Stratasys is making progress with industrialization of 3D printing

Stratasys showed at Formnext that it is not only further developing the hardware, but also looking at the total workflow. For example, by automatically loading the Origin One printers. Or by launching new validated materials. And just after the fair by further digitizing and simplifying the workflow for dental laboratories.

With the Origin One, Stratasys has a 3D printer that combines high quality with speed. The 3D printer is therefore suitable for serial production of plastic parts. Until now, placing the building platform and removing the products has been done manually. At Formnext, Stratasys showed an automated production cell with six OriginOne 3D printers that were loaded and unloaded by the robot.

Ready for automation

The robot removes the print platform from the printer and places the product on a conveyor belt that goes to the car wash and curing station. Here the product is automatically removed from the conveyor belt and placed in the washing station, followed by curing with UV light. Even before the part has been cleaned, the robot has already loaded a new platform into the Origin One and prints the next product, without the need for an operator. Stratasys built this cell together with an American robot integrator to demonstrate that the printers are ready for automation.

New validated materials

Automating after 3D printing is one step towards series production. Materials are another important theme. Stratasys has launched 13 new, validated materials for industrial FDM printers. Very new are Victrex AM 200, a PAEK material, Covestro Addigy PA6/66-GF10 FR LDS, a flame-retardant glass-filled composite material and Kimya PC-FR, a flame-retardant polycarbonate. The fourth new material for the Fortus 450 mc printers is FDM HIPS, an affordable filament based on polystyrene for applications with less stringent requirements. In addition, Stratasys now releases a number of long-standing materials, such as Ultem 9085, as a validated material in multiple colors. ALM is the first external supplier to supply a PA12 powder for the powder bed printer SAF H350.

Efficient workflow full color printing

The third way to make 3D printing more efficient is to further automate the workflow. On this point, Stratasys is taking an important step specifically in dental applications. Dental labs that print with the Stratasys J5 DentaJet can now print full color more easily. Through the collaboration with 3D Shape Dental Systems, the color information from an intra-oral scan can be read directly into the software used to program the build job for the DentaJet printer. This allows dental labs to save a lot of time if they match the color of the prosthesis to the patient's teeth color. This step is possible because the latest 3D Shape software uses the 3MF format instead of STL.

More interested in these solutions? Contact one of Seido Systems' advisors.