These are the photos from the Formnext 2021 exhibition and conference. They were taken by REC. The exhibition took place in Frankfurt Am Main from 16 to 19 November 2021.
Anisoprint
Anisoprint is a Luxembourg-based company focused on designing and manufacturing 3D printers that work with polymers reinforced with continuous carbon fibers. They are known for their desktop line of the Composer 3D printers and now they present the industrial solution named ProM IS 500.
This 3D printer is designed based on the MTX CNC system by Bosch Rexroth and can produce objects of the sizes up to 600 x 420 x 300 mm. Thermoplastics, such as PEEK, PEKK and PEI, can be used as the base materials for reinforcement. The 3D printer is equipped with four automatically interchangeable printheads for base polymer extrusion, fiber reinforcing, as well as ability to use a measuring probe and manipulators that can be equipped with various components, including electronic ones. The closed beta test is scheduled to start in the beginning of 2022. Ten industrial companies will be testing the device.
BCN3D
This Catalan brand famous for its IDEX-kinematic 3D printers (independent extruder positions over the X axis) showed their most recent desktop 3D printer Sigma D25, as well as the professional Epsilon solution.
The latter is equipped with a thermostatic chamber with a functional build volume of 420 x 300 x 400 mm and is capable of printing with carbon- and glass-reinforced composites based on polyamide and polypropylene.
BEAMIT and Gravity Industries
Italian brand BEAMIT offers industrial 3D printing services. They have an interesting exhibition stand that is decorated with a jet suit made by Richard Browning, a founder of Gravity Industries.
The jet suits have gone through numerous iterations and modernizations and are even available for sale. Despite successful showcases, for example showing ejecting from a boat to a ship deck and back (shown in the video below), the device is not yet bought by the military: it’s a rather expensive ‘toy’. The first version that was available for sale, was priced at £300, 00 and that didn’t even include a parachute.
But Richard is full of ideas: he was planning to try jet suit races in 2018 but didn’t manage to get enough people to buy the suits.
Gravity Industries and British navy land on the deck of the ship in the video below:
Creality
The spotlight of the Creality’s exhibition stand was taken by its new conveyor belt 3D printer: the Creality CR-30, also known as the 3DPrintMill. Using the belt in theory allows such systems to produce the prints with the length that is only limited by the walls or filament runout.
In practice, the main advantages of such 3D printers over the regular ones include small-batch production of parts with a minimum operator input: only loading filaments and placing the container would be required. As long as no issues like nozzle clogging happens, everything is perfectly automated. The idea is quite interesting and the solution isn’t expensive either: the CR-30 is currently sold at $1,000.
DWS
And this is the new SLA 3D printer called XPRO SL. It’s made by the Italian company DWS.
The build volume of these systems can reach 300 x 300 x 500 mm, so they can be used to 3D print relatively large objects as well as batches of smaller things with high resolution.
MX3D
And this is the exhibition stand of Dutch metal 3D printing company MX3D. These the famous guys behind the world’s first 3D printed bridge located in Amsterdam.
They mainly rely on the WAAM (Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing) 3D printing technology. Simply put, the objects are made with a multiaxial robotic arm that is equipped with a welding machine.
Nexa 3D
Nexa3D is the company founded by Avi Reichental who used to be the CEO of 3D Systems for a long time. He decided to start his own business in 2016. Nexa is developing high-speed resin 3D printers. The pictures show the device named XiP. It’s their latest offering and their first truly compact desktop 3D printer.
The XiP prints at the 4K resolution (which can be updated to 6K and even 8K further down the road) and the build volume is 190 x 120 x 170 mm. The speed and efficiency are claimed to exceed those of other DLP and SLA system 20 times. It isn’t said what 3D printers those are.
Plasmics
This delta 3D printer named DeltaS is the product of Austrian company Plasmics. They promise the ability to 3D print with refractory polymers in a thermostatic chamber. The induction heated hotend can reach the temperature of 450°С in just a few seconds.
The system shown in the pictures is just a prototype but the startup is planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.
Sinterit
And then here’s Sinterit with its new iteration of the Lisa 3D printer. The Polish manufacturer is now known for four models of relatively affordable SLS 3D printers that work with polyamide and polyurethane powders.
On the left, there’s a Lisa X, the largest and most efficient 3D printer in the series (the brand’s 480 is superior but it’s not a part of the Lisa family). Sinterit claims that the speed of the device (that has a build volume of 130 x 180 x 330 mm) can reach 14 mm/h by the Z axis. So a batch of electric ports consisting of 270 examples can be 3D printed in just 28 hours. On the right side, there are the predecessors: the Lisa Pro and the regular original Lisa 3D printer.
Trilab
Trilab – A Prusa Research Company is a Czech company that produces professional delta printers, high-temp extruders, thermostatic chambers and does filament splicing. Recently the Trilab company became a part of Josef Prusa company, so they had one exhibition stand.
Trilab will keep their brand so now it’s the closest thing to Delta Prusa.
Prusa Research
And here’s the new printer manufactured under the brand of Original Prusa. This is the first system where Joseph and his team tried to use the CoreXY kinematics. They also integrated a segmented print platform with zoned heating and a cycloidal extruder. There will be an optional changing system available, it will feature five printheads at first. And there’s a chance that later the probes, engravers and other things will be available.
WASP
This is another delta printer manufacturer. WASP is an Italian company with their flagship product the DeltaWASP 2040 Pro.
They showed a huge set of printers with different extruders: there’s a granular 3D printing, clay printing, as well as more regular filaments including refractory ones such as PEEK.
Others
Russian companies HARZ Labs showed their resin 3D printing developments, while Total Z provided a set of personal, professional and industrial 3D printers.
We thank Miikhail Shishkin, the CEO of the REC company, for the photos.
