www.3ders.org

Mar 29, 2016 | By Kira

It’s a common quibble in 3D printing today: despite promises to revolutionize manufacturing as we know it, additive manufacturing at both the desktop and industrial levels is still considered too slow for meaningful mass-production. Looking to turn our current concept of slow-but-steady 3D printing on its head, DO3D Innovations, an additive manufacturing R&D firm based in Budapest, Hungary, has today announced the creation of a patent-pending high-speed 3D printing technology called Multi-Direction Additive Production, or MAP.

By enabling 3D printing to take place on both sides of the build plate simultaneously, MAP promises to increase build speeds by 200% or more, using liquid, powder, or solid materials, and with no limitations on print geometry. To bring this technology to market and “establish a new category in additive manufacturing,” DO3D has also developed the SquareWave, an industrial, resin-based 3D printer that will soon be available to commercial manufacturers in need of large-scale, high volume 3D printing production.

There are a range of 3D printing processes available today, from SLA to SLS and the classic FDM, each with their own benefits and limitations. What they all have in common, however, is that they build 3D objects layer-by-layer, one on top of the other, using a single build plane as the basis.

But what if there wasn’t just a single build plane? Double the number of bases you are 3D printing from, and, hypothetically, you’ve doubled the speed. That is exactly the approach taken by DO3D’s R&D team, led by company co-founder and CTO Marton Bartos.

“We have been asking ourselves how we could achieve multidirectional 3D printing for a couple of years,” said Bartos, who was also a lead developer of DO3D’s high-resolution G1 DLP 3D printer. “By rethinking the basic concept of creating physical 3D geometries, we have found solutions that could be implemented in marketable products in the near future. We have filed a patent for this new approach and have proved with concept prototypes that our process is well within reach.”

MAP 3D printing technology’s key benefits include unparalleled build speeds, the ability to 3D print large part sizes with a high level of detail, no limitations on the geometry of the 3D printed part, and finally, the ability to work with multiple materials and 3D printing technologies, including liquid resin (SLA), powders (SLS, DLMS), and even thermoplastic filament processes (FDM).

The SquareWave industrial 3D printer will be the first additive manufacturing system to use MAP technology for part creation. Though the company is remaining tight-lipped about particular specs or hardware until an official release later this year, Bartos told 3Ders.org that the SquareWave is an “SLA-type” 3D printer that uses photopolymer resin and UV light, and consists of a “set build platform which is ‘worked around’ by multiple print heads.”

Bartos also divulged that their current SquareWave prototype has so far achieved extremely promising results in terms of both speed and scale: “The lab prototype—with which we were able to prove the basic principles of MAP—has a reduced build volume of 500cm3, but it can easily be scaled up to 80x or even larger dimensions,” he said.

Additionally, the current configuration of the SquareWave is allegedly already 3D printing 200% faster than current 3D printing processes, since it builds the 3D object both upwards and downwards at the same time. In the future, DO3D has said that this could potentially be expanded to enable 3D printing on several different sides at the same time, with correlating speed increments “of several orders of magnitude.”

Close up of a multidirectionally printed test part created by the prototype of DO3D's SquareWave 3D printer

Microscopic view of the evenly distributed layers (90um thickness) of a MAP 3D print

“The first prototype offers contemporary upward and downward printing and is especially fit for very large parts,” said Bartos. “Our main goal is to be able to take this idea to the next level and by that we mean establishing potential partnerships in industries that can benefit from our technology. Production speeds achievable with MAP technology could change the face of 3D printing.”

After a year of development, DO3D filed a patent application for its MAP technology in August 2015 and is planning to announce further details regarding the SquareWave 3D printer’s commercial availability later in 2016.

We've recently heard of several innovative strategies aimed specifically at increasing 3D printing speeds and scale: Autodesk’s Project Escher, which connects multiple 3D printers to create a smart production line; Carbon3D CLIP technology’s attempts to do away with layers; and most recently Allforge’s upcoming 3D molding machines, the first ‘true desktop factory,' to name just a few. DO3D’s multidirectional 3D printing technology is thus just one of many possible solutions to the issue of 3D printing speeds--or perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof.

Until further details are released, you can watch the short video below to get a sneak peek at MAP high-speed 3D printing technology:

 

 

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