News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on industries around the globe and will certainly have a long-lasting effect on how business is conducted. One particular area where many questions have been raised is in how international trade shows and events will operate going forward. Unfortunately, many AM events scheduled for 2020 have been cancelled or postponed, but there is some hope on the horizon.
A partnership between Ultimaker and Magigoo producer, Thought3D seeks to accelerate the adoption of a wide variety of FDM thermoplastics and composites through improved user experience.
Danish startup AddiFab has just announced an extended strategic collaboration with Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials, a global manufacturer of high-performance thermoplastic materials. Together, the companies will bring AddiFab’s Freeform Injection Molding (FIM) process to market, offering manufacturing services based on the technology from three Mitsubishi Chemical locations.
nTopology and Japan’s Yamaichi Special Steel (YSS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to discuss and define the partnership to promote nTopology’s new generation nTop software in Japan.
After 3DZ for Southern Europe, Nexa3D has signed several new resellers covering the United States, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa to expand its global reach to four continents. The reseller network expansion is part of Nexa3D’s ambitious plan to deliver significant speed and productivity upgrade for the tens of thousands of legacy stereolithography printer users by delivering ultra-fast industrial printers at an attractive cost of ownership. The company’s flagship NXE400 has the ability to print up to 19 liters of parts in a single build.
Robotics researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have developed the world’s first fully automatic robot to carry out throat swabs for Covid-19. The 3D printed robot swabs (perhaps even using 3D printed swabs) the patients so that healthcare professionals are not exposed to the risk of infection. The prototype has successfully performed throat swabs on several people and is now set to go into operation by late June.
We’ve seen countless versions of 3D printed face shields and masks for COVID-19, and many have their merits and are making a real difference on the ground. The latest design that has been brought to our attention stands out for a particular reason: it is customizable. A team from 3D scanning specialist Bellus3D recently teamed up with Rhode Island-based 3D printing service R&D Technologies to fine tune and scale production of the personalized 3D printed face mask fitter.
The COVID-19 crisis is going to cause a massive shock to global manufacturing, pretending it isn’t so is like pretending there is no elephant in the room. While crises often accelerate technological trends with positive long term effects, a slowdown in many segments of manufacturing will be inevitable in the immediate future. As a trade media for the AM industry we want to understand if and how additive manufacturing can help manufacturers overcome these short term challenges. So we sat down with Markus Glasser, Senior Vice President of EOS for the EMEA region. This is EOS’s largest region and includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mr. Glasser has been building EOS’ AM business for more than 20 years so there are few people in the world that can help us better understand what is going to happen to the AM industry over the next 20.
CECIMO, the European Association of Machine Tool Industry and Related Manufacturing Technologies, is actively involved in advocating and promoting the added value of our sector in our society’s effort to control and overcome the COVID-19 outbreak. The European Commission is ready to approve an unprecedented stimulus package of €750 billion (as proposed by European Commission President’s Ursula Von der Leyen today), for total financial firepower in the EU budget of €1.85 trillion. Along with financial support, CECIMO believes that this crisis has highlighted different important issues that will need to be addressed for the future of manufacturing in Europe.
Swiss 3D printing service bureau Rapid Manufacturing AG, together with Swiss creative agency Atoll and Zurich-based Pragma Engineering, developed a simple solution to address the issue of disposable glove removal: a 3D printed glove remover. This is something many of us have become quite familiar with during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic: personal protective equipment has become part of our daily lives in dealing with the risk of contamination.