State of the industry, insights from Siemens and Wohlers, plus announcements from Elegoo, Quintus, UpNano and more.
Day 2 of Formnext 2024 was less about big ideas and more about getting down to the business of additive manufacturing (AM), whether that meant talking mergers and acquisitions, global trends or new use cases. Nevertheless, there was still no shortage of noteworthy announcements coming from the Frankfurt-based show. Here’s a quick recap.
Elegoo launches ELEGOO With Her initiative
The Chinese consumer-grade 3D printer manufacturer, Elegoo, has announced a new “women empowerment program” called ELEGOO With Her, with the aim of equipping more women and girls with 3D printing skills.
“Through our extensive interactions with customers and partners, we’ve seen a growing number of women and girls entering 3D printing for personal hobbies, creative projects, or business, which is something that’s truly inspiring to us,” said Coco Lee, brand director of Elegoo in a press release. “With our partners, we aim to sustain this momentum, showcase women leaders, and build a supportive community where women can find guidance from their role models. By combining the power of role models with our in-kind support, we can help more women and girls achieve their goals through 3D printing.”
In addition to a discussion panel, the program launch at Formnext included a live model show featuring a dress created by fashion designer and engineer Anouk Wipprecht. The so-called Scale Dress incorporates 3D printed mechanical parts and servo motors to give it customizable moving elements.
“This project is a modular system that can be printed by anyone,” said Wipperecht in the same release. “It is an affordable way to get into the FashionTech or Wearable Robotics field without spending all your savings on a new hobby or work-direction.”
As part of the program, Elegoo will be selecting 30 women and girls to receive 3D printers, software support and mentorship from women leaders in 3D printing. The program also includes two months of online courses and workshops.
Quintus introduces new hot isostatic press
The Swedish company Quintus Technologies used Formnext to launch its new hot isostatic press (HIP) model QIH 200 URC, which integrates multiple heat treatment processes into a single system cycle.
Production of wrought, cast, powder metallurgy (PM) and AM components often involves several post-HIP heat treatment steps that are generally outsourced to a third party. Quintus’s new large-format press incorporates heat treatment and cooling in a proprietary process, High Pressure Heat Treatment, that combines stress-relief, HIP, high-temperature solution-annealing, high-pressure gas quenching and subsequent ageing or precipitation hardening in one integrated furnace cycle.
“Our new press model QIH 200 URC produces faster throughput and higher workpiece quality,” said Peter Henning, director marketing and sales for Quintus Technologies, in a press release. “Having fewer pieces of equipment on the production line also enhances efficiency and dramatically reduces per-unit processing costs while generating significant savings in space, energy and infrastructure. We expect this press to become a cornerstone of lean production lines for AM, casting and PM HIP industries.”
The hot zone of the QIH 200 URC measures 34.6 inches in diameter and 84.6 inches in height, with an operating pressure up to 207 MPa (30,000 psi) and temperature up to 2,552F.
UpNano launches NanoPro two-photon polymerization printing service
Vienna-based UpNano unveiled a new two-photon polymerization (2PP) 3D printer at Formnext – the NanoPro VT – that’s intended to serve as the backbone of the company’s new NanoPro service, which aims to deliver high-volume production of microparts for manufacturing.
2PP 3D printing is highly precise but relatively slow, generally limiting its use to prototyping applications. UpNano believes the NanoPro VT will help address this limitation.
“With the development of the NanoPro VT, UpNano is now in the position to offer the first fully integrated 2PP based service for industrial microparts,” said Bernhard Küenburg, CEO of UpNano, in a press release. “With over 20 years of experience in 2PP technology, our team is available to collaborate closely with customers to deliver tailored solutions from design via prototyping to serial production including delivery worldwide.”
According to UpNano, the new 2PP 3D printer is capable of running at 32 Megavoxels (million volume pixels) per second, compared to digital light processing, which runs at two Megavoxels per 3-10 seconds. UpNano claims this translates to a throughput of several thousand cubic millimeters per hour, depending on the configuration.
“This outstanding performance makes it possible to print a million identical parts, or a million parts with individual modifications,” said Peter Gruber, CTO of UpNano, in the same release. “In addition, the resolution of the printer allows structures and tolerances below 100 nm. The ability to print the entire surface of 200x200mm substrates is also unique. An automatic lens changer increases flexibility and enables optimized production cycles with the extremely robust NanoPro VT, which operates under ISO 5 cleanroom conditions, is temperature-stable and vibration-isolated.”
The idea here is that owners of the desktop version of UpNano’s 2PP 3D-printers, the NanoOne series, can perform the initial steps of designing and prototyping in-house with support from UpNano experts, before transferring their designs to serial production at UpNano via NanoPro.
Insights from the Industry Stage
Moderators Frank Jablonski and Sven Krause kicked off the second day on the Industry Stage with Rainer Lotz, President EMEA at Renishaw and Markus Heering, managing director at VDMA. The four discussed additive manufacturing’s maturation toward industrialization, citing continued growth in the aerospace, defense and medical sectors, tempered by uncertainty in the global economy.
“We see China more and more as a competitor,” Heering said, “and if you walk around at Formnext, you can see this.” That same sentiment was echoed in the After Work Talk at the end of the day when Jorris Peels, VP of Consulting at Additive Manufacturing research noted that, “Bambu Lab is the biggest company in additive manufacturing in terms of revenue. It’s much larger than 3D Systems and Stratasys.”
On the subject of mergers and acquisitions in additive manufacturing, professors Jennifer Johns and Roman Barwinski from the University of Bristol presented their early research on this topic. “Our key question,” said Johns, “is How have mergers and acquisitions reshaped geographies of and power relations within the 3D printing sector globally?”
“About 43% of additive manufacturers are located in the US,” said Barwinski. “Israel is also becoming one of the big players, so we’re seeing a centralization of power within the 3D printing market in the US and Israel.”
Peter Koerte, CTO and CSO of Siemens, offered a slightly different perspective. “[The AM industry] is really evenly distributed across all major geographies,” he said. “Asia is one third, Europe is one third and the United States is one third. Whether it stays that way, we’ll see, but the fascinating thing about 3D printing is that it’s a very resilient technology in terms of global supply chains.”
Koerte also offered some insight into where he expects to see new growth in AM industrialization beyond what he called “the usual suspects” of aerospace, defense and medical. “The new ones are actually the ones that really scale,” he said. “We see applications emerging in automotive, in phones, in bicycles.”
Finally, noting that the applications will be what drives growth in AM, Terry Wohlers summed up the general sentiment of Formnext’s second day by saying, “Part of the challenge [for AM adoption] has been systems and materials, but I think we’ve mostly solved those problems. It’s everything that surrounds those – design, post-processing, qualification and certification – those are our biggest challenges for the foreseeable future.”
