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Live 3D Printing Events Re-Emerge from Quarantine: RAPID + TCT, AMUG, Inside 3D Printing https://ift.tt/3tV0FVH After a year of quarantine from the COVID-19 pandemic, live 3D printing events are beginning to announce their trade shows for 2021, perhaps acting as a bellwether for the industry and commercial life as a whole. These include the Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) Conference, and RAPID + TCT, while the biannual International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) will hold off until 2022. Another event that did not take a hiatus last year was Inside 3D Printing Seoul, which will also have a live show in 2021. The first 3D printing event of the year will be AMUG, set to take place in Orlando, Florida from May 2 – 6, 2021. This intimate group hosts a very close-knit collection of those already expert in 3D printing technology or looking to become specialists. It is growing every year, indicating just how active the industry has become. For a price of $995 through April 4, attendees can access keynotes and technical sessions, as well as workshops, training labs, the technical competition, the Innovators Showcase, the AMUGexpo, and food from morning until evening, including the notable off-site dinner and event that always tends to surprise and entertain guests. This will be followed by RAPID + TCT, North America’s largest additive manufacturing (AM) conference, which will take place at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois from September 13-15. The 2020 event was originally postponed to April 2021, but the new dates allow more time for the pandemic to be controlled as vaccines continue to be distributed. It was expected to attract over 10,000 guests and more than 400 exhibitors.
Inside 3D Printing, which began in New York City in 2013, will host its 8th round in Seoul, South Korea in 2021. The trade show was successfully conducted in 2020, in part due to the well-executed management of the pandemic in the country. The event saw a total of 70 exhibitors (200 booths), 6,887 visitors and 23 speakers from around the globe grace the floors and halls of the show. This year, Inside 3D Printing Seoul, taking place from October 13-15, 2021 at KINTEX, is expected to have over 10,000 delegates, more than 800 visiting companies and greater than 500 executives from 25 countries in attendance. All of this bodes well for an industry that seems to be experiencing a recovery. As long as vaccines continue to roll out and no giant shipping freighters block travel to these events, 2021 is tentatively looking like the beginnings of a return to normal for the world of 3D printing. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 26, 2021 at 07:32AM
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Warner Bros. Enters Licensing Agreement with Toybox for 3D Printed Action Figures and Toys3/26/2021 Warner Bros. Enters Licensing Agreement with Toybox for 3D Printed Action Figures and Toys https://ift.tt/3w209XV 3D printing is definitely making a major impact on the world in a variety of high-tech applications, but let’s not forget that the versatile technology can also be put to use for some good old-fashioned fun as well; I am, of course, talking about 3D printing toys. 3D printing can definitely be a family-friendly activity, and I also know plenty of adults, myself included, who enjoy making our own 3D printed figurines, miniatures, and action figures as well. The technology has majorly impacted the toy market, with big names such as Mattel and Warner Bros. allowing 3D printing companies to produce their toys and characters, and smaller companies are even creating new and improved ones. Several years ago, Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WBCP) partnered with 3D printing company Launzer to make many of its most popular characters available in 3D printed form, and now it’s back at it again—the WarnerMedia Company recently announced a partnership with Oakland 3D printing toy startup ToyBox Labs so that consumers can print their own Warner Bros. toys and action figures from the comfort of their own homes.
Toybox co-founders Baltes and Jenn Chin raised more than $155,000 via a crowdfunding campaign a few years ago to bring their kid-friendly 3D printer prototype to life, and give people a less costly tool for 3D printing toys at home. It sounds like it’s pretty easy to use—just download the app, connect your phone and the Toybox 3D printer to WiFi, and select models from any computer connected to the internet, as well as from Toybox’s official website. Weighing in at just 6.6 lbs., with a 7 x 8 x 9 cm print volume, this compact system would fit in any home, and uses non-toxic, compostable PLA material, which it’s dubbed “Printer Food rolls” for a dash of whimsy. Quote request Are you looking to buy a 3D printer or 3D scanner? We're here to help. Get free expert advice and quotes from trusted suppliers in your area. Powered by Aniwaa
Thanks to this new licensing agreement with the Warner Bros. studio, kids can print all sorts of cool models at home to fill up their toyboxes, instead of having to beg Mom and Dad for a ride to the store or an Amazon purchase that takes days to arrive. Toybox 3D printer users will now be able to print toys, replica props, and action figures based on iconic, beloved characters from DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera, Seinfeld, Friends, classic family movies like Elf and The Polar Express, and eventually other properties as well. In order to print the toys, you’ll need to purchase Toybox Bolts, which is an online currency specifically for use with the Toybox platform. As part of the initial launch, available 3D printable toys will include Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman action figures featuring nine points of articulation; the Daily Planet building; the Batmobile, Bat-Signal, and Batcomputer Playset; Justice League disc launchers; and Batarangs. (Source: Comics Beat) Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 26, 2021 at 07:02AM 2021 presidential inauguration collectible now available https://ift.tt/3bxIa3X March 25, 2021 2021 Presidential Inauguration Collectible Available through USPS Postal StoreWASHINGTON, DC — Commemorate the 59th presidential inauguration with this souvenir envelope. The No. 10 envelope features portraits of President Joseph R. Biden and Vice President Kamala D. Harris, along with an illustration of the White House. The envelope may be purchased for $12.95 on usps.com. The item number is 882158. Postal Products Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the Postal Store at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 844-737-7826, by mail through USA Philatelic, or at Post Office locations nationwide. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. ### Printing via USPS News https://ift.tt/2hH9aDC March 26, 2021 at 06:20AM
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Anna Hermsdorf https://ift.tt/31rB1vv Anna Hermsdorf is a linocut printmaker from Germany. She started practising linocut back in 2018, and a few months ago she finally quit her day job as a designer at an agency to become fully self-employed. In late 2018 Anna created her first ‘whimsical girl’ print. The piece was composed of three separate lino blocks printed in layers in order to produce the final motif. Since then, she has produced over 60 designs in this way. For Anna, her working process is always the same: she conducts research on one topic that inspires her at that moment, creates a rough sketch, and then switches to her iPad Pro to draw digitally. This way, Anna can easily determine the colours and layers she wants to produce. She then prints out the designs and transfers them to lino blocks. Anna’s ‘girl’ prints are always composed of three blocks with three or more colours involved. Anna prints using oil based relief inks by Cranfield Colours, as well as Caligo Safe Wash and metallic shades. All prints are pressed on her Woodzilla and she makes a deliberate decision to not print on “fancy paper” as she wants the focus of her pieces to be on the image and colours. Colour is vital to Anna’s designs, and although she occasionally incorporates metallic shades and black, her main focus is to produce colourful, vibrant prints. The depiction of female characters defines Anna’s work; be that famous pioneers of history, professions, or hobbies. In June 2020 she started working on a zodiac series which will soon come to an end with her interpretation of Taurus. Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 March 26, 2021 at 04:44AM 6 pieces of free creative software to make you feel as though you’ve been vaguely productive during lockdown https://ift.tt/2NYvXvM Remember how at the beginning of lockdown we were all bummed out but also determined to use all the time we’d otherwise spend in pubs/banger racing/completing your Gold Duke of Edinburgh award etc. doing useful things? People made bread, and harped on about it a lot; people briefly thought about doing some crafting; literally every man of the metropolitan liberal elite did a podcast. We all swore we’d better ourselves in some way; instead we got a bit pudgier and coasted the shit out of life while drinking semi-heavily. Now that the end is in sight, why not have a tinker with some free creative software and come out the other side of this entire shitshow with another string to your creative bow? For vector art… Gravit Designer: Gravit Designer is a free vector design app suitable for design tasks ranging from making presentations to creating app and icon designs to illustration and animation. Features include non-destructive booleans, a knife tool and path graphs, plus multiple fills and blending modes, and a powerful text engine. It can be used online or downloaded onto Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS machines. Vecteezy: Vecteezy is a free, in-browser online editor, which allows you to edit and customise the platform’s own vectors or create vector designs from scratch. Use it here. A genuinely good, free alternative to Adobe Illustrator… Vectr: A free editor for creating 2D vector graphics offers the usual vector features, as well as options for filters, shadows and fonts. It can be used online, enabling live collaboration, or downloaded for Windows, Linux or Chrome OS. Download here. Limited, but free alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud programmes… Canva: Canva is, broadly speaking, a piece of image editing software, but it comprises a wealth of tools: a photo editor, colour palette tool, font combination picker, learning resource, photo collage maker and infographic maker. As well as editing images, users can also create colour palettes, match font pairs and more. It can be used in-browser, or download here for iOS and Android. GIMP: GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The open-source free graphic design software available in versions for Linux, Windows and Mac, and offers all the usual tools—painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection and enhancement. The main interface might feel unintuitive for those transitioning from Photoshop, but there’s a version available that mimics Adobe’s look and feel. Download here. Free 3D creation software… Blender Blender’s been getting a lot of hype in recent years from some of the most exciting young creatives around (namely Julian Glander), thanks to a few things. For one, it’s free. It’s also now the largest open source tool for 3D creation, offering modelling, texturing, animation, rendering and compositing for Windows, macOS and Linux. Download here. Also… All Adobe Creative Cloud software can be downloaded for free for a one month trial. Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 March 26, 2021 at 03:55AM
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HP & Ford Team to Recycle 3D Printed Waste into Car Parts https://ift.tt/2P8bRj9 In some of the most interesting additive manufacturing news I’ve heard recently, HP and Ford announced that they have teamed up to revolutionize how 3D printing waste is reused in the automotive industry. Both companies claim sustainability to be a major priority, and in a win for the circular economy, they have launched an industry-first program that takes used 3D printed powders and parts and turns them into injection molded vehicle components, specifically fuel-line clips that will first be installed on Ford’s Super Duty F-250 trucks. According to a press release, not only are the injection molded components better for the environment, but they also maintain the same level of quality and durability to which Ford customers are accustomed. HP is a firm believer that additive manufacturing adds value to the continued growth of manufacturing systems and processes, and Ford, which has a company goal to achieve 100% sustainable materials in all of its vehicles, says that the technology could transform the customization of low-volume components for automobiles.
According to the release, the injection molded fuel-line clips cost 10% less to make, are 7% more lightweight, and also have better moisture and chemical resistance than those made with traditional manufacturing processes. On top of the fact that the two companies figured out a handy way to increase the lifespan of used 3D printed powders, Ford’s research team has found that ten other fuel-line clips on the automaker’s existing vehicles would have value added by this innovative solution, and are working to implement them in future car models as well. Ford has been recognized in the past for its use of 3D printing, and hasn’t stopped on that front: it’s always working to create new applications for the technology. It uses many different materials, such as sand, powder, and filament, and AM processes to manufacture multiple low-volume commercial vehicle parts, in addition to fixtures that are used by assembly line workers.
For its part, HP recently teamed up with another company to 3D print car parts for Nissan’s NISMO division. Its printers were designed with efficiency and sustainability from the get-go, both decreasing excess generated material and reusing more materials. Ford already uses HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D printers at its Advanced Manufacturing Center, and together, the two developed and implemented this closed-loop, zero waste injection molding solution in less than one year.
Ford and HP worked with three other businesses to develop this unique, sustainable solution, and the first was oral care company SmileDirectClub, which operates this country’s largest amount of HP 3D printers: more than 60 MJF systems are used at its facility to help create over 40,000 dental aligners per day. To increase part volume for Ford in this new initiative, the 3D printed parts used to make the aligner molds are then collected and recycled with HP. The other two partners are resin producer Lavergne, which has been a recycling partner of HP’s for a long time, and Ford supplier ARaymond, which designs, engineers, and manufactures assembly systems. In this instance, Lavergne takes the molds and used powder from Ford’s HP 3D printers and transforms them into recycled plastic pellets for injection molding. Then, ARaymond molds these pellets into the fuel-line clips for Ford’s vehicles. According to the recently published SmarTech Analysis report “Additive Manufacturing in the Factory of the Future: Opportunities and Markets,” 3D printing “represents about one percent of the overall manufacturing and production landscape,” with obstacles to adoption including but not limited to high costs to scaling and difficulty in controlling quality across the supply chain. While this partnership isn’t directly related to 3D printing automotive parts, but rather recycling the powder and components to make different useful items, it’s definitely an example of a way to lower costs. The report also states that “AM will lead to lower fixed costs and smaller manufacturing footprints than traditional manufacturing,” and I think those will both be results of this unique initiative between HP and Ford. Well done. (Source/Images: Ford) Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 25, 2021 at 09:27PM First Report on 3D Printing Automation Released by SmarTech Analysis https://ift.tt/2Pt3tKM SmarTech Analysis, the leading market research firm dedicated to additive manufacturing (AM), has released the industry’s first report dedicated to how 3D printing fits into the Factory of the Future. The report, titled “Automation, Additive Manufacturing and the Factory of the Future,” explores the role of 3D printing in the manufacturing sector’s increased trend toward automation. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a wake-up call for manufacturers globally as they realize the drawbacks to centralized factories and distributed supply chains. Rather than completely overhaul their supply networks, they are revamping their existing infrastructure. In turn, 3D printing has been seen as a potentially useful tool in addressing supply chain vulnerabilities. However, SmarTech notes that, despite all of its advantages, 3D printing only represents a single percent of the entire $13 trillion manufacturing industry. This is in large part due to the obstacles faced with the technology, which include the number of steps required, the lack of laborers skilled in AM, issues with quality control, lack of regulatory standards, and the expense related to scaling the technology. The report not only discusses these problems, but how they are being resolved. At the same time as there are obstacles to adoption, manufacturers are working to digitize their factories and see AM as a valuable tool in that process. This, in turn, is feeding into the industrialization of 3D printing. Among the trends occurring in the automation of 3D printing is the digitization of the technology as it relates to such verticals as electronic instruments, medical devices, transportation, and industrial equipment. The automation of the 3D printing supply chain is occurring both on actual 3D printers and distributed manufacturing networks. This has included the use of new controls, sensors, robotics and artificial intelligence to automate pre- and post-print steps. The report goes into extensive detail about aspects of the industry 3DPrint.com has been reporting on for some time, bringing granular data to the stories and connecting them into a single structured and valuable resource. For instance, at the Additive Manufacturing Strategies summit, there was a vertical dedicated to automation in AM. While a number of firms, like AdditiveLab and VELO3D, are working to handle the automation of pre-print simulation, others, such as Additive Assurance, are tackling in-process quality control. Then, there are firms like PostProcess and AM-Flow that are taking care of the post-processing side of the workflow. Finally, there are software-driven businesses handling the entire management side of production, which includes SAP, 3D Control Systems, MakerOS and more. Despite the challenges of adopting AM, the report points out how the use of AM results in lower costs and a smaller manufacturing footprint than conventional manufacturing techniques. This includes up to 15 percent in increased profit from the use of 3D printing in production, either for direct manufacturing or tooling. The report includes information about a wide variety of firms that are enabling the automation of AM, including: Dassault Systèmes, SAP, Materialise, Ansys, EOS, 3D Systems, Senvol, Autodesk, AREVO, Siemens, PTC, Castor, nTopology, PTC, , Siemens, 3YourMind, Authentise, Link3D, Additive Assurance, Renishaw, Identify3D, Simba Chain, GranuTools, Aris Technology, PostProcess Technology, DyeMansion, AMT, and Divergent 3D. Author of the report Dr. Mike Vasquez, Founder and CEO of consulting company 3Degrees, told 3DPrint.com:
To learn more or to buy the “Automation, Additive Manufacturing and the Factory of the Future” report, click here. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 25, 2021 at 08:32AM
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Is Bioprinting a Winner-Takes-All Market? https://ift.tt/3lXJbWc (3DPrint.com PRO is available only to subscribers) The current thesis on bioprinting goes a little something like this: bioprinting is a collection of a number of different technologies, all with potential. From inkjet, material extrusion, and stereolithography, to digital light processing, and LIFT, microfluidic nozzles, all have the potential to 3D print the right organ system or part to help with the right medical procedure. Of course, 3D printing fully-fledged organs is twenty years or more away. Now, all of these systems are available from $10,000 to $1 million in different configurations and are mainly used by labs to advance research. Pharmaceutical companies and other players are increasingly relying on bioprinters for therapeutics, to aid in drug discovery and to generally reduce cost and the number of lab animals that need to perish for certain treatments. In so doing, the medical market will familiarize itself with 3D printing and, slowly, develop tissue engineering, scaffold, and other products. This will take a lot of testing and approval, which will be paid for by researchers, governments and large companies. Once research shows the potential for viable treatments beyond organoids, organs-on-chips or simple products, such as skin analogs, a leap will have to be made. This leap will require oodles of cash to certify and obtain approval for procedures, systems, treatments, and bioprinters. Once the drug companies, presumably, buy into this, bioprinting will become a personalized or, in some cases, group- or general population-based treatment for certain conditions. In the long run, we will all be working together and apart towards a bioprinting future where we will be able to fabricate complete organs and substantially lengthen human life. There will be a lot of heavy lifting to be done from now until then by numerous companies. Some technologies could work well for cartilage, while others work for lung cells, and others are best for muscles. The more players the merrier and the more bioinks and materials the merrier. Let’s all tackle the regulatory hurdles together and win together as an industry of around 150 companies. I call this overreaching thesis “Let’s Buy the World a Bioprinter.” “I’d like to teach the world to bioprint with me, I’d like to buy the world a bioprinter.” What they don’t tell you about that Coca-Cola commercial is that one in ten of the people in it now have diabetes. And, dear turtle doves, the turtle dove mentioned is itself is in sharp decline by 78% or more since the shooting of this video. So, how about we stop being turtle doves and instead focus on not going extinct. Let’s assume that there is a way to win in bioprinting instead of going for the participation trophy. One of the most valuable things bioprinting can do is to propagate and replicate research. Subscribe to read the remaining PRO Analysis.SubscribeAlready a subscriber?You are set to receive premium content directly to your inbox twice a month. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 25, 2021 at 08:02AM
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Inkbit Secures US Air Force Contract for Three Unique Multimaterial 3D Printers https://ift.tt/2PrGsbc One of the most exciting startups in 3D printing, in my mind, isn’t involved in metal binder jetting or low-cost metal 3D printing. It’s developed a precise and intelligent method for printing polymers, driven by machine vision. That startup is Inkbit, an MIT spin-out that just announced the commercial release of its first 3D printer, Vista. Now, the company has announced that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract for $1.7M from the United States Air Force (USAF) that will see Inkbit build three systems for USAF bases in the U.S. These three machines will be among the first commercial machines produced by the startup and the first is expected to be used by the Texas National Guard. Lt. Col. Alex Goldberg, Chief Innovation Officer of the Texas Air National Guard, said of the news, “The Texas National Guard is proud to be the leader in adopting additive manufacturing into the National Guard. We are excited to take the technology developed by agencies like DARPA to initiate expeditionary parts production efforts that will greatly reduce costs across the force.” Inkbit’s proprietary Vision-Controlled Jetting (VCJ) is an inkjet polymer 3D printing technique that relies on machine vision and learning to enable closed loop, real-time feedback control. This means that the Inkbit 3D printers scan every layer, every voxel upon deposition and, if there is a discrepancy between the desired geometry and what has been printed, the machine automatically adjusts the next layer to compensate. All of the data collection then allows the machine to learn from its mistakes and execute the proper adjustments to account for any issues that might arise, such as shrinkage or warping.
The ability to scan every layer during the print job opens up some novel advantages. For instance, the machine vision makes it possible to incorporate non-3D printed parts into an otherwise printed object, with the system recognizing the foreign object and adjusting properly. Additionally, the system doesn’t require a method for scraping ink off of a rolling mechanism, which is the case for typical inkjet machines that rely on rollers to flatten each layer of photopolymer during printing. The vision system does away with this mechanism, opening up a wide variety of materials that would typically be impossible in traditional inkjet 3D printers. Nearly all photopolymers used in 3D printing currently are acrylate-based or contain acrylate components, but the Vista can print with catalytically-cured substances, such as engineering-grade resins like epoxies. During a printing process with a conventional inkjet machine, the resin would adhere to the roller used to flatten each layer and slowly cure, ultimately jamming the machine. In a stereolithography or digital light processing machine, acrylates are used to initiate and cease the polymerization reaction, or else the entire vat would polymerize. With the ability to 3D print with such polymers as epoxies, it’s possible to produce parts with greater durability and chemical resistance that cannot be achieved with acrylates. One application Marini gave was the production of fluidic manifolds that can be flushed with strong chemicals, like aggressive acids or bases. Vista can also print with materials that don’t degrade when exposed to UV light, a notorious problem with parts 3D printed with photopolymers more generally. Vista is an evolution of a system called Multi-Fab, developed in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) of Wojciech Matusik by a group of researchers, including Javier Ramos. What made the machine unique was its use of machine vision to scan every layer as it was printed, not only making it possible to achieve new levels of accuracy and precision, but also the embedding of non-printed components into 3D printed parts. When Inkbit was spun out in 2017, Matusik became Chief Technology officer and Ramos Director of Hardware. Marini had just come off of a successful stint as the head of another MIT startup called Firefly BioWorks, which he sold to Abcam. And the Multi-Fab, well that became the first prototype for Inkbit. The company rebuilt the system as version zero, going through several iterations to achieve the Vista machine. Among the changes to the printer included a modification in its architecture, which previously moved print heads across a stationary bed, similar to traditional inkjet 3D printers. Because the company aimed to build an industrial-grade machine featuring a wide variety of materials, the team knew that the print hardware would be too heavy around the print bed. In turn, Inkbit decided to keep the print block stationary and move the print bed back and forth below. Additionally, a veteran from Stratasys—who went on to participate with DSM in a $12 million investment round for the startup—noted that the frame would need to be much stiffer or else the system would have precision issues. The next major design change was an improved machine vision system based on optical coherence tomography, completed with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This technology relies on interferometry to generate images with micrometer resolution from optical scattering media. As sophisticated as this system was, however, Marini said that it would have made Vista too expensive.
The new SBIR contract also funds the development of the technology and software meant to improve production output of VCJ, building on the DARPA-funded research.
The DARPA-driven vision system will likely make it onto future systems for customers that require that level of precision. Marini was blown away by the support he’s received from DARPA. The defense organization holds Inkbit accountable to deliver on milestones related to the vision system. At the same time, they introduced the startup to the Air Force, providing Inkbit with one of its first customers.
An added benefit of multi-material 3D printing with inkjet is the ability to 3D print a meltable support resin. Inkbit has developed a photopolymer that melts via hot water bath or in an oven in just five minutes. Marini mentioned that the company is currently developing add-on modules to fully automate that process. Though he wasn’t able to be specific about what the product roadmap will look like, he did say, “We will be incorporating intelligence throughout the entire process.” From the beginning, Inkbit has had a goal of creating a flexible, industrial 3D printing technology. Looking at the movement of the print bed beneath the print head, one notices a resemblance to the PrintValley system developed by Dutch research organization TNO. Marini said that the startup considered such a “racetrack” setup, in which the build plate moves in an oval shape beneath the print head, allowing for an assembly line workflow. Because Inkbit’s technology opens up the possibility of integrating non-printed parts into items as they’re fabricated, it’s possible to imagine how additional modules might be used to add these elements into items built in an assembly line fashion.
The company is still working out its business model, but Marini aims to be future focused in that area as well. On the one hand, Marini noticed that there are businesses like Protolabs where a customer uploads a file for production. In contrast, there are contract manufacturers like Jabil that work hand-in-hand with large companies as they develop parts and applications from the ground up. Marini envisions some combination of the two.
Since Inkbit CTO Wojciech Matusik is an expert in computer science and artificial intelligence, the company may explore what Marini referred to as “an operating system for manufacturing” that would streamline the process of conceiving of an idea and seeing it manufactured. This would include different materials from different locations all the way through to who would manufacture it. From our conversation, it was clear that we had only scratched the surface of what was possible with Inkbit’s technology and its vision for manufacturing. Vista was obviously only the beginning of a complete reimagining of how we produce goods altogether.
Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 25, 2021 at 07:31AM
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Joe Kennedy Joins 6K: First Politician to Sit on a 3D Printing Company’s Board https://ift.tt/3tUmnJK Former Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy III joins 6K’s board of directors after 15 years in politics. The leading metal powder producer suggested that the newly appointed politician would add a strategic voice for clean energy production initiatives at the highest government level. 6K is revolutionizing feedstock for premium powder production with its UniMelt platform, generating new materials set to advance industries across the additive manufacturing (AM) spectrum. An American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district from 2013 to 2021, Kennedy has been a long-time supporter of climate action, clean energy development, and local manufacturing. During his tenure as a U.S. congressman, Kennedy pushed for clean energy technology. From 2015 through 2020, he was even a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce – which has jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Energy (DOE). In Washington, he was a vocal advocate for maximizing domestic resources in a responsible way, committing to renewable energy technologies and fuel efficiency measures, and supporting the region’s emerging clean energy industry. In line with his progressive stances on climate change and net-zero emissions (which can often be at odds with one another), Kennedy’s 2020 senate campaign managers indicated that his family’s trust sold their investments in the fossil fuel industry, which had been estimated at $1.75 million worth of stock in fossil fuel companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil. As one of the family trust beneficiaries, Kennedy told media site Boston.com, “He has never exercised any control over his family trusts, but fully supports the decision to divest.” Kennedy’s initiatives have supported environmentally sustainable energies and related jobs, including solar panel installation and energy storage innovation. 6K accelerates the industrial transformation of advanced material production with sustainable manufacturing through its UniMelt system, the world’s first industrial microwave plasma platform. The company’s name, 6K, represents 6,000 degrees, the temperature of operation of UniMelt and, is also the temperature of the sun’s surface. 6K uses proprietary advanced plasma processing and industrial systems to create materials at exact specifications. The company’s 6K Additive division has over 20 years of expertise in metals reclamation, used by automotive and aerospace aluminum suppliers for its TY-GEM titanium compacts used in the aluminum melt process. Its ISO9001-facility reclaims and processes over 500 tons of the titanium alloy Ti-64 per year and is in the process of building a state-of-the-art 40,000 square foot automated production facility for AM powders.
According to 6K, even though countries continue to pass legislation to shift to more environmentally friendly technologies, such as electric vehicles, the materials used to power them are only as clean as the production processes and legacy technologies used throughout the supply chain, which are unsustainable. These environmentally unfriendly processes fly in the face of climate change and have a dramatic negative impact on the environment. Instead, 6K proposes its unique UniMelt technology can deliver a cleaner process, while batteries could be designed with more extended range and shorter charge times, potentially accelerating wider adoption. Kennedy suggested that currently, there are virtually no battery materials being produced in the United States, costing the country good jobs and a tremendous economic opportunity. As a new board member for 6K, he sees great potential in changing this dynamic, leading to cost-effective and environmentally-friendly battery material production in U.S. soil. He said the company is “powerfully aligned with our new administration’s commitment to U.S. job creation and clean technology” and expects to mainly solidify the leadership on the cutting edge of advanced manufacturing for his home state of Massachusetts. Currently tackling energy storage materials and AM, 6K claims its UniMelt platform offers multifaceted sustainability benefits. For example, if a legacy battery cathode production plant were replaced with a UniMelt system, by 2030 100% of wastewater would have been eliminated, that’s 210 billion liters, plus 37 billion pounds of carbon dioxide greenhouse gases, 67 billion kWh of energy – a 70% savings–, and a 90% reduction of water, that’s 177 billion liters. CEO Aaron Bent described that having Kennedy on the company’s team helps strengthen its sustainability strategy by propelling 6K to the forefront of the conversation with government initiatives in organizations like the Department of Defense and DOE. Moreover, 6K’s technology has the potential to change the paradigm of how advanced materials are produced, offering a tangible representation of the clean energy technology Kennedy pushed for during his time as a congressman, which he can now drive forward as a member of 6K’s board of directors. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com March 25, 2021 at 07:01AM |
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