Late last month, Voxeljet AG shared the latest in its line of industrial 3D printers with attendees at the GIFA show in Dusseldorf, Germany. The company touts the tech behind the VJET X printer as revolutionary for the economics of the 3D printing industry. Designed to manufacture complex sand cores from which metal components can be cast, Voxeljet says the new printer will break barriers in terms of speed and cost efficiency.
A Generational Leap
Powered by a tightly integrated printing and recoating system, the new printer performs these processes in concert to drastically increase throughput. The company estimates that VJET X printers are 10 times faster than its last generation tech, which translates to layer times of under 5 seconds. It’s also equipped with several features—about which the initial release was thin on details—that will allow for true automation of the additive manufacturing process from start to finish. Pre- and post-processing will be totally robotic, as will the system that moves the printed sand cores to the casting lines. The new printer will also use an environmentally friendly inorganic binder system, resulting in an emission free process from start to finish.
Integrating VJET X into the Production Process
The VJET X does represent major strides over previous iterations of similar printers, though whether those strides will be enough to allow widespread implementation of additive manufacturing remains to be seen. At least one major player in the automotive space, however, is making a bet on the technology. A German luxury car manufacturer plans to bring online 5-10 of the printing units per year over the next half-decade. The idea is to slowly integrate the technology into the conventional production process of water jacket cores. These components are vital for temperature management of traditional combustion engines, battery systems, and electric motors alike. This pilot effort could therefore have major consequences for auto manufacturing as AM continues to develop.