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There’s no question that 3D printing has radically changed the face of modern manufacturing. From prototyping to short-run manufacturing, additive manufacturing (AM) has been impacting the way goods are developed and produced for over three decades.
For example, once upon a time proof-of-concept models for new technology required long and costly manufacturing setup. With AM, a just-designed car part or laboratory tool can be held in the designer’s hands within hours and at a reasonable expense. What’s more, AM enabled the creation of complex and lightweight designs that were simply too difficult to produce using traditional machining, dies, molds, or milling.
But there was a hitch.
AM, especially large-format AM, was historically constrained by speed. Building a large-format part could take 40-100 hours – and even considering the lack of tooling and setup, this left AM far slower than traditional manufacturing techniques.
Thankfully, we’ve overcome this final hurdle to mainstreaming of AM in manufacturing. In fact, we’ve just released the world’s fastest industrial 3D printer, that prints at 6X the speed of comparable systems.
A Game-Changer
At Nexa3D, we’ve built a reputation for ultra-fast stereolithography production 3D printers. Our newest printer, the NXE400, takes this to the next level -featuring truly remarkable printing speed and scale. Essentially, this printer shatters industry speed and size barriers by continuously printing up to 16 liters of parts at speeds of up to 1Z centimeter per minute. This means that prototypes and production parts that once took hours to achieve injection molding quality now take only minutes.
There are more product specs and info here, but most relevant question is: what does this change?
Avi Reichental, Nexa3D Co-founder, Executive Chairman and CEO, believes it changes everything. “This technology completely blows the doors off what’s possible in terms of speed and size. It’s going to unleash whole new levels of productivity for endusers by offering ultra-fast printing speeds, at higher volumes and amazing precision, and using a wider range of performance materials – all at the most economical cost of ownership on the market today,” he said in a recent interview.
Reichental contends that the NXE400 sets the stage for complete factory automation, at scale. Together with Nexa3D’s washing and curing systems, and active resin management system, the vision of human-free, setup-free “factories-in-a-box” is now closer to reality.
Where will this new road of manufacturing automation take us? Picture sustainable, affordable 3D-printed neighborhoods printed on-demand. Envision convincingly delicious 3D-printed steaks and burgers on the menu in fine restaurants.Imagine plastic-centric 3D printing is overtaken by metal-based 3D printing at scale, and fully integrated into mainstream manufacturing operations worldwide.“Zero setup, single run custom manufacturing of any part, anywhere, at any scale will make trade wars and tariffs a thing of the distant past – because nothing but data would need to be shipped across borders,” noted Reichental.
Mostly importantly, the next generation of 3D printers like the NXE400 were designed from the ground up with user friendliness in mind – easy to change materials, automation-ready access and a plug-and-play user interface that ensures complete user self-reliance. This is truly the democratization of 3D printing -ensuring that users can service every aspect of the printer in minutes based on user replaceable modules.