I headed to Pittsburg last week for RAPID + TCT to see the latest in 3D manufacturing and was blown away by the amount innovation happening in the space.
The sheer number of companies innovating with 3D printing points to exciting times for the industry. There are hundreds of players searching for ways to print faster, more accurately, and with a host of new materials. These are a few of my key takeaways from the conference.
Exploring New Ways to Reduce Production Time
A primary concern for users – no matter the industry – is the need to reduce production time. In manufacturing this translates to cost savings while in education this translates to cost savings and the ability to teach more students in a shorter amount of time.
One example of this is the Stratasys Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator, a modular, automated FDM 3D manufacturing system that can essentially scale to any size. With it you can 100 parts a week – or 100 parts a day. The systems’ cloud-based software intelligently manages all print jobs, automating the whole process so that educational design labs can tackle multiple jobs in parallel without downtime.
Stratasys is piloting the program with Savannah College of Art and Design’s Digi Lab. The school’s 3D printing lab can now meet the needs of thousands of students a quarter and they don’t need to have operators on staff to check the machines several times a day.
An Endless Outlook for 3D Printable Materials
From carbon fiber to exotic metals to upcycled / recycled materials, there was no shortage of material options at RAPID this year. In fact, there were as many material manufacturers as machine manufacturers at the conference, including big names like Sandvik, Oerlikon, Hoganas, and more.
One company I was particularly interested in seeing was Desktop Metal, who recently announced its 3D printing technology via two new 3D printers – a studio system and a production system. The studio printer uses reliable FDM technology to overcome some of the obstacles to metal printing and the production system uses a technology called Single Pass Jetting (SPJ), which is 100 times faster than SLM.
New Post-Processing Techniques
I saw a whole new array of ways to post-process 3D printed parts. The conference boasted new equipment to handle fume extraction, curing ovens to heat treat parts, shakers and tumblers to finish parts, and equipment for sintering, the process in which you take a 3D printed part made from powdered metal and melt it into a 3D printed piece.
All of these innovations point to a wider array of 3D printing technologies, machines, materials, software and applications. It will be exciting to see what the future holds for the rapid prototyping industry as a whole.
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