology uses a proprietary continuous print flow technique, which is how it manages to not be constrained by the typical layer-by-layer method that limits most 3D printing resolution to 25µm. It’s able to fabricate micro-parts that are so smooth they don’t need any post-processing, which can save manufacturers both time and money.

When designing the new Altraspin 3D printer, Microlight3D focused on its ease of use. As soon as the user designs a 3D model with CAD tools and picks a polymer material, the company’s algorithms will calculate the laser’s path. A laser pulse then writes directly inside the printer’s liquid-material bath in order to very precisely solidify the path it’s taking. The laser can build complex architectures, since it’s able to move around freely and continuously, and a solvent washes away the excess monomer at the end of the process, so users can handle the print immediately upon removal.

The Altraspin has high-writing resolution and precision, along with high-writing speeds, for complex 3D structures, and also features a new TPP slicing tool. Due to its compact design, it’s well-suited for use in clean-room and sterile environments, along with laminar flow cabinets.

Additional tech specs for the Altraspin include:

  • Print speed up to 5 mm per second
  • STL and STEP files
  • Maximum object size of 100 x 75 x 0.6 mm
  • Anti-vibration system
  • Advanced machine control, including replication and custom plugins for complex parts

Next week at the two-day SPIE BiOS expo, which is part of the week-long Photonics West event in San Francisco, Microlight3D will be exhibiting its new Altraspin 3D printer at its booth #8136.

Discuss this news and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[Source: Optics / Images: Microlight3D]

Sintratec Unveiling the Modular Sintratec S2 Industrial SLS 3D Printer

Swiss 3D printer developer and manufacturer Sintratec, which has been busily adding resellers around the world in countries like France, Germany, and South Korea this year, is at formnext 2018 in Frankfurt this week, like most of the rest of the 3D printing industry. The company is presenting its new compact, industrial 3D printer – the Sintratec S2 – which, like its predecessors the Sintratec S1 and the Sintratec Kit, is based on SLS technology.

The modular system is interesting in terms of SLS technology in that it integrates, and semi-automates, the laser sintering, de-powdering, material preparation, and surface treatment processes. The end-to-end solution allows users to benefit from economic operation with decreased down times, precisely 3D printed objects with freedom of form, and no more annoying cleaning processes. This could reduce cost per part.

Not only is the new Sintratec S2 good for optimizing application designs of small- and medium-sized series production, but it’s also a great method for manufacturing prototypes. The smart system has a modular construction, with the build chamber located inside the Material Core Unit, but easy to remove from the Laser Sintering Station. The unit also comes with an integrated powder mixing function for convenient powder handling. To process different materials, users need only expand the Sintratec S2 with an additional Material Core Unit.

If SLS components require better surface qualities once off the print bed, the blast cabinet Sintratec Blasting Station can take care of it, while the Sintratec Polishing Station – a magnetic tumbler – helps to seal surface impurities and give the completed parts a smoother finish. In addition, the Sintratec Material Handling Station cleanly collects both used and excess 3D printing material sieves it for reprocessing.

The 3D printer’s Sintratec Laser Sintering Station comes with a cylindric printing area, made up of a new heating and ventilation concept, so it can receive consistent, homogeneous print results. It comes with an integrated 4K camera to control print jobs and evaluate each layer’s surface in real time, and its laser scanning system offers a faster print speed and enhanced process repeatability. The Sintratec S2 is fully operated through an intuitive touchscreen.

The Sintratec S2 allows users to focus on the applications of tomorrow, and tap potential for professional prototyping purposes. It is well-suited for developing more complex components, which can provide designers and engineers both economic and creative benefits.

Thanks to its modular design, users of the Sintratec S2 can expand their production capacity by adding specific modules, and achieve high-quality SLS prints. The company is now accepting purchase reservations for its new Sintratec S2 3D printer, and you can see it for yourself this week at formnext, which ends on Friday, at the Sintratec booth G79 in Hall 3.1. If you’re unable to make it to Frankfurt, you can also see the SLS system in action by watching the video below:

Discuss this news and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[Images provided by Sintratec]