Skip to main content

AMUG Newsletter August 2017

By August 17, 2017
 

August 2017

President’s Report

Last week the AMUG Board assembled to develop and refine our strategy and plans for our 2018 conference.  This meeting was a well-planned session that spanned three days that allowed us to cover everything from indoctrination of new board members to development of conference plans. We all came in excited to get started and left with a long list of action items to get everything going.

So what are the actions that you— a user of professional AM equipment, past member of AMUG or a potential first-timer—need to do before we meet in St. Louis on April 8? Here’s a shortlist for the balance of this year:

  • Read this newsletter (and future editions); look for important news and dates.
  • Set up your calendar reminders for actions on those ever-important dates.
  • Prepare your justification letter for your boss so you can attend the conference.
  • Make a large sign to hang in your shop, office, or cube that says “AMUG Conference registration opens October 1”.
  • Decide what you will present this year or what workshop you will provide.  Sign up as a speaker (when call for speakers opens).
  • Reach out and offer to volunteer (contact Kim Killoran, secretary).

I am looking forward to April as much as I know you are. Let’s all put the effort in now so we can attend and not only get a lot from the conference but also provide as much as possible. Receiving and giving is important since this truly is an organization that is “for users, by users”.

Paul Bates
President

Registration to Open Oct. 1

Conference registration will open October 1, 2017, with an early-bird price of $895. This all-inclusive attendee pass includes 2-night AMUGexpo, 4 days of conferences, meals, beverages and evening entertainment. For those that want to reserve a spot but can’t pay immediately, there is a “Save and Return Later” option.

We will also open the hotel reservation system on October 1, giving you a room rate of just $129/night.

Both conference registration and hotel reservations will be accessible through the AMUG website.

Sponsorships and AMUGexpo Spaces

AMUG will start accepting sponsorships and exhibitor registrations on October 1. Details will be posted on the AMUG website in the coming weeks. In the interim, please contact our vice presidents (vicepresident@am-ug.com) for details. Once open, registrations will be accessible through a link on the AMUG website.

Space selection for Diamond suites, Platinum locations and AMUGexpo spots will be based on a prior-year’s-support basis for those that register and submit payment (deposit in some cases) in October. Starting in November, selections will be based on the date of registration and payment.

Conference Extracurriculars

Preparations for the 2018 AMUG Conference and AMUGexpo are in full swing.  Once again (weather permitting) there will be a golf outing, and it will be help on Saturday, April 7, 2018, at Gateway National Golf Links.  On Sunday, April 8, 2018, there will be Skeet and Trap Shooting (also weather permitting) at the St. Louis Skeet and Trap Club.

Space is limited for both golf and shooting, so make sure to register without delay. Registration for these extracurriculars is done through the online conference registration system, which will be active October 1. If you have questions or want to lend a helping hand, contact Bob Dzugan (rdzugan@buycastings.com) for golf items and either Dave Haydon (dhaydon@bluefirellc.com) or Stefan Ritt (Stefan.Ritt@slm-solutions.com) for skeet/trap.

One extracurricular activity that you don’t have to register for is swimming. The conference hotel has an outdoor pool; the overflow hotel has an indoor pool. For your enjoyment, both will be open 24 hours and heated to 85 ºF (29 ºC) at all times. Swimsuits are hard to find in March, so make sure you take advantage of the end-of-season sales to buy some swimwear that shows off your style.

As noted earlier, hotel registration will be opening soon so read future newsletters or visit the website for notification.

AMUG.com

Good news: you no longer have to put the dash in AM-UG.com or deal with a long URL (additivemanufacturingusersgroup.com). Last week we ported the website over to the newly acquired domain of AMUG.com.

For those with links to the old domain or AMUG pages in your browser favorites, no updates are needed. We have redirected all pages on our site to the new domain address.

Email addresses will also change to @AMUG.com in the next two weeks. But you don’t have to worry about updating your address book since current email addresses will be forwarded to the new ones.

SPONSOR NEWS

ExOne Sand Casting Webinar with Prospect Foundry

Modern Casting Magazine with be hosting a webinar with ExOne and Prospect Foundry in September that will highlight how additive manufacturing has reduced Prospect’s production time and costs. Greg Colosimo and Bob Gruidl from Prospect will be presenting with Terry Senish from ExOne.

Webinar Abstract:

Combining Cores with 3DP
~Pay now or pay later

How the act of combining three individual cores into a single piece can have a huge impact on downstream costs.  It is often difficult to determine what “not having” 3DP can cost. A real-world example shows how progressive thinking can save money downstream.

Established in 1936, Prospect Foundry is a market leading supplier of complex cored gray and ductile iron castings in low to medium volumes. We combine modern casting technologies, engineering expertise and a focus on craftsmanship to produce high-quality, complex pressure-tight, porosity-free castings. Prospect Foundry castings have been used by major OEM customers in the construction, mining, agricultural equipment and industrial markets.

Webinar dates and registration information will be released soon on the Modern Casting events page and the ExOne News page.

New Company – BASF 3D Printing Solutions – To Start Operations in September 2017

BASF is establishing a new Group company, BASF 3D Printing Solutions GmbH, to pursue business opportunities in 3D printing. The new company, based in Heidelberg, Germany, will focus on establishing and expanding the business with materials, system solutions, components and services for 3D printing.

“The field of 3D printing for industrial applications is highly dynamic and still emerging. This means there is a need for agile, startup-like structures with interdisciplinary teams and quick decision-making processes,” said Volker Hammes, managing director of BASF 3D Printing Solutions. “Combining the customer-focused 3D printing activities in one location at a dedicated business is an important success factor.”

To learn more, check out the news release or contact us at 3d-printing@basf.com.

Renishaw www.renishaw.com

Renishaw Exchanging Metal 3D Printing Solutions with HiETA

Renishaw technology has helped HiETA move metal AM from prototype manufacture into commercial production of its specialist range of heat exchangers. The recent addition of Renishaw’s RenAM 500M system at the company has enabled manufacturing times and production costs to be reduced significantly.

HiETA wanted to confirm metal AM could produce sufficiently thin walls for a heat exchange component and to produce a heat exchanger to be taken into short series production.

Parameter sets were developed to create leak-free, thin walls, in Inconel, down to 150 microns. A full-size heat exchanger was then built on a Renishaw metal AM system with laser powder bed fusion technology, and the part was included in a micro-turbine for an electric car.

The heat exchanger had a build time of 80 hours; requirements for both pressure drop and heat transfer were met. Part weight and volume is approximately 30% lower than an equivalent made by conventional methods.

See the full case study with video  here:

HiETA MiTRE and SLAMMiT additively manufactured recuperators.

Stratasys www.stratasys.com

Stratasys Agilus30 Flexible Material Outperforms

Agilus30, a rubber-like photopolymer, is durable and tear-resistant with the ability to stand up to repeated flexing or bending, expanding the capabilities of 3D printed prototypes. With the elongation at break properties of up to 270% and two times greater tear resistance, Agilus30 is the new standard for flexible prototyping applications.

Agilus30 is available in both black and clear for the Connex 1, 2, and 3 systems. Connex 3 users can leverage the material-mixing capabilities of their system to simulate rubber with various levels of elongation and tear resistance. From soft grip handles to weather seals, Agilus30 offers exceptional part realism.

For more information on Agilus30, click here.

Tear resistance testing on Agilus30.

Jabil Sees the Future of Manufacturing with HP 3D Printing

Jabil, one of the most technologically advanced manufacturing solutions providers in the world, is working with most major consumer brands across its 100 facilities in 25 countries. Keeping its customers competitive requires Jabil to stay on the cutting edge of engineering, prototyping and manufacturing. “For us, what’s powerful is the ability to produce quality parts with consistency, a high level of mechanical integrity and at speeds that allow us to define a break-even point for traditionally made parts, using the HP platform. We can get parts that can start to rival injection molding performance parameters with a cost model that can be competitive with molding parts.”

Watch this video to learn more.

Jabil making parts that rival injection molding.

3D Systems www.3dsystems.com

The Compelling Numbers Behind 3D Printing for Investment Casting

A recent white paper by 3D Systems dives into the efficiencies of 3D printing for investment casting from both a productivity and cost-savings perspective. A longstanding methodology for end-use metal parts, investment casting has traditionally come with high cost and time demands for tooling. For some applications this has simply introduced delays, not barriers; for other applications, tooling considerations have taken investment casting off the table altogether.

The new 3D Systems white paper explores new options for metal part production stemming from highly accurate and reliable stereolithography and wax 3D printing solutions. In addition to cutting upwards of 90% of the time from investment casting pattern production, 3D printing methodologies significantly reduce the costs involved, opening the process to a wider array of applications.

Read the full investment casting white paper for more information.

Investment casting patterns discussed in white paper.
(Image courtesy of Vaupell, Inc)

Ever Thought About the True Cost of injection Molding?

While used for decades to manufacture plastics parts, injection molding costs may be higher than what the conventional cost models typically include: direct materials, machine time and direct labor. To estimate the true cost of manufacturing. product development teams should consider five additional cost elements: tooling amortization, prototyping/tooling change, design for injection molding, setup fees, and minimum order quantity (MOQ) inventory waste. Additionally, the cost of time-to-market penalty with injection molding can be significant due to lengthy development times of 6 to 23 weeks with numerous variables.

Product development teams should use the proposed true cost model to evaluate if injection molding is the most efficient method for their business scenario. Carbon offers lower upfront costs compared to injection molding, agile part production, and the ability to iterate rapidly on design changes. With Carbon’s Digital Light Synthesis™ technology comes impossible-to-mold geometries, differentiated functional performance, part consolidation, a leaner supply chain and faster time to market (2-3 weeks) with fewer variables.

Learn more here.

Elements of the true cost of injection molding.

Somos® Transforms Rapid Prototyping

When MGS Mfg. Group first came across Somos® PerFORM, they believed they had found a material that could transform the speed, cost and quality of rapid prototyping. Through a partnership with Realize, a Somos® service bureau, MGS set to cut prototyping times from weeks to days, cut costs by up to 30% and significantly increase the versatility of new product development.

Learn more here.

MSG offers 3D-printed prototype tools before cutting steel (above).

SLM Solutions www.slm-solutions.us

SLM Solutions New Order Intake Value Increase

New order intake of Selective Laser Melting systems, which grew 17.9% to EUR 35.3 million on a reduction in machines ordered, shows a positive trend towards growth in the level of sales of higher-performance, and consequently higher-value, machines. Uwe Bögershausen, Member of the Executive Board of SLM Solutions Group AG, comments, “Additive manufacturing is becoming increasingly accepted and has meanwhile achieved strategic importance for major industrial companies. We are benefiting from this trend and booked our largest individual order in the company’s history in June 2017. We continue to experience major interest in our systems. We aim to move forward in further developing and adapting our systems to meet a wide variety of production requirements through the partnerships we have entered into over the past months, amongst others with Divergent in the USA and BeamIT in Italy.”

Read the full press release here.

EOS On-Demand Webinar: Double Disruptive Forces – How Industrial 3D Printing Accelerates Digital Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing is one of the key elements of the digital factory, delivering a competitive advantage for many organizations. Still, many struggle to implement this disruptive technology as a production tool. Join EOS and Authentise for Double Disruptive Forces – How Industrial 3D Printing Accelerates Digital Manufacturing,” highlighting best practices in delivering a digitally integrated AM factory operation that can increase your efficiency and change manufacturing as we know it.

Join the webinar: Double Disruptive Forces.

3D Metal Printing Magazine www.3dmpmag.com

Will Medical Applications for AM Evolve into Print-on-Demand?

The latest issue of 3D Metal Printing magazine addresses the possibility of print-on-demand for patients on the operating table; taking STL files, converted from CT scans or MRIs and building patient-specific implants on the spot. That’s just part of an in-depth look at the use of metal AM in the medical industry provided by Senior Editor Louis A. Kren, who interviewed industry expert Shannon Van Deren, president of Layered Manufacturing and Consulting, Canton, MI. Van Deren offers her perspectives on the use of metal AM for implants, instrument prototypes and other applications, and explains how AM technology needs to evolve to gain further traction.

“Material suppliers have responded to the uptick in interest among AM suppliers,” says Van Deren. “We see more metal alloys coming online for medical applications. Titanium and cobalt-chrome are widely used in the implant sector, for instance, and new formulations and new powder sizes (that help determine density and surface finish) are coming online.”

Here’s the article.

3D-printed cranial implant.

TCT Magazine www.tctmagazine.com

TCT Show is Upon Us

This is the last update from the TCT Group before the TCT Show in Birmingham and the inaugural TCT Awards ceremony, for which the shortlists have now been announced. In response to the growth of the industry, the show has moved into a bigger hall and expanded across a second hall alongside exhibitors from the co-located Interplas. The show runs across three days this year, and the list of technologies at the show is extensive.

As usual, the conference team has pulled together a stellar line-up of what must be the world’s largest free 3D technologies conference. Talks from industry experts like Todd Grimm, Graham Tromans and Dave Burns compliment a host of super-users like Adidas, McLaren, and Johnson & Johnson.

Make sure you download the latest edition of the European issue of TCT Magazine from your app store of choice for a full, extensive preview. Register for the show here.

TCT Show floor (2016 event shown) to expand.

ENGINEERING.com www.engineering.com

What Exactly Makes Xact Metal’s Metal 3D Printing So Cheap?

While a number of new metal 3D printing companies promise the ability to fabricate metal parts at lower price points, only one startup at this year’s RAPID+TCT event unveiled a platform that promises to deliver the same parts one sees with typical powder bed fusion systems at such a low cost. Xact Metal is a Pennsylvania-based company that has developed a powder bed fusion metal 3D printer that it plans to sell for just $120,000.

Read the whole story here.

Gantry-driven laser in Xact Metal’s systems.

Metal AM Magazine www.metal-am.com

Metal Additive Manufacturing Gains Ground in the Tire Industry

Read the special report in Metal AM magazine’s free-to-download Summer 2017 edition

As tire designs become more sophisticated and conventional manufacturing processes near the limits of their flexibility, cost and feasibility, the tire mold industry promises increasing opportunities for AM in the near future.

In a special report for Metal Additive Manufacturing magazine, we explore the growing use of AM for tires and interview representatives from companies including EOS and SLM Solutions.

Their statements clearly show the progress achieved by metal AM and offer insight into some of the challenges to be faced in taking full advantage of this exciting new opportunity.

Additive Manufacturing Magazine www.additivemanufacturing.media

Latest Issue: Getting Ready for Production

The latest issue of Additive Manufacturing magazine describes how additive manufacturing differs from 3D printing. While 3D printing is obviously at the heart of an AM process, the companies aiming to realize a resilient and repeatable production process based on 3D printing have to invest in considerations well beyond this step. Manufacturers covered in this issue include an Ohio medical implant contractor that discusses the challenges and the promise of building a production-focused additive manufacturing business. Also in this issue: a guide to the Additive Manufacturing Conference coming to Knoxville, Tennessee, October 10-12, where the co-founder of that implant manufacturer on this month’s cover will be just one of over 30 speakers discussing the practical realities and industrial impact of AM.