FORMNEXT LIVE: Binder Jetting for Metal, Composites, Precious metals and more – new capabilities for R&D and Production

– Hello, and we’re back at Formnext 2021. I’m Debbie Holton. I’m the president of Metrix, and I’m so excited to be here at the ExOne booth with Peter Denmark who’s the product manager for an exciting new machine. So Peter, tell us about it. What is this new machine.

– It’s great to be here? So this is the Innovent Pro three liter machine that’s brand new for Formnext. And what we’ve done is we’ve taken the learnings from the Innovent Plus machine. That is the world’s best-selling metal binder jet system. And the 25 Pro and the 160 Pro for full production and combine that into a most advanced entry-level metal binder jet machine.

– That’s exciting. So why this machine? Why now? Why is this being launched?

– So customers are really looking for a fast, larger, more production ready R&D machine. And we feel like we’ve provided all of that with the systems in it. So we’ve used the same printhead as we have on our larger, more production scaled printers. We have the same recoder and we have a new innovative powder loading system on this machine.

– So tell us a little bit about how it works and binder jetting in general because everyone may not be familiar with what binder jetting is.

– So binder jetting really is the fastest, most economical way of making 3D printed parts. And what we do is we lay down a thin layer about 50 microns of powder and then we go over with a piezoelectric printhead and selectively deposit the binder onto the metal powder bed and then we form our parts. And we do that over and over, layer by layer until we form a fully dense metal part.

– Layer by layer. I think that makes sense in additive manufacturing. So tell us what are some of the industries using this? What are some of the opportunities going forward? Where do you see this going?

– That’s the most exciting part, is because now we’re able to touch almost every industry from aerospace to medical, a lot in the automotive sector. We’re really seeing that this is gonna be adopted as an R&D developmental tool for the full scale production. So almost any industry, virtually any powder, metal powder, ceramic powders, composites are able to be printed on this machine. So it’s really a wide offering that we can go to.

– What about precious metals?

– Absolutely. This is gonna be a great machine for the jewelry industry and the luxury good industry for printing precious metals.

– Well, I’ll be looking forward to my little swag off this machine sometime soon. And thanks Peter. It was great learning about this new machine, and I know that everyone out there is really gonna want to contact you and find out more about it. Thanks a lot.

– Thank you.

– Well, great. Thanks for joining us here at Formnext 2021. Tune back in for more information later.