Here is another revolutionary step forward in 3D printing: the desktop metal 3d printer. It deposits metal "paste" made from metal powder with a polymer binder in a similar way as any common FDM machine and the parts are then sintered in a microwave enhanced furnace chamber. The price is comparable to higher-end professional FDM machine from a few years ago. They also sell production cell that has much higher capacity for more demanding production facilities.
Tech specs:
Build volume: 12 in x 8 in x 8 in (305 mm x 205 mm x 205 mm)
Materials: Steel, Titanium, Aluminum, Copper and other undisclosed materials
Layer height: 50 μm (minimum)
Dimensions: 60 in x 49 in x 30 in (1500 mm x 1250 mm x 750 mm)
Technology: Microwave Enhanced Sintering
Price: $120,000 for the desktop version, $250,000+ for manufacturing cell production system
Desktop Metal presentation video:
Here is a much more in-depth video by GoEngineer with many details about the machines, materials, and the process:
Autodesk researcher Andreas Bastian used advanced generative design to make a new type of lightweight airplane seat that could make huge savings on fuel and money if applied in future aircraft. Due to complex geometry, the seat was made on Cronus 3D printer with 5 printheads and then cast in metal.
Project description:
The structure was 56% lighter than the conventional aluminum seats. With 30% calculated to be purely down to the generative design. Autodesk believes these weight savings could rapidly reduce fuel emissions and thus drastically save costs. Calculating the projected cost savings, the team evaluated the weight savings into fuel savings.
By doing so, the project cites an estimate of $200 million USD in possible reductions over the lifetime of a fleet of 100 aircraft. Additionally, the team calculates fuel emission savings that could compare to removing 80,000 cars off the road for a year.
Renault Trucks shows how industrial 3d printing could drastically reduce weight and number of parts needed for a modern internal combustion engine. The weight is reduced by 120 kg and the number of parts is reduced by 200. This could lead to lower fuel consumption, cheaper engines and simpler replacement parts chain.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory made the world's larges 3D print that was recognized by Guinness World Records.
From project description:
Researchers at the MDF have 3D-printed a large-scale trim tool for a Boeing 777X, the world’s largest twin-engine jet airliner. The additively manufactured tool was printed on the Big Area Additive Manufacturing, or BAAM machine over a 30-hour period. The team used a thermoplastic pellet comprised of 80% ABS plastic and 20% carbon fiber from local material supplier
The tool has proven to decrease time, labor, cost and errors associated with traditional manufacturing techniques and increased energy savings in preliminary testing and will undergo further, long term testing.
Here is the time-lapse video of the process and it looks impressive:
How big can you go with high-end industrial 3D printers? VERY big! Here is a wind blade mold for research in wind power.
The mold for making the blades is being printed using the Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machine at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. BAAM is 500 to 1,000 times faster and capable of printing polymer components 10 times larger than today’s industrial additive manufacturing machines. Since the molds will be used to create research blades measuring 13 meters (42 feet) in length, BAAM provides the necessary scale and foundation for this ground-breaking advancement in blade research and manufacturing.
Team at Japanese company Enomoto Kogyo developed a new 5 axis 3d printer. It looks like it is oriented towards industrial applications but multi-axis machines are probably the future.
3D Systems released a new industrial metal laser sintering printer: the ProX DMP 320. What is the price? Well, if you have to ask, you probably can not afford it :-)
Boys and girls at RCAM gave us this wonderful amalgam of advanced laser metal 3d printing paired with high-end robotics. Laser, robots and 3d printing. Yep, it doesn't get much cooler than that.
Cosine AM 1 is powerful new 3d printer that is at home in industrial and professional production setting. It has large format, speed and ability to 3d print with many advanced materials including carbon fiber and metal powders.
Here are the technical specifications of their AM1 machine:
Build Volume: 1100mm * 850mm * 900mm
Accuracy: .07mm per 200mm
Layer Resolution: .1mm-1mm
Max Extruder Temperature: 450°C
Max Bed Temperature: 250°C
Max Chamber Temperature: 85°C
Nozzle Sizes: .5mm, 1mm, 1.5mm
Max Flow Rate: 3.5 kg / 24hrs
Machine Weight: 700kg
Machine Size: 1650mm * 1400mm * 1600mm
Voltage: 100v-220v 50hz/60hz 3KVA
It can print with wide spectrum of materials:
Normal
Advanced
Additives
PLA
Polycarbonate
Carbon Fiber, chopped
ABS
Nylon
Carbon Fiber, continuous
HIPS
PBT
Carbon Black, ESD
PVA
Acetal
Glass Fiber
PETG
Stainless Steel Powder
Bronze Powder
Mica
Glass spheres
Here you can see AM1 printing:
And here is AM1 printing in carbon fiber and polycarbonate:
CloudDDM is a company that operates like most 3D printing services where you can order parts through a web interface, but they're able to produce any part at high volumes and speed. They've recently opened a 3D printing factory inside UPS international hub in Louisville USA with one hundred 3D printers and plans to increase to a thousand. The machines run 24/7 and all the logistics are handled by UPS. They print in several materials like: ABS, Polycarbonate (PC), Polycarbonate-ABS (PC-ABS) and ULTEM 1010 with several color options.
CloudDDM 3D printers. DDM stands for "Direct Digital Manufacturing". Image source: CNN
Now the truly amazing (or frightening) thing about this factory is that it is highly automatized and operated by only THREE WORKERS! 3 people! 3! One per eight hour shift! Is this a new trend? Factories without ANY workers?
Lots of 3d printers and robots producing and only a few people designing and carrying furniture. They look out of place and almost like decoration. I'll write about future of design work in future post about this topic ... but don't think machines can not design stuff also ...
Materialise has a 3D printing "factory" facilities with what looks like more people working:
But this is not a pure "factory" but more diverse design and production center with design, product development and engineering personnel. Another point is that they probably displace many "traditional" workers as they use cutting edge technology and logistics. Maybe even several orders of magnitude more then they employ. If you look closely you will find that even some of the workplaces showed in this video could be automated now or replaced by machines in couple of years.
Are we seeing a start of 3D printing factories replacing industrial workers? In the '90ties during the first dot-com bubble people predicted that the postal services will disappear because of email communication but they were wrong since they took over the much increased package shipments due to rise of e-commerce. Could this happen again with increased volume of 3D printed products? Probably not.
Why?
Because the whole transport logistic sector is getting automatized! Deimler just presented their autonomous truck and the state of Nevada is supporting it with new autonomous vehicle legislation. Even the company said it will take some 10 years to have fully autonomous trucks on the roads with major regulatory obstacles but they are moving in that direction with most of the other tech companies like Tesla and Google. Do keep in mind that "truck driver" is most common profession in the USA with more than 9 million employed in the trucking industry or 1 in every 13 employed Americans.
Is this onset of technological unemployment unfolding in real life?Technological unemployment (or desourcing) is defined as a process of unemployment being caused mainly by technological advances. It is a controversial theory that has yet to be confirmed or disproved.
In 2014 Pew Research surveyed 1,896 technology professionals and economists and found a split in opinions: 48 percent of them believed that new technologies would displace more jobs than they would create by the year 2025, while 52 percent maintained that they would not. The implications of it being a reality would have HUGE societal impact on a global scale. What jobs are future proof?
Future will be interesting. Stay smart and think about all the possible scenarios!
As I live in a country with very high unemployment I have very personal interest in this topic and I think it is very important to investigate it and stay informed about it.
Do you think your job could be done by a machine or software? Share your opinions in comment section
Update (07.02.2016.):
Siemens opened first European 3d printing factory in Sweden. The €21.4 million facility, located in Siemen’s industrial plant in Finspång, Sweden will have 20 employees and multiple industrial grade metal 3d printers. The factory will produce prototypes, end-product parts and replacement parts for repair focused on gas turbines. Thorbjorn Fors, global business director for Distributed Generation at Siemens, said of the facility:
“With this investment, we can develop new and improved components and repairs, for example burner tips to serve our industrial gas turbine SGT-800, significantly faster. Using this innovative approach, we will shorten repair times from months to weeks. It is an important step in our ability to respond to the needs of our customers.”
As we see there are more 3d printing factories being build with very small number of workers. This is also a start of the change in the Europe.
Siemens 3d printing factory in Sweden. Looks very clean. And empty of people.
Update (15.04.2016.):
There are more 3D printing factories and production / prototyping centers being opened all over the world:
Airbus opened one in the Ludwig Bolköw Campus near Munich.
From the source:
The Aerospace Factory, as the new 3D printing center at the facility is being called, will be based out of the Ludwig Bolköw Campus, an industry and university collaborative venture located on-site. The location will be used to research the 3D printing of endparts for use in aerospace through work performed by a number of important players including: Airbus Safran Launchers; metal 3D printer manufacturer EOS; engine maker MTU Aero Engines; the Technical University of Munich and its Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management; Airbus Group Innovations; the Fraunhofer Development Center for X-ray Technology (EZRT); Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH (IABG); Airbus subsidiary APWorks; virtual prototyping firm the ESI Group; and the Airbus Endowed Chair for Integrative Simulation and Engineering of Materials and Processes (ISEMP) of the University of Bremen.
GE opened 200 M USD advanced manufacturing centre in Pune, India.
From the source:
In 2015, GE unveiled its $200 million, Multi-Modal advanced manufacturing facility in Chakan, Pune, part of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Dubbed a “brilliant factory” by its creators, the facility was established to produce jet engine parts, locomotive components, wind turbines, and a host of other additively and traditionally manufactured components for a number of GE companies. The facility now employs around 1,500 workers, responsible for operating 3D printers and other machinery. "The idea is to service a multitude of businesses—from oil and gas, to aviation, transportation, and distributed power—all under the same roof," said GE's Amit Kumar, overseer of the Multi-Modal facility, via TechRepublic.
The Multi-Modal facility provides GE with several advantages. By bringing a number of interconnected operations under one roof, the company will allegedly save up to ten times as much money than if it had established individual facilities for separate business lines. The facility is also helping to bring plastic and metal additive manufacturing technology to its India operations, an advancement which offers the company huge flexibility and cost-saving potential.
Eventually, the Pune facility will produce critical end-use components such as the jet engine fuel nozzle, but it will first service a more urgent need: 3D printing replacement parts for broken machinery—parts that would otherwise have to be made in bulk and stored, or sourced from an external supplier. Replacement parts, especially for older appliances, can be incredibly difficult to source when those appliances are discontinued or simply made in small quantities. 3D printing these replacement parts is much faster than producing them using traditional manufacturing techniques, with previous timescales of three to five months reduced to around one week when additive manufacturing is implemented
GE Oil & Gas is opening new 3D printing factory line with advanced robotics in Talamona, Italy. It is investing some 10 million USD in new production lines to 3D print burners for gas turbine combustion chambers and other advanced components such as nozzles. These new advanced manufacturing lines establishes this site as a center of excellence for the oil and gas industry. It also used advanced production software to manage the factory.
“The use of automated production and new techniques like additive manufacturing allow us to develop parts and products more efficiently, precisely and cost-effectively, accelerating the speed at which we can bring product to market,” said Davide Marrani, general manager for manufacturing for GE Oil & Gas’ Turbomachinery Solutions business line.
“The opportunities for the application of additive manufacturing and 3D printing in the oil and gas industry are only just starting to be explored, and it will require an ongoing rethink of component design and production approach,” said Massimiliano Cecconi, GE Oil & Gas Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Executive.
As factories as growing so is the software ecosystem that connects them B2B and B2C. Fast Radius has developed "virtual inventory" software for their 3d printing factory. It enables companies to deliver parts "on demand" and "just in time". Rick Smith from Fast Radius said:
“On average, the rule of thumb for the cost of holding physical inventory is about 25 percent the cost of the part per year,” he explained. “There is a significant cost in terms of cost of capital, warehousing space, security and damage. The other major problem with physical inventory is that you’ve got to produce in large volumes to get the unit costs low. This works great when you’re producing iPhones and you know you’re going to sell 10 million of them. But, when all of a sudden you’ve got an essential part and you know you’re only going to need 15 of them per year—maybe it’s a critical part to a machine in a manufacturing operation that doesn’t break very often, but is extremely important when it does break—then it doesn’t make sense to go through the setup and all of the costs related to doing a larger-scale production.”
The centralized manufacturing model of the 20th century may not be done away with soon, but the shift is already under way. To introduce its 3D printing services to potential OEMs, Fast Radius has partnered with about a dozen companies that are looking to make the shift to a virtual inventory. “To start,” Smith explained, “the companies that we’re working with are identifying 1,000 or 1,500 parts that are excellent candidates for on demand production. This may be a small percentage of their overall inventory, but as costs drop precipitously and quality continues to rise over time, these companies know that a larger and larger percentage of physical inventory will be moved to a virtual inventory model.”
Laser metal deposition (LMD) is DMLS process that is the future of aerospace industry. Since European Union is a manufacturing powerhouse it is investing in many R&D projects like Merlin. Ever major technological power is in the race to rule the industry and advance in digital manufacturing age.
From project description:
A 5 axis laser metal deposition manufacturing method is being developed by TWI for an EU-funded project which is demonstrating drastic time reduction in the manufacture of aero engine casings.
In LMD, a weld track is formed using metal powder as a filler material which is fed through a coaxial nozzle, to a melt pool created by a focused high-power laser beam.
By traversing both the nozzle and laser, a new material layer develops with precise accuracy and user-defined properties. The application of multi-layering techniques allows 3D structures to be created.
While six axis 3d printer is nothing new, they are quit rare. There have been even robotic arms hacked to print in all axis even with metal like MX3D Metal. Still I find this robot to be more aesthetic and organic in operation. This machine prints self supporting floating structures inspired by spider webs in same ABS like most common DIY 3d printers and it is even Arduino controlled. It is based on KUKA industrial robotic arm and it is developed inside "Digital Future" project.
Project description:
"Digital Future" Shanghai Summer Workshop 2014 Instructor: YU Lei (Tsinghua) / Philip. F. YUAN(Tongji) / Panagiotis Michalatos(GSD) Collaborator: SHI Ji / LIU Xun / LUO Ruihua / CUI Yuqi
The project, Robotic 6-Axis 3D Printing, is a highly-integrated installation combining robotic system, 3D printing technique and interactive interface. It aims to provide the designer a digital method to eliminate the line between "Designing" and "Fabricating". In this case, architects provides more than just drawings and construction notes, however, they are capable of fabricating their work quickly and precisely by themselves
Most of today's researches and applications of robotic fabrication are limited to replicating human labor and raising efficiency of manufacturing. However, in the project of Robotic 6-Axis 3D Printing, we developed a fabrication strategy learning and emulating the law of nature (referring to Chinese philosophy "师法自然 ").
By studying the material and structure performance of 3D form in nature, we figured out a way to incorporate biomimetic fabrication strategy into 3D printing process. And by designing the special robotic-end effector (Tooling) and utilizing the great flexibility and accuracy of KUKA robot system, the biomimetic fabricating process has been fully realized.
The whole process embodied the concept of "Digital Craftsmanship", which emphasis the personality of designer and allows them to closely integrated "Designing" and "Fabricating".
Here is a new free video webinar by Tyler Reid of GoEngineer on 3d printing in medical industry. It is a great overview of current state of affairs in materials (types, certifications, features and sterilization), prototyping, fixtures, tooling, teaching aids, and production parts. Well worth half an hour watching if you work in medical industry.
I was just looking around what is industry standard and I found couple of videos from EnvisionTEC. They have some fine and expensive machines BUT as technology goes, one day you will have it on YOUR desktop.
... now, while you may have your workshop machine, most of you probably won't need a bioplotter since it is currently used as sophisticated medical instrument for special cases... or maybe DIY biohacking will explode. Making implantable 3d objects and body mods ... sounds like SF but we will see what future holds ...
Fabrisonic SonicLayer 7200 is industrial ultrasonic metal printer with integrated CNC machining tools. It is a BIG machine that 3d prints with aluminum tape layers which are fused together with ultrasound and then machined with CNC tools into final shape. It can produce intricate internal structures and make metal products on industrial scale.
HP was absent from the 3d printing scene but now the company is back with new additive manufacturing technology called Multi Jet Fusion which promises much improved performance over current market players.It will be interesting to see the response from other companies, competition and new performance milestones will push the entire industry.
Now, this is not you DIY or home 3d printer, but when you look at first paper laser printers that were the size of a room, one could see that size and price can go down until one day you will have a HP desktop 3d printer at your workshop or home office.
HP Multi Jet Fusion main advantages according to manufacturer:
Breakthrough economics
Area-wide imaging and fewer steps drive speeds 10 times faster; best-in-class total cost of ownership includes helping reduce energy and waste
New quality levels
HP Thermal Inkjet arrays, delivering multiple liquid agents, can drive new levels of accuracy with uniform part strength in all three axis directions
Full-color 3D solutions
HP color science expertise can bring the color capabilities of traditional printing into the 3D world
HP Multi Jet Fusion 3d printer. I'm not a fan of the design, it looks like HP's digital camera I owned around 2000s...
Illustration of Multi Jet Fusion process ..
Here is a compilation of videos showing the Hp's new Multi Jet Fusion technology:
In this video you can see the objects printed, the speed is amazing with this multicolored refinery model printed in 15 minutes. Be aware that this is only according to HP's claims, independent review and testing is not available. There are also no information on price of this HP's 3d printer or the price of refill materials.
HP also released Sprout which combines PC, projector, and 3D scanner. It is a desktop computer aimed at Makers, designers and creative types of all kinds. It features HP Workspace integrated in Windows 8.1 that creates new tool paradigm for 3d object manipulation.
Ultra fast, with full customization of each piece by continuous additive manufacturing on industrial scale. 3D Systems shows their vision in this video with Project Ara being the real-world example of this technology in application.
3D Systems alos claim that they have broken the "magic" barrier of 3d printing being faster then traditional injection molding:
Those are some major changes in industrial scale production!
GE has many advanced 3d printing projects, this is a new one. Direct Write technology will 3d print sensors and components to enable machines to form internet-of-things or industrial internet.
From the source:
If you feel that the world has become a buzzing beehive of connectivity, wait a few years. A recent report from CISCO estimates that only a small fraction of the devices that could be talking to each other - 10 billion out of 1.5 trillion, or just 0.6 percent - are actually connected. CISCO estimates that the number will jump to 50 billion by 2020, potentially transforming the way we live and the global economy. Many of the connected “things” will be intelligent machines equipped with myriads of tiny sensors harvesting data and sending it over to the cloud for processing. Scientists at GE Global Research are now experimenting with a technology that could speed up the transition to link up machines and put sensors where they've never been before.
The technology, called Direct Write, allows machine designers to use special “inks” to print miniature sensors directly inside jet engines, gas turbines and other hot, harsh and hard to reach places. “We can use it to print sensors on 3D surfaces,” says James Yang, engineer at GE Global Research who is leading the project. “One day they could be anywhere.” Yang and his team are using a computer-controlled syringe filled with a special ink to print the sensors (see video below). One ink type uses a conductive mix of fine silver, copper, platinum and other metal particles. A different set of printing liquids resist electricity and use metal oxides instead of pure metals. Yang says that this is handy since “changes in resistivity can give us information about changes in the part.”
The Direct Write technology emerged in the 1990s when DARPA, the Defense Department’s research agency, was seeking a way to print electrical circuits on flexible surfaces. The method is currently being used by the electronics industry to manufacture cellphone antennas. Yang and his team are using Direct Write to print 3D sensors that can withstand 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and handle high mechanical forces. The sensors could help engineers better understand what happens inside machines and come up with better designs. They could also allow customers to harvest data they could not access before, optimize machine performance and spot problems before they get out of hand.
Here is an example of large scale prototyping for space industry. Large fuel tanks for satellite deployment were prototyped by RedEye saving lot of money and time.
From source post:
Validation of design In early 2012, Lockheed Martin SSC began looking at ways to improve and add value to their satellite design. The goal was to design a satellite that would make more efficient use of space and increase the satellite’s payload. It would require testing many assembly configurations and producing several simulators and prototypes to validate design changes. One change that needed to be validated was in the satellite’s fuel tanks. Before building the actual fuel tanks for final use, Lockheed would need to test form, fit and function and assembly with tank simulators. Producing test parts with traditional manufacturing methods would not be realistic given the deadline and costs. Machining the larger tank at 6.75’x3.8’x3.8’ and the second tank at 3.8’x3.8’x3.8’ would take over 6 months and around $250,000. The recent advancements in large-scale 3D printing motivated Lockheed to apply Stratasys’ Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) to the tank simulators. Lockheed Martin is no stranger to 3D printing technology. In fact, they are considered a 3D printing leader for aerospace applications and own several additive manufacturing machines. But this particular application, part size, post processing requirements and project deadline posed a challenge for their in-house capacity. The parts would have to be built in many pieces and bonded together, requiring an army of machines and a team of FDM finishing experts. That’s when they turned to RedEye’s aerospace team.
Constructing the tanks Lockheed Martin has partnered with RedEye over the last several years to manufacture parts and often comes to RedEye when size, material or machine capacity limit their in-house additive manufacturing systems. Lockheed knew RedEye would deliver high quality parts on time and offered the engineering thermoplastic and finishing processes required for the form, fit and function tests. “We chose RedEye because they have the machines and finishing capabilities to build tanks of this size,” said Andrew Bushell, senior manufacturing engineer at Lockheed Martin SSC. “We also decided to go with RedEye for their speed and engineering support we had received on past projects.” When the RedEye’s aerospace team received design files from Lockheed’s engineers, they were stunned with the size of the tanks. “These are the largest parts we’ve ever built using FDM,” said Joel Smith, the strategic account manager for aerospace and defense at RedEye. The project required many preliminary meetings between Lockheed and the RedEye team as it was the first time building a design of this magnitude. “We completed an extensive design review to determine the best orientation and slice height to ensure we could accurately build and bond the sections together in post processing and meet Lockheed’s dimensional requirements,” said Smith. RedEye landed on building the larger tank in 10 sections and the smaller tank in 6 sections in polycarbonate (PC) on the Fortus 900mcs. RedEye and Lockheed had to adapt and make adjustments to the plan along the way to meet tolerances. “We decided to alter the orientation of the exterior clocking rings that go around the tanks and increase their wall thicknesses to support inserts,” said Trevor Stolhanske, aerospace and defense project engineer at RedEye. Each section of the tanks took 150 hours to build, but even so, RedEye was able to build multiple sections at once, maximizing lead times and controlling costs. After all of the sections were complete, the support material was washed away and the sections were sent to finishing services for bonding. Because of their round shape and weight, the only way RedEye could successfully bond the tanks was to build customized fixtures to hold the sections while fusing pieces together. After several hours of welding each section together, RedEye sanded the tank seams and surfaces. After finishing, the tanks and rings were sent to Hutchinson Manufacturing, Inc. to be machined to the design’s critical dimensions. When RedEye received the tanks from Hutchinson, they added brass inserts to the rings and assembled the tanks per Lockheed’s specifications.
Final assembly “These tanks were built in a fraction of the time it would have taken with traditional manufacturing methods. Even with the machining process and design changes made along the way, we were able to deliver these parts ahead of schedule” said Smith. The tanks went through a number of quality assurance and accuracy measurements and were approved for the first concept assembly. Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems Company performed form, fit and function testing as well as process development, in order to validate the proposed design changes. Next, Lockheed will take what they learned from the first phase and use the information to optimize the design and assembly to print the second iteration of tanks.
