2024-02-29 23:41:00
Time to market is crucial to success in many sectors. This puts pressure on development processes for new products. 3D printing can play a role in bringing innovations to the market more quickly. This does not necessarily have to be a role in prototyping, as Festo will explain in an Expert Class at D2M.
At D2M, in Kortrijk at the end of March, everything revolves around the journey from design to manufacturing. the event for all steps from design to production. The subject of 3D printing will be discussed in the Expert Classes on both trade fair days. Florèn van Olden, AM sales specialist at Partywill hold its Expert Class on the second day of the fair.
AM in our own production
A few months ago, Festo itself organized the Let’s print the future event in the experience center in Delft. In addition to various FFF printers, you will also find the Lisa SLS printer from Sintratec, a Formlabs SLA printer and equipment from Norm Finish for post-processing the prints. Festo has more than 80 3D printers in use worldwide, most of the high-end systems are located in Germany. Festo 3D prints more than 40,000 parts annually in the Festo Fast Factory, both in metal and plastics. In addition to prototypes, more and more end parts are being produced by 3D printers. This mainly concerns small series, sometimes several hundred per year. In addition, 3D printing is used to create customized solutions for customers.
Production technology
Festo also uses 3D printing to launch a first series on the market while series production is in the ramp-up phase. AM thus effectively contributes to a shorter time to market, an aspect that is also discussed in the exhibition program at D2M. Due to the high volumes, Festo is looking at other, newer 3D printing techniques. The challenge remains, says Florèn van Olden, to find the best technology for every application. “We are not throwing away the other techniques; we are not going to 3D print everything. But it is becoming more and more a production technology.”
Feast inside
The manufacturer of components for industrial automation also sees the AM market as a sales market for the various product groups. The precise motion control systems it builds for other industrial markets are also useful in the 3D printer industry. Festo hopes to make FFF printers more accurate with the servo motors, precision gantry and a tripod drive. In the Netherlands, Bond3D uses electric cylinders and servo drives from the German group for the PEEK filament printers. In Germany, DMG Mori, among others, purchases a complete system from Festo for the handling of inert gas flows. The VZQA valve precisely controls the inert gas argon and the discharge of the gas mixture during flushing. The system works so accurately that it keeps the pressure and oxygen content in the build chamber within very narrow limits, exactly what is needed in the AM system. Festo wants to help make the AM process more reliable with these solutions.
Florèn van Olden will hold his Expert Class at D2M on Thursday, March 28. Click here for more information regarding the Expert Classes at D2M (27 and 28 March in Kortrijk Xpo).
Photo: application of 3D printing in the development of the microbioreactor PhotoBionicCell, with which Festo extracts CO2 from the air and converts it into new materials via photosynthesis and microorganisms, including filament for printing. Two years ago this was one of the highlights at the Hannover Messe.
Last year, Solutions Magazine paid extensive attention to 3D printing at Festo:
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