Prusa Analysis founder and CEO Josef Prusa has described the corporate’s launch of its first industrial 3D printing system as an ‘apparent’ step.
The Prusa Professional HT90 was introduced ultimately yr’s Formnext and launched at a media occasion on the firm’s headquarters in Prague final month.
Regardless of its prior merchandise being focused at customers, hobbyists and designers, Prusa Analysis has put in machines on the likes of Volkswagen, NASA and SpaceX. These customers have applied Prusa 3D printing methods just like the MK3 and MK4 to help product improvement by the speedy prototyping of design iterations, however have signalled they might be considering a machine with extra superior capabilities and a broader supplies compatibility.
“When you’re asking what was our motivation, it’s simply plain apparent that with our fundamental machines, we’ve got so many corporations utilizing it and I need to have the ability to provide one thing extra superior,” Prusa instructed TCT. “The businesses are very proud of our machines however after we begin speaking about extra industrial supplies, they’re bummed by the very fact they should go to a different firm and gear chain.”
With the HT 90 machine, Prusa says clients will be capable to do speedy prototype components utilizing ‘fundamental polymers’ however with a profile swap and materials change, they will even have the capability to print fixtures, moulds and end-use parts. The machine helps supplies akin to PEI (Ultem), PEEK, PEKK, PSU and PPS with its high-temp print head functionality and PLA, ASA, PETG, ABS and PC with its high-flow print head functionality. It is usually geared up with a cylindrical print space of Ø300 × 400 mm, a heated chamber in a position to attain 90°C and a cooling system that gives what Prusa believes is ‘unparalleled’ layer adhesion and print high quality. Thanks to those capabilities, the corporate says, massive objects could be printed with out warping, poor overhangs or layer delamination.
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Its cooling system is a spotlight, in line with Prusa. A high-speed flap – for need of a greater phrase – works in tandem with a print fan to ship improved overhangs. The fan forces air by a tube straight into the print head, whereas the high-speed flap redirects its stream inside milliseconds because of a patent-pending low latency cooling know-how.
“We’ve a specifically engineered cooling system the place if you’re printing regular polymers, it will get air to chill down the print from the surface of the machine,” Prusa defined. “However if you’re printing a polymer which wants the heated chamber, it switches and the cooling will get the air from the within. As a result of the cooling isn’t about getting the print as cool as attainable, it’s about getting it once you lay down the heated polymer. You simply must get it to a stage the place it’s steady.”
In releasing this machine to market, Prusa not solely desires to construct on present relations with the aforementioned high-profile producers, but additionally facilitate start-ups and small corporations by opening up decrease quantity manufacturing purposes. The HT 90 involves market operating off the identical slicer as its predecessors, however boasts some tweaks to its {hardware} and firmware that make it extra appropriate for industrial utility.
Due to its penetration into these industrial markets already, Prusa is assured it is going to be in a position to construct on its present customized on this world.
“We’ve 1000’s and 1000’s and 1000’s of MK4s and MK3s at corporations like Volkswagen, NASA, SpaceX,” Prusa mentioned. “Once we discuss to those folks, they’re excited we’ve got an providing which is extra suited to the scale and complexity of their enterprise. They usually’re excited that they don’t should go exterior our ecosystem [to get these capabilities]. For us, it actually simply is sensible to do that.
“My grand imaginative and prescient is to have corporations which have every engineer geared up with one thing just like the MK4 for after they prototype, a few XLs for the mixed-material printing, and a few HT 90s [for production] so we are able to present them with every thing they want.”
