News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
The timeline of smartphone-powered 3D printers has been questionable. Famously, the low-cost ONO 3D printer—which raised $2 million through Kickstarter in 2016—has so far failed to deliver. Does that mean that smartphone 3D printing is over before it even began? Maybe not.
Over the past few years, it has been a pleasure to follow the evolution and growth of the additive manufacturing industry, covering many firsts and breakthrough innovations. As the technology matures across all fronts—hardware, materials, software and applications—we will likely see fewer “first 3D printed” announcements, but that does not mean the industry will be any less exciting.
Barcelona-based 3D printer manufacturer BCN3D has signed a distribution agreement with Turkish company 3Dörtgen, furthering its global distribution market. 3Dörtgen now has distribution rights within the Turkish market for BCN3D’s Sigma and Sigmax 3D printers as well as 3D printing materials and accessories.
In October 2019, GE Additive and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) signed a five-year R&D agreement to jointly accelerate the industrialization of additive manufacturing. The partnership, which builds upon ORNL’s preceding work with Arcam (acquired by GE in 2016), seeks to establish reliability and consistency in the metal AM process to ensure that critical applications—such as those in aerospace—can be carried out.
IT service provider Accucode is partnering up with RCAM Technologies, a specialist in large-scale concrete additive manufacturing, to develop 3D printed wind energy components made from concrete.
Multi-material 3D printing company Voxel8 has appointed Dr. Friedrich von Gottberg as its President and Chief Executive Officer. von Gottberg will step in to replace former CEO Travis Busbee as well as become a new member of the company’s Board of Directors. Busbee for his part, has been named Chief Technology Officer.
The Virtual Foundry, a manufacturer of metal filaments, has named Chicago-based Sapphire 3D as the first certified sintering partner for its plastic-infused metal filaments. Using a combination of The Virtual Foundry’s Filamet products and Sapphire 3D’s heat treating technology, users can produce high-quality and high-purity metal components.
3D printing giant Stratasys has today announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer, Yoav Zeif. With extensive executive management experience, Zeif will officially join Stratasys in the leadership position on February 18, 2020. Until then, Elchanan Jaglom will continue to act as interim CEO—he will also maintain his role as Chairman.
3D printing company HP has just announced it is deepening its partnership with Oakley, a leading brand of sportswear sunglasses. Together, the companies will continue to leverage HP’s Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology to boost Oakley’s product design process and prototyping.
For the first time in the world, Russian scientists from 3D Bioprinting Solutions (3dbio) were able to bioprint bone tissue in space by growing fragments of bone structure in zero-gravity conditions. During experiments on the ISS, tissue samples were made from calcium phosphate ceramics, which were populated with living cells. These sample are now currently being comprehensively studied on Earth. In the future, this technology will enable the creation of bone implants for transplantation to cosmonauts on long-range interplanetary expeditions.