Slideshow: Additive Manufacturing at IMTS 2016

3D Systems showed the seamless integration of 3D printing with other necessary steps in an additive manufacturing process. The company’s “Figure Four” system uses an enhanced version of stereolithography to achieve rapid 3D printing, combined with robotic handling to move the printed parts to other stations. The robot here is lifting the part up to a non-contact scanner for inspection. Methods Machine Tools, which represents 3D Systems through its Methods 3D division, was using the Figure Four additive manufacturing system on the show floor to mass produce giveaway trinkets.

This orthotic was printed on one of HP’s new Jet Fusion 3D printing systems. These printers use HP’s Multi Jet Fusion technology to precisely meter fusing and detailing agents onto polymer powder before solidifying it. The blending of colors in this piece is not an accident; instead the gradient is completely intentional, meant to highlight the voxel-level control that is possible with this system.

Stratasys demonstrated multiple concept machines illustrating the company’s thinking for the advance of 3D printing into production. This robotic composites demonstrator is one. It prints with carbon-filled polymer, and it uses a robot in combination with a pivoting rotary table to do this printing through eight axes of controlled motion, representing a significant departure from the parallel layering of material typical of 3D printing.

This tiny sample part is made of MicroFine Green, a stereolithography material that Proto Labs uses for micro-sized parts. The ABS-like material enables printing fine features at tight tolerances, while its bright green color makes it easier to spot. The service provider highlighted its diverse capabilities—which also include direct metal laser sintering, SLS, machining and molding—at its booth in the Additive Manufacturing Pavilion.

Vader Systems exhibited its Mk 1, a metal additive manufacturing machine that builds parts by propelling liquefied metal through print nozzles similar to those on an inkjet printer. The nozzles are supplied by wire rather than blown powder, and the system is said to be twice as fast as powder bed machines.

Outside the Additive Manufacturing Pavilion, various machine tool suppliers were also introducing AM technology. EDM and milling machine maker Sodick showed its new OPM250 machine, a powder-bed metal 3D printing machine that also features high-speed milling for precise machining during the additive build.

Laser cutting and laser marking machine maker Trumpf showed the extension of its laser technology into additive manufacturing. The company now provides two different types of additive machines for making metal parts, offering both powder-bed machines for growing fine-detail parts in metal alloys and metal-deposition machines for adding material and features onto existing workpieces.

Mazak’s VC-500 AM is a “hybrid multi-tasking” VMC. Here, the additive head has deposited new material on a rotary cutting die. The die’s cutting edges will then be machined to restore their sharpness. This machine, lower in cost than other hybrids, is priced to make the technology attainable for test centers, R&D departments, universities and forward-thinking manufacturers, the company says.

Additive and subtractive manufacturing come together in this milling cutter from Komet. Growing the cutter body through metal 3D printing (the cutting edges are brazed on) allowed for a milling tool with a larger number of flutes and a larger number of coolant holes through the tool. Komet says the use of 3D printing will also make it much easier to customize tools for special applications.

Quickly turn a mill into a 3D printer. Hurco demonstrated this add-on 3D printing head for its machines. No cables are necessary for this unit that is easy to affix and remove as needed. The machine’s spindle rotation melts the polymer for the 3D printing, and control signals for on/off and deposition rate are communicated via the spindle speed.

The powerful X-ray and high-end flat-panel detector in this CT scanner from Zeiss make it effective even for inspecting hard metal alloy parts grown additively. CT scanning provides a non-destructive way to validate the integrity and internal features of intricate parts made through 3D printing.

This 3D-printed replica of a 1952 Willys Jeep was a novel contrast to the futuristic concepts of large-scale additive manufacturing on display in the Emerging Technology Center. It illustrates additive’s feasibility for creating products intended for rugged duty.

The Additive Manufacturing Conference returned this year after it was launched at the previous IMTS. Originally a half-day workshop, the conference this year was a one-and-a-half-day event in which 480 registrants came to hear 20 speakers discuss the application of AM to industrial production. The AMC next year (a non-IMTS year) will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee.