Prima Additive and Materialise ramp up AM collaboration
- Details
- November 24, 2021
Additive manufacturing systems manufacturer Prima Additive and 3D printing specialist Materialise have announced they are stepping up their collaboration in optimizing metal additive manufacturing systems.
The collaboration between the two companies has led to the optimization of the Print Genius 150, the additive manufacturing system by Prima Additive with Powder Bed Fusion technology featuring two lasers working on the same area. On this machine Prima Additive has integrated Materialise's MCP (Materialise Control Platform) hardware control to obtain real-time control functions and a streamlined combination with external systems to assist the process, such as monitoring and control systems.
A major result of the integration between the Prima Additive and Materialise systems is the development of a laser Workload Balancing algorithm that allows users to leverage the two lasers to maximum potential and in a balanced way, optimizing workload. The algorithm enables the two lasers to work in each layer for the same amount of time, automatically distributing the work and eliminating moments in which only one of the two lasers is at work, which maximizes the productivity gains from having two lasers on the same machine. The first Print Genius 150 resulting from this collaboration was installed at the University of Leuven, Belgium in April 2021.
All machines in the Prima Additive 150 Family are equipped with different sensors that monitor the process in real time, a double preheating system to heat the surface of the powder bed both from the top and from the bottom through the heated plate (up to 300° C), and can integrate lasers with different wavelengths (e.g. green lasers). Furthermore, the machine offers the user the possibility to set the laser parameters and the layer thickness in real-time during the job. The Materialise Control Platform (MCP) adapts well to the software architecture of this family of machines and offers a flexible way to optimize the features of the machine.