3D printing, as anyone watching the industry understands, is a busy business. Few know this quite so thoroughly as industry expert Todd Grimm, President of T. A. Grimm & Associates, who keeps a close watch on additive manufacturing, offering insights on specific facets as well as broad trends. At RAPID + TCT, we often look forward to his insights as the fast-talking analyst shares a look at the happenings shaping the industry at large.
Last week in Texas, 2018 RAPID + TCT hosted another delightful session in which Grimm highlighted releases and announcements in 3D printing, segmented by ASTM technology and including 3D printing and 3D scanning hardware, supporting equipment, materials, and software. As he noted several times, 40 minutes is not nearly long enough to even quickly run through all that has happened in just half a year — but as always, he was willing to give it a try. These highlights serve as a healthy reminder of all that’s been going on in the 3D printing industry over the last two quarters, as well as a look into what we might expect to come soon from “What’s New: Roundup of the Latest 3D Printing and 3D Scanning Products.”
Materials
Materials make the build, and while Grimm noted that he would not be “getting into everything new on the show floor,” he noted themes in new materials regarding tensile strength, reinforced polymers, and of course metals.
Highlighted here were:
- Stratasys, Antero 800NA PEKK
- Prodways polyamide 6 etc, the first iteration of 612 loaded with glass bead
- BASF, three technologies; UltraSint for powder bed; photo resin custom designed for bottom-up vat photopolymerization processes; Ultrafuse Z nanocoated filaments with Essentium
- LPW Technology, tantalum powder
- Elementum 3D, aluminum 6061 for powder bed fusion, a new class of aluminum that’s engineering-grade, not casting-grade
- Tethon 3D
Read more: What’s New in 3D Printing? Todd Grimm’s Look at a Busy Six Months
thumbnail courtesy of 3dprint.com
