A small corporate merger in the 3D print world took place this week.
The two companies involved, both based in the Netherlands, are Atum3D and AMSYSTEMS.
If you’re not familiar with them, let’s get you up to speed. Atum3D is a 3D printer manufacturer that produces high end DLP-style resin equipment. They currently produce a high speed DLP 3D printer along with a curing station and associated software.
AMSYSTEMS is a component manufacturer for 3D printers. They have developed the Multi-Laser Patterning (MLP) module. They describe MLP:
”A modular, multi-laser exposure unit for high resolution, high productivity printing, independent of build plate size and fill ratio. Configurable for top-down or bottom-up printing, the MLP’s versatility and performance make it suitable for an incredible variety of machine and resin combinations.”
The MLP module contains no less than 20 vertical laser beams with a resolution between 0.005 and 0.040mm in 405nm wavelength (that’s the typical wavelength for most 3D printer resins). They plan to add other wavelengths in the future. The MLP module also is quite powerful, ranging from 1-4W.
How does it work? They seem to have an octagonal prism that rotates at high speed to create the beams from a single laser source. Even better, their setup ensures the laser is always vertical, so you don’t have distorted laser dots towards the edges of the print area. They say the MLP module can achieve scanning speeds of “over 25m/s”, which is incredibly fast when compared to typical resin 3D printers.
In other words, MLP can make a resin 3D print extremely fast.
That seems to be the point of this merger. It appears that the new company, named Atum Systems, will produce a new industrial resin 3D printer that makes use of MLP technology. That could be quite interesting, as fast printing provides a significant advantage.
That’s because industrial systems are typically operated 24/7 to maximize output and financial returns. If a system can produce more output in the same time period, it is much more valuable.
In addition to the merger, the new company has also raised €1M (US$1.2M) in new investment. I’m not surprised about that, since this combination of companies and technologies sounds quite intriguing. There is still quite a large market for industrial systems of this type, and if the new system provides advantages, then there’s a clear path to success.
