News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
3D printing specialist FATHOM is partnering with GoEngineer to establish what it calls the “largest privately held digital manufacturing ecosystem.” Together, the companies aim to transform how products are designed, prototyped and produced using additive manufacturing software, hardware and solutions.
German design firm Studio 7.5 recently teamed up with French concrete 3D printing company XTreeE to construct a series of 3D printed benches. The benches, notable for their woven textures, demonstrate how additive manufacturing can be employed to produce architectural concrete structures.
With Boston-area based Formlabs closing the latest funding round and achieving a valuation of $1 billion, it now appears clear that the city that is most closely associated with the American Revolution is rapidly becoming the center of another revolution: the additive manufacturing revolution. There are now several leading companies based in the area, with two of them, Desktop Metal and Formlabs, already considered to be “unicorns” (i.e. worth more than $1 billion). Boston 3D printing is leading the charge of startups that are driving the evolution of the AM industry.
Dimension Inx, an innovative 3D printing material developer, has established a new advisory board and is introducing its first advisory board member: Andy Christensen. Working with high profile AM companies, Mr. Christensen has spent his entire career focused on developing and expanding the medical applications of 3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing. From 2000 to 2014 he was the Founder and President of Medical Modeling Inc., a medical device-focused 3D Printing service bureau based in Golden, Colorado.
Conformis, a medical technology company that offers patient conforming joint replacement implants, today announced the completion of the first two Conformis Hip System implants. The Conformis Hip System is the first ever 3D designed primary total hip replacement system. The first surgeries were performed by Gregory Martin, M.D., Joint Fellowship Trained Orthopedic Surgeon and founder of Personalized Orthopedics of the Palm Beaches, and took place at a leading HCA Facility, JFK Medical Center in Atlantis, Florida on July 31, 2018.
3D-Hybrid, on of the very first providers of third-party metal 3D printing tools that can be installed on any CNC machine, revealed their new Automatic Tool Change (ATC) Solution for systematic 3D hybrid manufacturing. The tool makes its debut with Takumi USA’s H12 double column machining center. 3D Hybrid offers a wide range of solutions for different metal deposition AM processes.
Sciaky, a leading provider of metal additive manufacturing (AM) solutions, achieved qualification with its industry-leading Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) process. This significant success in AM in space parts production is a direct result of the completion of qualification testing performed by Lockheed Martin Space on a multi-year development program, to create large size, high-pressure tanks, which carry fuel for satellites.
Kwambio, a New York-based company that began as an online marketplace for 3D printed design objects, has over the years transformed into one of the more compelling players in the still niche ceramics 3D printing industry. Somewhat out of necessity—as Kwambio realized that in order to offer 3D printed ceramics at an affordable cost it could not outsource production—the company developed its very own ceramic AM system, the Ceramo One.
Almost every 3D printer can be used as a laser cutter, as powerful as a CO2 engraving machine and as efficient as a fiber laser device. All that is possible today thanks to powerful diode lasers that first appeared on the market a few years back. Today, there are many powerful 405 / 445 / 808 nm laser diodes which enable laser cutting and laser engraving on almost any material, including wood, plywood, leather, plastic, anodized aluminum and even stainless steel. In addition, these laser diodes are tiny and thus make relatively small lasers that weight less than ½ pound.
Medical device firm Osseus Fusion Systems has announced that its Aries family of 3D printed lumbar interbody fusion devices have received FDA 510(k) clearance. The approval marks one of the largest FDA clearances for a family of 3D printed spinal devices of that kind.