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Steel 3D printer producer SLM Options has developed a brand new large-format system that enables customers to supply components at a “record-breaking” scale.
As but unnamed, SLM Options’ newest powder mattress fusion (PBF) printer contains a whopping 3.0 x 1.2 x 1.2 meter construct quantity, enabling it to quickly produce cylindrical components as much as 1.8 meters in diameter and 1.6 meters in top. Introduced at Formnext, the machine carefully follows the launch of the NXG XIIE 3D printer, and the agency says it’s now prone to be a “game-changer” for big part producers.
“This opens up new prospects to transition functions to additive manufacturing (AM) by eradicating beforehand accepted geometrical restrictions,” stated Sam O’Leary, CEO of SLM Options. “Each piece of expertise we develop is testomony to our unbelievable crew of relentless innovators, who remedy our prospects’ manufacturing challenges and alter the way forward for manufacturing endlessly.”
SLM Options’ large-format portfolio
Based mostly in Germany, however with places of work in Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and the US, SLM Options focuses on growing PBF 3D printers. Whereas the agency markets techniques in a number of sizes, together with the SLM 125, SLM 280, SLM 500 and SLM 800 on the smaller finish, it has more and more focused larger-format functions.
Shortly after launching the NXG XII 600 system at Formnext Join, SLM Options signed an MoU to promote 5 of the 3D printers and it continues to see sturdy demand, significantly from automotive shoppers like Divergent Applied sciences.
Since then, the corporate has been subcontracted by the Concurrent Applied sciences Company to develop the ‘world’s largest’ metallic 3D printer for the US Air Pressure. This bigger variant of the NXG XII 600 contains a 1.5-meter Z-axis, which permits it to fabricate for much longer components with potential essential protection functions.
Nikon’s takeover of SLM Options is now reported to be on the verge of conclusion, however plainly in mild of its newest large-format 3D printing announcement, the corporate stays targeted on focusing on PBF at an unprecedented scale.
AM at an “nearly unbelievable” scale
Although SLM Options has saved lots of the particulars in regards to the latest addition to its portfolio below wraps, it’s a secure guess that it’ll be based mostly round the same PBF expertise to the remainder of its machines. Mentioned to be composed of a core unit with an adjustable construct envelope, the system’s principal differentiators are prone to be its half adaptability and capability.
The machine’s adjustable construct quantity permits for the manufacture of elements in particular person dimensions, thus enabling customers to tune their setup to fulfill use-case-specific necessities. What’s extra, the system does so whereas increasing the boundaries of metallic 3D printing with its big capability, which unlocks the manufacturing of components that have been beforehand unimaginable to print utilizing current PBF options.
In addition to facilitating the 3D printing of objects as much as 3.0 x 1.2 x 1.2 meters in measurement at a construct charge of as much as 330 cm³/h, the unit is alleged to supply the identical advantages because the agency’s different machines, enabling half consolidation and freedom of design.
It’s nonetheless unclear how shut a resemblance the brand new system will bear to SLM Options’ different large-format NXG XII 600 and NXG XIIE 3D printers. Nevertheless, O’Leary says the machine’s launch doesn’t simply characterize an enlargement of the corporate’s portfolio, however a “actual revolution of producing” that allows 3D printing at an “nearly unbelievable” scale.
Like so many buzzwords in 3D printing, the phrase ‘record-breaking’ is one to be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly when the expertise is frequently being scaled throughout the business. MELD and Ingersoll Machine Instruments’ metallic 3D printer, as an illustration, is about to be massive sufficient to create big army car components for the US Military. Earlier this 12 months, Sciaky additionally unveiled the world’s largest electron beam 3D printer, which is able to creating six-meter-long aerostructures.
Elsewhere, on the planet of PBF, GE’s ATLAS 3D printer contains a 1,000 mm³ construct quantity. Hailed at launch because the ‘world’s largest additive machine,’ the ATLAS allows the manufacturing of large aerospace, automotive and oil & fuel components.
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Featured picture reveals a diagram indicating the size of the components made attainable by SLM Options’ new 3D printer. Picture through SLM Options.