GENERA has joined Henkel's open materials platform to offer production-scale additive manufacturing solutions. The two companies are working together on their respective focus areas to enable a new level of production for the automotive and healthcare industries. By combining GENERA's expertise in 3D printing and software development with Henkel's innovative material development, the two companies aim to generate new applications for DLP printing in the automotive and other industries.
The unique GENERA G2/F2 system for stereolithography (DLP) creates a safe, reproducible and holistic process for the rapid production of functional 3D components. GENERA's fully integrated process allows a 3D printed part to move from green body to final product using the G2/F2 systems, providing an unrivalled clean, safe and simple path to finished parts. Parts printed in the G2 are deposited in the so-called 'shuttle', which enables safe transfer to the finishing unit F2. An additional feature of this shuttle is an RFID tag (memory chip) on which all workflow data, including finishing data, is stored. The G2/F2 system enables end-to-end documentation of the production process, fully recording the printing process, washing and post-curing. This is an important feature in industries such as automotive and healthcare, where quality control and reliability and reproducibility are critical.
"We are very excited to be working with GENERA to develop applications that can make a positive contribution to a variety of industries," said Sam Bail, Head of Sales for 3D Printing at Henkel. "Our goal is to use additive manufacturing to drive manufacturing at scale. We believe that by working with the right ecosystem partner, Loctite 3D printing materials will be an important building block for that."
A recent example of where GENERA's fully integrated process and the Loctite 3D elastomer photopolymer range successfully solved a design challenge was in the manufacture of seat parts. KTM E-Technologies approached GENERA with a need to design and manufacture prototype parts using elastic materials to enable seats with a functional lattice structure. Many industrial 3D printers could not produce the prototype parts in the size, quality and standards required for further series production. The G2/F2 system excels at producing lattice structures from Loctite 3D 8195. "Additive manufacturing remains a key technology in production, not only for prototype parts but also for series production," says Florian Fischer, additive manufacturing project manager at KTM E-Technologies. "The GENERA 3D printing system helps us to find better solutions for the mobility of the future."
In the future, Henkel and GENERA plan to expand the portfolio of materials that can be used for the GENERA process (G2/F2 system). "We are very excited to expand our material portfolio to more than ten Loctite 3DP resins to serve more applications in the market that have been validated on our G2/F2 system," says Dr Klaus Stadlmann, CEO and founder of GENERA Printer GmbH. "Partnerships like the one with Henkel will drive the adoption of DLP-based 3D printing for volume production and deliver on the promise of 3D printing."
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