Voxeljet opens 3D printer network for volume production

German 3D printing company Voxeljet AG began beta programs with Tier 1 automotive suppliers and material suppliers to test its new VX1000 HSS 3D printer for volume production of additive polymer components.

Its two, first-announced participants, auto supplier Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co. KG and materials supplier Covestro AG, will work with Voxeljet to help develop uses for and add new material options for its high-speed sintering printer.

The printer, which has a print space of 1 meter by 540 millimeters, uses selective laser sintering with binder jetting, which allows for strong, functional parts and high productivity, James Reeves, global director for polymer printing at Voxeljet, told Plastics News.

"Most other types of 3D printing uses a hot point source … like a laser or a nozzle," Reeves said. "That's like trying to paint your wall with a … pen. It would take forever."

The new VX1000 is more like painting with a roller, he said.

The 1-meter-wide print head "covers the area much quicker," Reeves said. "Our throughput is significantly faster than any other printing type. Because it's also very scalable, we don't need to add more lasers. We just increase the printhead width or move it further."

Printing at larger scales, around 50,000 parts per year or higher, he said, is what its injection molding and Tier 1 customers are looking for.

Brose will run the printer for six months, Reeves said, with a three-month development phase at Voxeljet's headquarters in Munich. For the second half of the program, the system will be moved to Brose's additive manufacturing center in Coburg, Germany, an Oct. 26 release said, to be integrated into its production space and optimized for specific applications.

Brose will initially look at creating large, spare automotive parts for discontinued car models, such as whole internal door panels and a range of smaller components for aftermarket, he said, "and hopefully looking for other applications across their business where they might want to scale this and take more printers for high-volume manufacturing."

"This technology offers us unique productivity," Christian Kleylein, project lead of additive technology at Brose, said in the release. "The increasing trend towards ever more complex components with material-saving lattice structures, detached from the packing density in the build space, is translated into a consistently fast print time in the HSS process compared to laser-based technologies.

"Thanks to additive manufacturing, tools for 'end-of-life" components no longer need to be stored and spare parts pre-produced, but can be stored digitally and retrieved and printed on demand," Kleylein said. "With the HSS technology and its high printing speeds, we can begin to reduce physical storage for both tools and spare parts."

In order to bring any component to high-volume production, Reeves said, "you need to design in conjunction with the process. … With any traditional manufacturing process, you tweak it to get optimum performance for the part being made."

"Most 3D printers aren't accessible to the end user to make process changes. The machine manufacturers want to keep that knowledge to themselves," he said, adding that Voxeljet plans to keep its software open "for the manufacturers to customize and optimize the process around their part."

"The Beta Program with Brose is an important stage for us to understand the demands in automotive production and adjust our machines to match those demands in ways that no other AM solution can achieve," Reeves said in the release.

Voxeljet's other "unique," open strategy, Reeves said, is creating a "materials network" for its manufacturing customers to develop with and purchase materials directly from suppliers.

"Most 3D printing companies, the machine manufacturers, really like to control the materials that are run through their printers," he said, due to "the recurring revenues and also to control the quality and make sure the parts are of standard."

"We don't believe that will be the case in 3D printing in the future," Reeves said. "It doesn't really work, particularly in the automotive sector, but [also in] all higher-volume manufacturing sectors.

"There's going to be really specific requirements for different components and we can't necessarily squeeze those into the fairly short range of polymers available for 3D printing today," he added.

"If a customer wants a specific polymer we don't already have, then they can work completely independently of Voxeljet, go to these organizations, get the material tested and qualified on our machines, and then use it on our machines and buy direct from the material supplier," Reeves said. "That helps the cost of 3D printing quite dramatically because there's no margin."

Covestro began its beta program with Voxeljet to develop material and machine combinations for the large-series additive manufacturing, a Nov. 16 news release said.

The two companies developed and qualified a thermoplastic polyurethane powder for the HSS printer, the release said.

"Typically, material and processing technology work separately in the value chain, with customers having to figure out how to make them work," Geoff Gardner, innovation director of additive manufacturing at Covestro, said in the release. "Together with Voxeljet, we want to remove what we believe is still a barrier for adopting AM on the production floor."

The companies are considering material possibilities, including TPUs, which are well suited for footwear and cushioning applications, as thermoplastic elastomers, polybutylene terephthalate and polypropylene.

A few unnamed materials companies are working with a smaller research and development printer in an "alpha" phase, Reeves said.