Day one of FORMNEXT 2016, the catch-up of Additive Manufacturing & 3D-printing industry
After last year’s debut of FORMNEXT EXPO FORMNEXT-EXPO 2016 started the second time in Frankfurt GERMANY today.
So what is news in metal additive manufacturing ?
Important to know is the fact that key technology patents for bed fusion are about to expire. So this is leading to
more and more new players entering the market.
OR Laser surprised with a complete new powder bed based laser metal additive manufacturing system.
The ORLAS CREATOR is a Powder bed fusion metal system with a build envelope of 100 mm in diameter and a z-axis of 110 mm. The system is equipped with a 250 Watt fiber laser and will hit the market for about 80k EUR in Q2’17. This is a little revolutionary, lowering the bar for direct metal AM below EUR 100k.
TRUMPF
TRUMPF also presented new hardware after last year’s presentation of the TruPrint 1000 and the prototype of the TruPrint 3000. But beside the TRUMPF 3000 system TRUMPF also presented the new TRUMPF TruPrint 5000 system.
The TruPrint 5000, is a multi-laser machine, equipped with three 500 W lasers which are able to work overlapping in the entire build envelope. This concept differs significantly from the machine concepts of the competitors. This architecture allows constant productivity in each layer with a possible more homogeneous distribution of energy in each layer. The heating system capable of reaching 500° C will be very welcomed by multiple industries. Also interesting is the cooperation between SIEMENS and TRUMPF for the software. TruTops Print is the name of the software offering similar capabilities like the MATERIALISE Build Processor. More about this later…
Parallel with TRUMPF also SISMA launched their larger laser based powder bed fusion systems. The SISMA mysint300 is similar to the TruPrint3000 as the machines are manufactured in TRUMPF and SISMAs joint venture in Italy.
So, same specs as the TRUMPF TruPrint3000 as it is simply the same machine with a different label.
AddUp This new player in laser based powder bed fusion metal is AddUp from France. The company is a joint venture from fives and MICHELIN. Presented was the FormUP™350 system has a build envelope size of 350 x 350 x 350 mm and is equipped with a 500W Yb fibre laser, a second laser is optional. Also interesting is the optional 500 degrees centigrade heating system, a heater up to 250 degrees is standard. Recoating is bi-directional and the process chamber has incubator-gloves for safe material handling. Further, AddUp is offering the AddUp Flex Care ™ a portable unit for safe material handling. Interesting were also the announced software solutions offered. The AddUp Manager™ 2017 allowing part numbering in line, Layer temperature deviations after melting / Simulation and representation of stress levels.
Written by Matthias Bringezu