News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Italian 3D printing company DWS recently wrapped up its Open Factory Week event at its headquarters in Thiene. The event, which took place over the course of five days, was packed with conferences and meetings and enabled the stereolithography 3D printer manufacturer to showcase the potential of its technology in various sectors, including industrial, dental and jewelry.
T.Evolution, the technological and innovative section of the Vicenzaoro fair, will again take place during Vicenzaoro September, the leading European Trade Show for International Gold and Jewelry operators.
Volkswagen Group of America’s former Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) is evolving into the new Innovation and Engineering Center California. The IECC will be the largest Volkswagen vehicle research facility outside Germany (with lots of 3D printers inside of course), and serve as the heart of an expansion of Volkswagen’s North American engineering resources, driving greater innovation in vehicle technologies closer to the US customer base. The event was celebrated by presenting the Type 20, a unique vehicle concept that combines Volkswagen heritage with futuristic technology: in other words, a new, long-awaited, electric, 3D printed hippie van.
Nano Dimension Ltd. announced today that the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) became the first R&D facility in the United Kingdom to purchase Nano Dimension’s DragonFly LDM precision additive manufacturing system for electronics. MTC will use the cutting-edge Lights-Out Digital Manufacturing System to additively build electronic components, such as multi-layer printed circuit boards (PCBs), antennas and sensors. This sale demonstrates the growing interest among UK and European R&D institutions in the DragonFly LDM technology as a viable means to bring next generation electronic products and solutions to market.
New York-based 3D printing firm S-Squared 3D Printers Inc. (SQ3D) says it has completed construction of the largest 3D printed home in the world using its Autonomous Robotic Construction System (ARCS). The 3D printed building spans 500 ft² and reportedly took under 12 hours to complete.
A month after Desktop Metal announced it was ready to begin shipping its Studio System to European customers, several of the metal 3D printing systems are already busy turning out metal AM parts at a number of companies across the EU. In the Benelux region, AWL-Techniek, a Dutch mechanical engineering company, was the first company to install the Studio System+.
GE Additive announced that it successfully shipped the first Concept Laser M Line Factory additive manufacturing system from its facility in Germany to the U.S. this weekend. The system, which will be installed at GE Aviation’s Additive Technology Center in Cincinnati, offers modular, automated production capabilities for metal AM.
As professional racing and motorsports are relying more and more on additive manufacturing technologies, it only makes sense that the trend would also pick up in student-led racing teams. This year, for instance, the Brunel University London team competed in a number of Formula Student (FS) races with a car that was partially constructed using metal 3D printing. The race car, the BR-XX, was developed in collaboration with UK-based metal AM company Renishaw, which helped in the production of a 3D printed manifold part.
If additive manufacturing is going to play a critical role in the future of industry, then education surrounding the process is more than important: it is essential for the proliferation and advancement of the technology, on all fronts.
GXN Innovation, an independent research company created by Danish architecture firm 3XN released its future vision for autonomous 3D printers. In this latest conceptual experiment involving additive manufacturing – part of the “Break the Grid” project – the firm was supported by the Dansk AM Hub, a government-supported Denmark’s platform that supports experimentation in additive manufacturing, and by MAP Architects. The result is swarms flying and diving 3D printing extrusion systems that can work autonomously to build and repair complex structures on land and in the sea.