- Australian 3D printer manufacturer, SPEE3D, demonstrated the world’s fastest metal 3D printing production live at the Formnext exhibition
- SPEE3D printed a 1 kg copper part in less than 10 minutes
- The part was printed on a LightSPEE3D printer
- SPEE3D used the demonstration to issue a challenge to the 3D printing industry to beat this supersonic mass deposition
SPEE3D, an Australian award-winning manufacturer of metal-based additive manufacturing technology, printed a 1 kg copper sledgehammer in 10 minutes live in front of a crowd on the floor at Formnext in Frankfurt. Formnext is the leading global additive manufacturing exhibition running from the 19th – 22nd November 2019.
SPEE3D was able to achieve this industry leading print speed thanks to their patented technology. Rather than using heat to melt metal powders, SPEE3D printers use supersonic deposition in which a rocket nozzle accelerates air up to three times the speed of sound. Injected powders are deposited onto a substrate that is attached to a six-axis robotic arm. In this process the sheer kinetic energy of the particles causes the powders to bind together to form a high-density part with normal metallurgical properties. This allows metal parts to be printed 100 to 1000 times faster than with existing printing methods.
“What we demonstrated here is really just the beginning. We believe ours is the fastest print demonstrated live at a show like this and we challenge other players in the industry to print a 1 kg part faster, whether it be metal, plastic or ceramic. We want to see development in the industry, and we look forward to pushing our technology even faster. ” explains Byron Kennedy, co-founder and CEO of SPEE3D.
The live event was part of a larger demonstration by SPEE3D of their new product ‘SPEE3Dcell’ the world’s first 3D printing production cell. SPEE3Dcell combines a SPEE3D printer with a heat treatment furnace and a computer numerical control (CNC) three-axis milling machine. For the entire duration of the Formnext fair, SPEE3Dcell is being demonstrated live at Booth E02 in Hall 12, In just over six minutes, the machine will be printing sparkless copper hammers, finishing them, and assembling them on the trade show floor, demonstrating how SPEE3Dcell enables significantly faster, lower-cost, and more scalable production than traditional casting or other 3D printing techniques.
