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One of many predominant issues that has made 3D printing such a compelling manufacturing know-how is its functionality to boost and speed up product growth cycles. With it, designers and firms can convey new product concepts to life and discover wholly new designs that will have been unattainable inside the constraints of conventional manufacturing. One firm that demonstrates, and even encapsulates, this transformative dynamic is Carbon. The California-based firm has labored with many shoppers and companions throughout the patron, automotive and dental industries—amongst others—leveraging its 3D printing-driven idea-to-production platform to push innovation in product design and manufacturing.
{Hardware}, supplies, and software program
Carbon is an plain chief within the polymer AM trade, having demonstrated its know-how’s capability for mass manufacturing (i.e., by means of its partnership with adidas). However that’s not the one space the place it excels. The corporate’s idea-to-production platform supplies finish customers with the instruments to provide you with new product concepts and convey them to life, whether or not it’s high-performance bike saddles, custom-fit dental aligners, or high-tolerance automotive parts.
Central to Carbon’s idea-to-production platform is the corporate’s patented Carbon Digital Mild Synthesis™ (Carbon DLS™) know-how course of. The 3D printing course of makes use of a mix of digital mild projection, oxygen-permeable optics, and UV-curable resin supplies to provide high-quality, dense polymeric components. Immediately, the corporate provides 5 3D printer fashions primarily based on its DLS course of: the entry-level M1, the workhorse M2, the large-format L1, and the lately launched subsequent technology of M-Sequence printers, the M3 and M3 Max with next-gen DLS. These methods are complemented by different {hardware}, such because the Good Half Washer for high-throughput half ending, and an ecosystem of resolution companions.
The 3D printers are solely a part of the equation, nonetheless. Carbon can also be recognized for its various choice of first- and third-party supplies, that are very important to unlocking every kind of latest functions. In its engineering portfolio, the corporate provides dozens of resin choices, together with EPX 82, a high-strength materials with properties comparable to twenty% glass-filled PBT; EPU 41, a versatile, tear-resistant materials similar to industrial TPUs; and MPU 100, a biocompatible materials with good chemical resistance. It additionally provides a devoted dental portfolio comprising over a dozen resin supplies, tailor-made to functions like dentures, dental fashions, splints, trays, crowns, and bridges.
Software program can also be important, offering the means for engineers and product designers to take their concepts from idea to completed product. Only a few months in the past, Carbon launched the newest model of Design Engine,™ a software program resolution that generates advanced lattice geometries. The platform, now available to any designer (not solely Carbon printer subscribers), facilitates the design and creation of 3D printed merchandise optimized for consolation, weight, or efficiency. For example, Specialised Bicycles utilized Carbon Design Engine to reimagine the normal bike saddle to enhance rider sit-bone help and luxury. Specialised was in a position to infinitely tune the fabric’s density in a method unattainable with foam, leading to a seat that’s extra comfy and provides extra help than conventional foam seats, because of its multi-zone lattice geometries and programmable resins.
Not only a buyer, a associate
Whereas {hardware}, supplies and software program are a essential mixture for any profitable additive manufacturing resolution, Carbon’s idea-to-production platform is about aside by the corporate’s subscription mannequin. That’s, relatively than merely buy its 3D printing {hardware}, Carbon prospects change into subscribers to the corporate’s know-how platform. Which means that they will profit from frequently up to date software program which delivers help for brand new supplies, improved effectivity and higher half high quality, in addition to receiving full help providers.
Carbon’s subscription-based mannequin is knowledgeable by the information that the AM trade is at all times advancing, that means that {hardware} and software program options that exist right now danger changing into out of date, even within the close to future. By giving its prospects entry to common software program updates, Carbon goals to curb the chance of obsolescence and make sure that its prospects are at all times on the leading edge.
“Common software program updates imply improved printer functionalities (e.g., print velocity, accuracy, texturing, and many others.) and at all times having a state-of-the-art machine,” the corporate explains. “We periodically introduce new high-performance 3D printing supplies after a whole bunch of hours of inner materials validation, and we are able to present examined parameters to our prospects remotely to work with them, increasing the capabilities of our platform lengthy after preliminary set up, with excessive confidence the supplies can carry out on their first print. And predictive upkeep and real-time customer support imply seamless troubleshooting and extra machine uptime. Not like different applied sciences, Carbon’s subscription mannequin means our relationship begins at set up and solely grows with our prospects from there.”
Enabling creators
Carbon has a robust imaginative and prescient that’s already being realized, by which its know-how allows individuals to realize new designs and merchandise that will not have been possible utilizing conventional manufacturing workflows and strategies. Notably, Carbon’s resolution just isn’t solely match for product design and growth; the scalable nature of DLS know-how implies that corporations can simply transition from product growth to full-scale manufacturing when the time comes with out altering the manufacturing course of or supplies.
We now have seen many examples of this strategy being efficiently carried out, from American sporting items firm Rawlings bringing a brand new and improved baseball glove with 3D printed stabilizers to market, to hockey tools firm CCM bettering the impression resistance of hockey helmets with lattice architectures, to blender specialist Vitamix utilizing Carbon’s know-how to revamp and deploy a 10x extra sturdy rinsing nozzle for industrial functions.
Past clearing new paths for improved product design, Carbon’s idea-to-production platform additionally unlocks effectivity good points. For instance, the 10x extra sturdy Vitamix nozzle can also be 30% extra economical than the previous design. Within the dental phase, Protec Dental Laboratories, a Canadian digital dental know-how firm, revolutionized the manufacturing of orthodontic night time guards through the use of Carbon’s M2 platform. By 3D printing the units immediately, the corporate has skilled a 50% enhance in day by day manufacturing in addition to a 66% lower in handbook labor (in addition to related prices). That’s on prime of the truth that the 3D printed night time guards are additionally extra correct and fewer cumbersome than their analog counterparts.
The checklist of Carbon case research goes on: the corporate actually has positioned itself strategically as a viable options supplier for polymeric half manufacturing. We will additionally look to the automotive sector, the place Lamborghini has been utilizing Carbon’s know-how since 2018 to provide end-use gas caps and air duct clips for the Urus Tremendous SUV. The Italian sports activities automotive producer can also be exploring the usage of Carbon’s 3D printing to optimize the manufacturing of different car components.
General, the objective of Carbon’s idea-to-production platform is to change into the engine that powers breakthrough outcomes. As the corporate says: “Carbon empowers you to discover and understand your greatest concepts rapidly. We’re main the best way to a extra open, linked, and sustainable world of producing that can enhance all our lives.”
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