News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
While 2D renderings can help to communicate a product concept well enough, there is something to be said about seeing a concept as a physical, three-dimensional object. This marketing reality has not been lost on manufacturers and designers, who are increasingly turning to additive manufacturing to tactilely visualize design and product concepts.
Aleph Objects, Inc., known for its LulzBot 3D printing products, today appointed a new CEO and CTO as it sets its sights on continued growth in the additive manufacturing market. Grant Flaharty, the president of Aleph Objects will take up the role of CEO (while staying on as president) and Steven Abadie, a member of the Aleph Objects team since its founding in 2011, has been promoted to CTO.
Australian metal 3D printing company Aurora Labs Limited has announced the formation of a new company, AdditiveNow. The new company was formed through a 50/50 incorporated joint venture with engineering firm WorleyParsons Services Pty Ltd.
A joint team of researchers from ETH Zurich and MIT have developed material architectures which could feasibly be the stiffest material structures possible for a given weight. The innovative lattice structures could be manufactured using additive manufacturing techniques.
Precision ADM, Inc., a Canadian AM solutions provider based in Winnipeg, has received AS9100 Rev D and ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System certifications, enabling it to manufacture components for the aerospace industry.
Italian 3D printing company 3ntr presented its new Spectral 30 3D printer at Formnext 2018. The machine, built to process high performance polymers such as PEEK, ULTEM and PPSU, has been in development for some time through the EU-backed Clean Sky project, a wide-reaching research program aimed at developing new, eco-friendlier technologies. The Spectral project is also being realized in collaboration with French research group Rescoll, which has been tasked with developing filaments and support materials for the Spectral platform.
Shopping for an SLA 3D printer can be something of a daunting task. On the one hand, there are a handful of trusted, recognized printer models, but most of them come with a hefty price tag. While on the other hand there are a number of low-cost SLA machines (sub $1,000) but their reliability and quality can sometimes be questionable. Panda3D, a China-based startup specializing in SLA-based technology, is hoping to make the choice for low-cost SLA printing easier with the launch of its Paladin 3D printer.
German post-processing company DyeMansion has added Matsuura Machinery Ltd. to its reseller network. The announcement makes Matsuura the first authorized reseller of both HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printers and DyeMansion finishing systems in the UK.
The increasing presence of facial recognition technology in our society has created some cause for alarm—and not without reason. Questions of surveillance and privacy violations are at the forefront of the technology’s criticisms, though there is also concern over the accuracy and effectiveness of facial recognition.
Optomec has acquired Huffman, a North Carolina company that has established a leadership in supplying 3D metal printing systems for additive repair of gas turbine components in the energy and aviation markets. Huffman’s equipment and software are in production at virtually all major manufacturers of aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines, who use its metal deposition capabilities to restore worn or damaged components at substantially lower cost than newly-made spare parts.