"rapid+tct is one of the important trade fairs for industrial 3D printing and is an excellent platform for increasing our brand awareness and presenting our machine highlight, the large Freeformer 750-3X, for the first time in North America," says Dr Victor Roman, Managing Director of ARBURGadditive. "We will also be exhibiting our complete portfolio – from fast and economical 3D printing of prototypes for accelerated time-to-market to additive processing of sophisticated original materials into resilient, traceable functional components for the aerospace, automotive and medical industries, for example."
North American premiere for the Freeformer 750-3X
The Freeformer 750-3X is making its North American debut. This largest industrial 3D printer from Arburg has a build chamber of 750 square centimetres, around 2.5 times larger than the Freeformer 300-3X – with the same external dimensions. This enables it to produce larger functional components or to additively manufacture small batches industrially. In addition, data processing and the Gestica controller developed and manufactured by Arburg itself have been further optimised in terms of process stability, component quality and build time. The result is significantly reduced costs per component.
At rapid+tct, a Freeformer 750-3X will be demonstrating a typical automotive application. The exhibit will make a seal out of soft TPU with the help of support material. The component is used for car windows.
3D printing for aerospace and medical technology
A second Freeformer exhibit in size 300-3X will be producing components for the aerospace industry at rapid+tct 2023. This machine in high-temperature design allows the build chamber to be heated to up to 200 degrees Celsius. The exhibit will process Ultem 9085, an original high-temperature plastic approved for aerospace applications, into air duct prototypes for aircraft cabins. Arburg will also be presenting a number of component examples on its stand, including those made of TPE, PP and multi-material designs, as well as the possibility of finishing and polishing in subsequent machining processes. The Freeformer can be used in clean rooms with just a few adjustments and can process medically approved original materials. That will be seen through the example of the customer iMedScreening, which is using a Freeformer 300-3X to additively manufacture individual implants for the human knee as part of an IRB (Institutional Review Board) study.
3D printers from innovatiQ round off the product portfolio
This year, ARBURGadditive's entire product portfolio will be on show with innovatiQ's TiQ 2, TiQ 5 and LiQ 5 exhibits, which at rapid+tct will be producing a vacuum gripper from fibre-reinforced filament, a bracket from PC and a model tyre from LSR. In the Arburg Plastic Freeforming (APF) process with the Freeformer the same plastic granules are used as in injection moulding. The 3D printing systems from innovatiQ are also based on an open material platform.
The TiQ series 3D printers process plastic filaments using FFF (fused filament fabrication) technology. The compact entry-level TiQ2 model is suitable for operating equipment and robotic grippers, for example, while the TiQ 5 can process demanding high-temperature filaments as well as fibre-reinforced materials. for 3D printing with liquid silicone, innovatiQ invented liquid additive manufacturing (LAM). With the actively heatable build chamber in the new LSR printer LiQ 5, the LAM technology experiences a further development step.