On a joint mission with Formnext: helping ideas take shape
The long-awaited additive manufacturing and industrial 3D printing event Formnext is taking place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany this week. Finnish Additive Manufacturing expertise is also being represented there on a wide spectrum, and we at 3DStep look forward to meeting a great number of like-minded people involved with the field. The event offers us all a great platform for exchanging ideas, sharing experiences and seeing which way the trends are taking us next.
In 2022, the Formnext exhibition will have a record-breaking number of visitors, which makes it elegantly visible that 3D printing has truly arrived and become mainstream. In our everyday work over the past years, we have seen additive manufacturing find its unique strengths and place in the overall sphere of manufacturing.
Most of all, 3D printing has established itself as a reliable, highly versatile and streamlined manufacturing method. Another topical factor that speaks for additive manufacturing is its in-built eco-friendliness: why produce waste when we are fully capable of using just the amount of material needed.
3D printing is scaling further up
With all-new inventions, it always takes some time for demand and supply to truly find each other in the right contexts. This has held through with many of our current everyday tools and aids, such as the Internet and mobile phones.
Also with additive manufacturing, the field itself needed to evolve and go through technological advances first – with the printers, materials, software and business models, for example. Next, the customers had to see the potential and fully realize how relevant and accessible additive manufacturing is also to them.
Now that this confluence has taken place and the parties are jointly finding new ways of using this highly adaptable method, the industry is quickly scaling up. We have moved on from merely being a source of prototypes to a proper force with full-speed, full-spectrum, full-flexibility application potential, ranging from unique designs and products to demanding serial production.
For us at 3DStep, this development has meant that we have been able to make substantial new equipment investments. Our latest three printers both expand the material range and increase production capacity.
For plastics printing, EOS P110 Velocis has expanded our range of in-house production materials from PA12 to glass-reinforced PA12 and flexible TPU. For customers, this has meant new application potential, shorter delivery times and improved dyeability. With this addition, we now offer both SLS and MJF technology under one roof, which is still quite exceptional on the Finnish AM market.
For metals printing, we have adopted a SLM 280HL Twin Laser printer, which is Finland’s first metal 3D printer with closed-loop powder handling. This investment currently serves exclusively our most popular product category, aluminium printing. This has freed up capacity from our existing equipment and allowed us to also expand our material range to titanium alloys, which lend themselves well to medical and industrial purposes, for example.
For full-colour 3D printing, we are now using Mimaki 3DUJ-2207 – also the first one of its kind in Finland. The printer allows a selection of 10 million colours, printed neatly and in great detail directly in the products without post-painting. We have identified medicine, industry and gaming as some of the key areas for using this technique.
Our belief is that increased demand comes, for its own part, from increased and improved supply. In order to compete with the more traditional modes of manufacture, additive manufacturing needs to offer impeccable products and streamlined execution. The finishing and polishing also need to meet high customer requirements, especially with the most demanding purposes of use. Our recent investments are all targeted to help demand and supply also match in this respect.
3D printing is global
Both nationally and globally, additive manufacturing has gathered a fabulous community of curious and future-forward people. Similarly to many other inventions made over the course of history, 3D printing is also finding its spot in the big picture. Due to its versatility, agility and ecological merits, this spot is proving to be far wider than originally imagined.
As regards the mission of helping ideas take shape, we have noticed that finding the ideas first is often the most difficult task. All of us working in the field thus need to help customers imagine something new and see the nearly limitless possibilities of 3D printing. The reason why imagining is so difficult for many is very logical and fully human: the limitlessness is something new to us.
For this reason, training and consultation also form an integral part of our service repertoire at 3DStep. We join forces with our customers to provide consultation, to inform and educate, and to brainstorm and go beyond the expected together.
To this very same end, we are also very keen to exchange ideas and experiences with other AM experts around Europe and globally. We are looking forward to attending Formnext this week and would like to welcome you at our booth D65 in Hall 11.0 to have a chat and to see some of our products.
You can also contact us directly before, during and after the event – we are happy to hear from you with anything and everything related to 3D printing, additive manufacturing and the manufacture revolution.
