(3rd November 2021, Ness Ziona, Israel) Fabrica Group (formerly Nanofabrica) is pleased to announce that it as well as showcasing its market-leading micro AM technology — the Fabrica 2.0 — at the upcoming Formnext event in Frankfurt on booth C131, it will also be displaying an array of parts fabricated on its machine.
Avi Cohen, Head of Strategic Sales for Fabrica Group says, “When it comes to seeing the potential that exists through the use of the Fabrica 2.0 micro AM technology, actually looking at the parts produced is extremely important. We are coming to Formnext from a very successful Rapid TCT event a few weeks ago, and attendees in Chicago were captivated by the accuracy, tiny dimensions, and tolerances that our technology can attain. I guess if a picture speaks a thousand words, then a real part speaks a million. There is still a perception in industry that AM as a technology cannot achieve the accuracy and precision required by micro manufacturers. A trip to our booth at Formnext will dispel these thoughts for ever.
Existing at the interface of 3D printing for production and the industry-wide drive towards miniaturization, Fabrica Group’s Fabrica 2.0 industrial next-generation micro AM technology lifts the lid for designers and manufacturers in their quest to embrace the inherent advantage of the technology which promote innovation. It also enables them to exploit the ability that exists through 3D printing to build complex parts in small, medium, and high volumes in a timely and cost-effective fashion.
Cohen continues, “For manufacturers looking at the possibilities of using AM to complement or replace conventional production technologies for micro plastic parts, there are a number of compelling considerations. Through the Fabrica 2.0 micro AM technology, micron tolerances can be achieved repeatably on features on parts measuring less that a millimeter in all dimensions. Many micro plastic parts today are required with extremely exacting tolerances and feature sizes, and not only can the Fabrica 2.0 attain these levels of accuracy, but it can also allow the production of parts with a geometric complexity impossible using legacy manufacturing processes. Micro 3D printing essentially promotes design freedom, and so facilitates the production of parts and components without many of the limitations associated with more conventional production processes. In addition, micro AM requires no tooling, and so the lead times for production are significantly reduced as are the costs of production, especially when looking at short to medium volume runs.”
Boasting single micron resolution, Fabrica Group’s technology is targeted squarely at the optics, semi-conductor, micro-electronics, MEMS, microfluidics, and life sciences sectors. These sectors exhibit high-level demand for accuracy and complexity, and until now the only route to market has been through disproportionately expensive or restrictive traditional manufacturing technologies.
The Fabrica 2.0 micro AM system has 250 trillion voxels in the build volume of the printer. There is no other machine with such a voxel capacity, and it is because of this that the Fabrica 2.0 has the ability to apply a huge amount of data onto one part, which means highly precise and micron level accuracy can be achieved. Manufacturers have never been able to achieve such precision, accuracy, and resolution, through the use of AM before, and so the technology is truly a game changer. It is the voxel capacity of Fabrica 2.0 that facilitates this, and such capacity is only really required when manufacturers are concerned with miniaturisation and micro manufacturing.
The voxel capacity means that a large number of end-use parts can be accommodated in one build volume. For example, the Fabrica 2.0 can manufacture over 10,000 1 mm x 1 mm x 1 mm parts in a single build, from which it is easy to see how true mass manufacture is now attainable through the use of AM.
For many manufacturers, the goal when looking at AM as a production technology is high volumes. The ability to mass produce AM parts without the need for time consuming and costly hard tooling, and with all the advantages AM brings in terms of agility and geometric complexity impossible using traditional production techniques is a goal the Fabrica 2.0 makes attainable on the micro scale.
Contact Avi Cohen at Fabrica Group today via [email protected] to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the Fabrica Group team, who will be happy to discuss the specifics of your particular applications.
