Sep 15, 2016 | By Alec
If you’ve ever used a desktop 3D printer before, you’ll have done the same: sitting around for hours, waiting for that important print to finish. An agonizing process, but you just can’t help checking its progress every ten minutes. Some whisper that sitting around, waiting, increases the likelihood of print failure. The point is: 3D printing is painfully slow and time is money. That’s why a new 3D printer by Tecnica will doubtlessly attract a lot of attention. Called the CASA, it’s a desktop SLS 3D printer that reaches speeds of up to 250 times higher than competing systems. What’s more, it will be marketed in the sub $20,000 range.
Tecnica itself is a Great Neck, New York based startup that are specialized in optimizing the 3D printing process. As a result, they have already assembled a significant portfolio of Intellectual Property since being founded 2013. Among others, they were awarded a patent for an infrared 3D printer bed leveling system at the beginning of the year. And just last week the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded them a new patent for a custom laser print head system (patent number 9,435,998) – the system responsible for CASA’s insane 3D printing speed.
As Tecnica explained, the idea behind this new SLS technology is to make Select Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printing technologies more viable and financially attractive for industrial and other professional applications. “The key to [the Laser Sintering] future is in rapid printing, strength and availability of material. The cost of [professional-grade] printers is too high to make it available to small and mid-size companies,” they say.
While they haven’t yet gone into detail about what this new 3D printing tech can do and how it works, Tecnica revealed that it builds models at the astounding speed of 250 times faster than competing systems. This is realized through a powerful 25-watt laser with an internal cooling peltier system and a positive pressure airflow, allowing 3D printing in a pre-set temperature range. Various hardware and software adjustments also allow the 3D printer to control the laser beam and bed position at a high pace, compensating for equipment deviations and environmental changes.
Most importantly, this fantastic speed doesn’t affect quality or accuracy at all, with the CASA realizing a resolution of better than 0.07mm. And with a print size of 92x100x150 mm, this makes the CASA a very appealing professional-grade option for the manufacturing of non-metal parts.
What’s more, the CASA is supported by a 10” hi-res color touchscreen that allows users to check on the 3D printing process in 3D. The display further keeps track of various 3D printing data, including temperature layer processing, elapsed time and more. It has further been designed for easy use and maintenance and features an automatic locking system. “Our patented print head is a game changer, At Tecnica, we measure print speed in hundreds of meter per second in a market where the speed limit is at about 6 meter/second,” CEO and Tecnica founder Charles Bibas said.
This new SLS 3D printing tech was already exhibited during the Inside 3D Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC back in April, but the company now revealed that the CASA 3D printer will be released in late December 2016. What’s more, Tecnica is planning to set the price point at less than $20k, placing the CASA in a nice spot between the top-level desktop FDM 3D printers (which max at several thousand dollars) and the industrial grade (metal) 3D printers, which quickly cost several tens of thousands of dollars.
The CASA 3D printer is mostly aimed at industrial users, and Tecnica has already said that partners from the aerospace (including NASA), automotive and defense industries can definitely benefit from the their cost-effective speed and accuracy to cut down on print times without sacrificing performance. But at the same time, the price also puts the CASA within range of schools and universities, jewelers and other designers. A larger metal 3D printer relying on the same laser tech, called the Optima 3D DMLS printer, is forthcoming as well.
Posted in 3D Printer
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Very nice and interesting article. Pointing a gredat product.
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