High-volume production on 3D printers is possible with deeper automation

The coming economic crisis is affecting many industries and increases the pressure, not only on innovation, but also on the gradual replacement of manual procedures. Manufacturers of industrial 3D printers are accelerating the automation of steps in additive production. In order to be a viable alternative or complement to traditional mass production technologies, they must maximise their inherent benefits. From mass personalization of components, production of complex parts, the greatest possible degree of automation and effective remote control of the entire production process.

One of the areas of high-volume 3D printing in which it is possible to significantly streamline and speed up production is the area of ​​post-processing.

For example, additive technologies that use polymer powder as a building material, must remove printed parts, remove unbonded powder from the build chamber (so-called unpacking) and prepare it for the subsequent job. Currently, this process takes place with the assistance of an operator who extracts unused powder and handles printed parts. This is a fairly dusty process with some 3D printing technologies, in which you lose valuable material and increase the delivery time of prints.

Hewlett Packard, which previously developed its own external processing station and mobile printing chambers for these needs, now goes even further by introducing the HP Automatic Unpacking Station in collaboration with Rosler Group. It can significantly shorten the unpacking process with minimal human intervention. The mobile chamber (natural cooling unit) with its printed content also carries data for the job via RFID which the unpacking station reads and then adapts the unpacking process to the geometry of the parts in order to efficiently remove and extract unused material for recycling and further use.

The HP Automatic Unpacking Station is designed for volume production with the HP Jet Fusion 5200 3D printer, which in addition to interchangeable build units also has the natural cooling units, with which you can further multiply the equipment's production capacity, achieve greater production flexibility and lower costs.

However, the volume production of plastic parts cannot take place without sufficient software support and an information system. Companies such as HP, Siemens and Autonomous Manufacturing develop systems not only for remote device management and material consumption for 3D printers, but also communications with internal or external clients, automatic inspection of 3D models and preparation of individual print jobs, each of which can contain one or dozens of different projects. Last but not least, they monitor and record the quality of outputs, control measurements, final post-processing and delivery of printed parts to the end user.

As with other methods of series production, digital production of plastic parts works with low margins, relentless deadlines and an emphasis on repeatable quality. Any savings in time and manpower makes a quantifiable difference.