I had a chat with PRODWAYS the other week and learned something quite interesting.
I hadn’t spoken with them for quite some time. The last time I encountered them, they showed me their “MOVINGLight” resin 3D printing system.
It’s quite ingenious. Most resin systems operate a projector and a tank of resin. The size of the prints is therefore limited by the size of the projection. If the projection is expanded, the pixel size also increases, decreasing resolution and surface quality. This is why most resin 3D printers are relatively small.
PRODWAYS’ MOVINGLight system uses projectors as well, but in a zoned manner. The projector illuminates a region in the resin, then moves to another region and repeats. By moving the projector around, they can achieve a much larger build volume without compromising the resolution.
When I last spoke with them, their moving light technology was used to print different polymers. I expected much of the same when I spoke with them this year.
However, polymers were definitely not the story here. Instead, they were all about ceramics. They explained that their main focus now is ceramics instead of polymers. They showed us their CERAM PRO 365 ceramic 3D printer, for example.
Hold on, how and why did they switch from polymers to ceramics? It turns out there is quite a story to it.
They discovered that some of their customers were using their polymer resin equipment to print ceramics by developing their own ceramic resins and post-processing procedures. The customers were interested in printing larger-sized ceramic parts, which could be made using the MOVINGLight technology.
PRODWAYS took a hard look at this and realized that the polymer market was becoming highly competitive, particularly with new Asian offerings. They made the strategic decision to move away from polymer technology and instead focus on ceramics, a market with far less competition.
They designed new machines and partnered with materials developers to provide ceramic resin. Now they have five different ceramic 3D printers on their product shelf, each with slightly different capabilities.
Their customers now use the equipment to print larger ceramic parts in high resolution. One interesting recent application they’ve discovered is to print investment casting cores and shells.
Their customers are interested in this application because the high resolution of the prints means the cores and shells require very little post-processing before they can be used for casting.
How big can these parts be? Some of PRODWAYS’ equipment has build volumes of up to 300 x 445 x 350 mm, which is definitely large any way you measure it, and certainly larger than most other ceramic 3D printers.
If you’re looking for a larger-format ceramic 3D printing option, you might consider PRODWAYS’ equipment.
Via PRODWAYS
