Author: Solivet

In just the past couple of years, there has been a tremendous trend towards sustainability throughout the world, and within the business sector. The findings within the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fifth Assessment Report back in 2013 are what initially brought the global warming crisis to light for many. The data in this report, which clarified just how heavily climate change was associated with human activities, would go on to inspire the 2016 Paris Agreement.

While there are many factors to keep in mind when it comes to environmentalism and responsible consumption, the main focus of the Paris Agreement is to keep temperature rise well below a 2°C increase in the 21st century. Actions to reach this goal involve significantly reducing carbon emissions and the consumption of fossil fuels. As climate change continues to be a hot button topic, an increasing number of global initiatives are arising to turn the tide on how humanity is managing its resources.

Fast forward just a few years following the Paris Agreement, and sustainability has become a fundamental factor in today’s consumption and purchasing landscape. Customers now value sustainability so much that more than 90% of today’s CEOs acknowledge that it is fundamental for a successful business. As the pioneers of the automated 3D post-printing industry, we are aware of the responsibility we carry to build a sector that is eager to act upon sustainability initiatives.

The good news is, we’re off to a great start considering that our products are inherently sustainable. Compared to traditional support removal methods, our software-driven technology improves workflow efficiencies while reducing energy and chemical usage. But to us, the most significant value in our solutions is a human-centric one – the reduction of time spent on manual labor. Without our automated solutions, post-printing typically requires tedious hands-on labor to complete support removal or surface finishing. While these inefficiencies can negatively impact a company’s overhead, the energy that technicians and engineers are wasting on post-printing is an even more significant issue. These individuals should instead be able to use their full potential to work on more fruitful projects. Additionally, it’s no surprise that excessive manual labor can have a negative impact on overall health and wellbeing.

Our sustainability initiatives do not end with our products, though. Sustainability is at the heart of our company, and we are continually striving to incorporate more of it into our day-to-day operations. Much like we focus on integrative 3D printing based on the three steps of design, print, and post-print, our efforts towards sustainability trickle down into three concerted initiatives: People. Planet. Profits.

For each of these areas of focus, we’ve drawn inspiration from the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. While we strive to incorporate all 17 goals into the foundation of PostProcess Technologies, we have pulled three out to focus our initiatives around:

Goal 3
Good Health & Wellbeing: Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.

Goal 8
Decent Work & Economic Growth: Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.

Goal 12
Responsible Consumption & Production: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

For more insight, take a look at our new Dedication to Sustainability webpage, where we delve into the variety of actions that we are taking to ensure we’re meeting these initiatives. We’re excited to be building a company that will remain sustainable, in many senses of the word, for years to come.

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If you’ve been in the 3D printing industry for any significant amount of time, you’re probably aware of the market dominance that polymers have established in the realm of 3D printing materials. The popularity of this material only appears to have increased in recent years, as the 2019 Wohler’s Report* cites that over 77% of service providers deliver polymer parts. Compared to statistics from the previous year, this actually indicates a recent increase in polymer part-building services.

Much like the way that polymers serve as the industry standard material for 3D printing, fused deposition modeling (FDM™) acts as the “poster child” for 3D printers. In other words, if you brought up 3D printing to the average person, an FDM printer is what would likely come to their mind. What makes FDM printing so popular is that it is not only cost-effective but extremely versatile in its applications. Individuals enthusiastic about 3D printing for sport can easily acquire an FDM printer for personal projects, while the printer type also supports large-scale manufacturing facilities.

From automotive production to tooling, those in the manufacturing field value FDM for its ability to rapidly prototype, and to test the fit, form, and function of parts. While FDM excels in cost-effectiveness for design and printing (the first two steps of the integrative 3-step additive workflow) it’s all too common for bottlenecks to arise during the final step; post-printing. Without the use of automated post-printing technology, most support removal is left up to tedious industry-accepted methods like submersion tanks, which have notoriously long cycle times (4 or more hours is typical). This often results in the need for overnight processing, making it a challenge for servicers to deliver end-use parts in a timely manner.

Traditional support removal methods also run a high risk of producing inconsistent results, especially after evaporation has occurred. Because temperature control is often limited, and human error can cause issues when determining chemistry ratios, post-printing by means of a submersion tank often leads to varied results, creating the need for excessive maintenance activity on parts.

If your operation has used submersion tanks for post-printing, you’ve probably dealt with the inefficiencies that arise when additional support removal is required. Not only does manual post-printing waste valuable technician time, but it further slows down this already sluggish third step of the additive workflow. This technician time devoted to post-processing could be otherwise spent working on more significant projects.

Our latest white paper discusses a revolutionary software-driven method that utilizes Volumetric Velocity Dispersion (VVD) technology to streamline the FDM workflow. In the paper, we discuss how this solution uses configurable agitation and concentrated flex nozzles to dissolve support material quickly, ensuring constant support removal action.

By combining unique mechanical and chemical rates of removal with software intelligence, we’ve created an entirely unique and efficient opportunity for FDM users. With this technology, users can benefit from some of the fastest cycle times in the industry, consistent results, and higher throughputs. We’re pleased to present 3D printing users with an opportunity to cut down on costs while wasting less time, and fewer resources.

Specifically, this paper discusses the benefits of streamlining your workflow with VVD technology, and speaks to:

• This automated solution’s significant (73%) decrease in cycle time compared to the common submersion tank solution.
• The ability to process very complex parts featuring multiple internal channels filled with support material at comparable rates to basic parts.
• Alleviating the post-print bottleneck and expediting iterative designs to ramp up production volumes with this software-controlled approach.

Download this resource to learn about the software-driven automation, unique VVD technology, and patent-pending chemicals that make this automated technology so impactful to the FDM additive workflow.

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*Wohlers, Terry, Robert Ian Campbell, Ray Huff, Olaf Diegel, and Joseph Kowen. Wohlers Report 2019 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing State of the Industry. Fort Collins, CO: Wohlers Associates, 2019.

It’s no surprise that the additive manufacturing (AM) industry is continuing to expand at a rapid pace. In fact, it’s projected that 3D printing will grow to a whopping $49.1 billion industry by 2025. Particularly, MJF 3D printing technology is being utilized more and more as a means of developing complex functional parts with low unit pricing. If you’re considering 3D printing options, keep in mind that powder-based MJF print technology has a significant number of advantages over other 3D printing methods.

For example, MJF allows for faster overall cycle times and is capable of notably broader design flexibility compared to other popular 3D printing techniques like FDM or the powder-based SLS. As far as sustainability and eco-friendliness are concerned, MJF printing is a vetted sustainable option, as it allows a high percentage of the powdered material it employs to be recycled. This longer material purchasing cycle not only helps to reduce costs, but makes the MJF a sustainable choice for both your budget and the environment.

That being said, there is an aspect of the MJF printing process that is less than ideal – its surface finishing options. These current techniques hold the ability to cause a variety of issues in the additive workflow, as most require a significant amount of tedious manual labor. These processes tend to involve arcane tools like sandpaper, sanding blocks, or even small dremel tools. Plus, as anyone who has had to hire technical workers knows; manual labor can be quite costly, and at times, hard to come by.

If your business decides not to hire technicians to execute surface finishing, there is a good chance that instead, engineers will be spending precious working hours sanding away at printed parts. This engineering time devoted to post-processing could be otherwise spent working on more significant projects. These various inefficiencies tend to culminate as post-print bottlenecks, preventing production volumes from being achieved, and disrupting streamlined workflows.

Alternatively, traditional vibratory surface finishing systems are also frequently used to post-process MJF printed parts. The issue with this approach is that it lacks significant control as a subtractive manufacturing process. Vibratory systems run a high risk of damage, or at the very least, wearing down the intricate geometry of the parts. This technique has a tendency of resulting in wide inconsistencies and breakage. Our most recent white paper discusses a new, automated approach that mitigates these challenges with a software-driven solution designed specifically for additive manufacturing.

This paper covers:

• The benefits of a novel automated post-printing method for surface finishing.
• Opportunities to achieve surface finish values of less than 2-microns across a variety of MJF printer platforms.
• Key considerations like part density and hardness.
• Manufacturing factors including the impact of print technology and print orientation on the surface profile.

This aforementioned surface finishing technology prevents bottlenecks, frees up labor costs, and provides rapid, consistent results that preserve complex details.

Read through our white paper to learn about the software-driven automation, suspended rotational force, and patent-pending chemicals that make this automated technology so revolutionary to the MJF surface finishing process.

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As Automotive continues to be one of Additive Manufacturing’s top growth markets in both the number of applications and volume of printed parts, the importance of increased productivity, consistency, and quality is also ramping. Automotive applications are heavily weighted towards the use of FDM in rapid prototyping to help cut timelines and allow companies to iterate more effectively. But with this advancement of significantly improved design and build processes, the post-processing step is often overlooked as an opportunity to further optimize overall production times.

To date, many companies printing for Automotive applications have leaned on subtractive equipment from their factory floor and tried to adapt them for Additive, including hand tools, submersible tanks, and traditional tumblers. While this can work in some cases, as volumes ramp issues are arising. Even with assistance from these machines, there is a high component of labor, or what we call attended technician time. It is not uncommon for the attended technician time to last the entire cycle with a tumbler or submersible tank due to the frequent monitoring of the systems that are required.

Even with the best technicians, there can be inconsistent results. Variations in the level of precision and issues of rework are common. With traditional machines not optimized for Additive Manufactured parts, breakage levels can also be especially problematic. As print materials and labor are expensive, re-printing could be significantly affecting the ROI of your Additive operation overall.

Consider how automating the FDM support removal step of post-processing, such as with the PostProcess BASE™, can address these common issues in terms of productivity, consistency, quality, and of course, overall cycle time:

• Improves overall cycle times to enable rapid prototyping with over twice as many prototypes able to be produced every week
• Reduces processing time by over 50% and drying time by over 60%when compared to submersible tank systems.
• Minimizes part warpage and breakage without changes to dimensional accuracy due to lower temperatures and less liquid exposure. These challenges are almost inevitable in a submersible tank.
• Reduces attended technician time up to 90% from traditional solutions due to the system’s AUTOMAT3D™ software.

Maintaining a competitive edge will continue to propel prototype volumes in Automotive and other markets from thousands per year to hundreds of thousands per year, particularly in companies that rely on fast innovation to drive growth. Here at PostProcess, our mission is to help the industry move beyond brute-forcing post-printing with manual labor and traditional mechanical solutions towards software-based automated solutions to ensure throughput and consistency in line with the market’s expectations.

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