At this year’s MD&M show there is a new 3D Printing Innovation Summit. Talks will cover printing techniques, materials, bioprinting, and more with three days of materials that will take a deep dive into how this technology might help your company. The follow is just a sample of what’s going on with 3D printing at this year’s expo.
3D-Printed Metal
Stratasys Direct Manufacturing Booth # 3515
The power of metals with additive manufacturing is the ability to produce complex geometries in one fluid build. Dense, corrosion-resistant, and high-strength, Stratasys validates and develops various metal materials for your unique application needs to create metal parts never seen before.
Stratasys Direct Manufacturing helps companies get up and running quickly. Stratasys has worked with prototypes and end-use parts. Some of the industries they’ve work within are the aerospace, transportation, and medical fields.
Metals and alloys used in DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) are atomized powders, some specifically formulated for applications that need special properties like biocompatibility and compatibility with liquid oxygen. Stratasys also offers metal materials with its CNC Machining operations.
3D-Printing Carbon
Superior 3D Solutions Booth #3988
Superior 3D Solutions is the ambassador for Markforged carbon fiber and metal 3-D printers in California. It will feature the Mark Two that combines Markforged's continuous carbon fiber reinforcement. By reinforcing your parts with composite fiber while 3D printing them, it is possible to achieve higher strengths, stiffness, and durability.
3D Printing Liquid Silicone Rubber
M.R. Mold and Engineering Booth #1346
RDAbbott will showcase the latest addition to their technical services, a Liquid Additive Manufacturing (LAM) 3D LAM printer, at M.R. Mold & Engineering’s booth 1346.
This revolutionary LAM 3D Printer was developed in collaboration with German RepRap GmbH, a leading German manufacturer of 3D printers, and Dow Performance Silicones. German RepRap’s LAM platform, combined with Dow Performance Silicones’ 3D Printable EVOLV3D LC 3335 Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR), is potentially capable of printing functional prototypes and enabling small manufacturing trials of complex parts. Further, the material’s properties closely match those of molded LSR, allowing an easy transfer into injection molding processes for high-volume manufacturing.
3D Printing and Services
Dinsmore Booth #1361
Dinsmore Inc., an ISO 9001:2015 certified service provider, is a leader in product design and development, 3D printing and additive manufacturing. As pressure for shortened product design and production timelines continues to grow, the role of the contract manufacturer is becoming increasingly important. We remain at the forefront today, pioneering the use of innovative technologies that drive our ability to anticipate client needs. With new machines from Carbon, HP, Stratasys and 3D Systems, Dinsmore is equipped more than ever before to support customers across industry to produce functional, final products in low, medium and large volumes.
3D printing may need post processing. Working with service providers can work with you to find out just how much attention your models or low-volume 3D printed part might need, and how much time that translates into.
In addition, Additive Manufacturing LLC booth #4093 will also be featuring its services in plastic and metal traditional and additive manufacturing.
Low-Cost Metal Printing
3DEO Booth #335
With its proprietary metal 3D printing technology, 3DEO is a parts supplier of high-quality, low-cost metal components for medical device companies. The company specializes in manufacturing on demand, which means there’s no need to worry about long lead times, minimum order quantities, or high tooling/setup costs. 3DEO prints parts in stainless steel parts (17-4PH) today, but a wide variety of material options are available. 3DEO’s parts have the best surface finish in metal 3D printing, and can produce up to 50-5,000 pieces per month.
3D-Mounting Services
Kyoto Shisaku Net Booth #2496
This might not be a 3D printer, but I thought it was interesting to find a company focused on mounting nonlinear surfaces and molded interconnected devices (MIDs). This may become a trend as electronics expand further into wearables and the 3D-printed market. This also reminded me of Festo’s bionic ants.
This “ant” made by Festo shows how mounting electronics can offer more space and options when producing small complex devices.
3D mounting service is now part of the extensive services Kyoto Shisaku Net offers. With the 3D-mounting technology, microelectronic components can be mounted on non-planer surfaces of MID. MID and 3D-mounting technology provides substantial benefits (e.g., higher design flexibility, miniaturization, weight reduction, and greater function density) to product designers.
Kyoto Shisaku Net’s expertise includes precise metal/resin machining, fin manufacturing with sheet metal stamping, cardio simulator manufacturing, and rubber processing.
Prototypes and End-Use-Parts
ProtoLabs Booth #3301
ProtoLabs is one of the world’s fastest digital manufacturing sources for custom prototype and low-volume production parts. The company's 3-D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, and injection molding services use proprietary computing technology and automated systems to produce quality parts in a range of metal, plastic, and liquid silicone rubber materials within days.
3D Systems On Demand Manufacturing Booth #3419
The On Demand Manufacturing group provides full-service, outsourced 3D-printed Quickparts rapid prototyping, advanced prototyping, realistic appearance modeling, and low-volume production. With nearly three decades of experience helping design and manufacturing organizations develop new approaches to their product development lifecycles, this company offers advanced manufacturing products, solutions, tools, and materials to help designers and engineers bring their ideas to reality.
This is just some of what will be featured at the show. We didn’t even talk about Kyocera International’s new technology that allows for strength optimization while also implementing weight reduction into your ceramic components, or UNZI’s SLA printers that will be featured at the show. In addition, this doesn’t cover any of the talks from the new 3D printing Innovation Summit that will be introduced in another article, so stay tuned. You can follow me at the show @JKerns10 or follow MD&M directly @MDM_Events.