My Printer

  • 3DPrint.com & AM Research Present: UAS Additive Strategies, Sponsored by EOS

    When your work involves a technological field, like additive manufacturing (AM), which still flies under the radar for most people, it can often feel like what you do every day exists in its own little container closed off from the rest of the world. The curious thing about that is that AM has repeatedly proven to be directly relevant to some of the world’s most impactful societal developments.

    We don’t have to get into those developments now, but the dynamic has reemerged once again in the form of the ongoing conflict in Iran. Just as with all other instances of contemporary military operations, the war in Iran is a drone conflict, and that means that AM has a disproportionately large role to play in the industrial base activities of the belligerents. International powers are already in “a new drone arms race,” one in which the central issue driving strategic competition is the production techniques used to deliver the weapons systems, even more so than the weapons systems themselves.

    This boom in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has such potential to shape the next generation of the AM industry that AM Research and 3DPrint.com have decided to offer a new webinar event based on the topic, UAS Additive Strategies: the Present and Future of Drone Manufacturing. Sponsored by EOS, the global leader in both metal and polymer AM solutions — and one of the most important AM original equipment manufacturers for the US defense industrial base — the webinar will take place on June 30, from 11:00 AM to 2:30 PM Eastern time.

    In addition to a keynote from EOS’s Business Development Manager for Polymer, Dave Krzeminski, a market forecast from AM Research’s Scott Dunham, and a talk from the inimitable Joris Peels on the key AM trends and innovations currently at play in the drone market, the webinar on June 30th will include featured talks from industry professionals, as well as three panels: one on AM for tactical drone production, another on AM for strategic drone production, and a third on using AM to manufacture drones at the edge.

    I will also be speaking briefly on 3D printing’s future in drones used at sea and on land, two themes which should only continue to gain traction as both AM and autonomous systems persist in their rapid, overlapping evolution. Finally, there will also be ample time at the end of each panel for audience Q&A.

    Now, while this type of insight isn’t free, I think the current price of $49 is arguably the next best thing, so you should register here before the price goes up to $89 on June 18. On the other hand, for some people, this type of insight actually is free, kind of: for any registered attendee of Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2026, or any 3DPrint.com PRO subscriber, you can contact [email protected] to receive a free registration code.

    This field of activity is changing so quickly that even the most well-informed individuals on the topic have to update their knowledge constantly to stay that way. UAS Additive Strategies is a perfect chance to do just that. Or, you might be just getting started, and are so overwhelmed that you can’t even figure out where to begin — UAS Additive Strategies is equally suited to you, as well.

    Images courtesy of 3DPrint.com

  • 3D Printed Metal Brackets from LightForce Orthodontics

    Align has built a multi-billion-dollar business out of 3D printed thermoforming inserts that are used for silicone clear aligners that gradually align your teeth. That model has been copied by many, with companies trying to offer lower-cost solutions that work slightly differently. Now LightForce Orthodontics wants to do something that, if successful, could be very impactful and innovative.

    LightForce launched in 2019, 3D printing unique brackets that let braces be tailored to patients. The company later secured $80 million in funding, bringing its total to $150 million. Now they’ve released the LightBracket Metal, a metal patient-specific brace bracket. And going by the enthusiasm expressed in these images, this will be great and much better than being kidnapped. The design of the braces depends on the treatment plan, with each bracket specifically designed for that tooth.

    LightForce Orthodontics CEO Alfred Griffin said,

    “For more than a century, orthodontics relied on a stock bracket for patients who were never stock. LightBracket Metal changes the order of things. We’re giving doctors the most exact instrument they’ve ever had for the work they were born to do.”

    Meanwhile, the company’s President, James Lawton, stated,

    “For decades, every patient got the same bracket. That ends now. We are accelerating toward a future where the very idea of a universal, one-size-fits-all bracket is unthinkable.”

    Previously, the company has seen “up to 60% fewer appointments and 43% shorter treatment times over conventional braces.” That translates into more profit for orthodontists and easier treatments for patients. The company says it has a “proprietary 3D metal printing process.” We’re not sure right now what they mean by this, if this means that they have an adapted version of LPBF to do this, for example, or if they really came up with an entirely new process. The brackets can have a custom “bracket base, slot height, slot prescription, bracket position, tie wings, and hooks,” while the “base conforms to the morphology of the individual tooth.” It also says that a “lower-profile design with a breakthrough patient-specific tie-wing and hook delivers improved comfort and reduced debond rates.” Debonding occurs when the brackets fail and release from the teeth. A reduction of that, therefore, would be good news for patients. Bracket failure rates seem to run at between 2% and 6%, which adds up to a lot of extra work for orthodontists.

    LightForce seems to be making real progress in disrupting orthodontics. Others have found it difficult to dislodge Invisalign through trying to out-invisalign Invisalign, which, of course, is very difficult. LightForce, meanwhile, is taking a different approach, working with dentists, working on brackets, and could offer an alternative path for patients. We don’t know how LightForce is printing its brackets and what the costs are. If it can reduce the printing costs significantly or if it has developed a process that lets it print its parts well, then it could find a lasting advantage. If it has made a process that is perfect for small brackets with smooth finishes, then the company could really build on that to ensure that it can win well beyond when their patents expire. Orthodontics is a multi-billion-dollar industry where 3D printing is providing easier, more cost-effective treatment for patients. If LightForce continues to build on its own success and expands they could be a real financial force to be reckoned with as well. Indeed, with a current market cap of over $13 billion, Align may find LightForce an irresistible company to buy. Even if it would not be interested it surely would be more than a bit worried if Dentsply Sirona or Straumann managed to buy the firm or if LightForce went public. Either way the future seems bright for LightForce.

    Images courtesy of LightForce Orthodontics

  • Novineer Partners with Contract Manufacturer AM Craft on AI-Backed Reverse Engineering for CAD Models

    The need for replacement parts that are in limited production—or out of production altogether—will always be a demand catalyst for additive manufacturing (AM). Unless the entire global economy at some point shifts to using equipment designed to be serviced exclusively with parts produced on-demand, we will forever depend on systems whose replacement parts are more or less eliminated from mass production long before those systems themselves are out of use.

    This is of course a key piece of the explanation behind the interest that aerospace suppliers have in AM, with aircraft frequently staying in service well beyond the timeline anticipated upon their initial procurement. The biggest obstacle to leveraging AM in this context lies in the fact that the blueprints for replacement parts so frequently lack a digital paper trail. This in turn this drives demand for reverse-engineering capabilities that can quickly transform photographs into CAD models. That’s the basis for a new partnership between generative design software enterprise Novineer and contract manufacturer AM Craft.

    It’s certainly not impossible, without access to a dedicated software tool, to reverse engineer the blueprint for a component that only exists as a physical part. However, it typically requires hours of work by an engineer specifically trained for the task.

    NoviVision example at AMUG 2026. Image courtesy of Sarah Saunders.

    On the other hand, the solution that Novineer has made available to AM Craft, called NoviVision, relies solely on photographs taken with a smartphone, by workers who don’t need any additional training to perform the job. According to Novineer, the conversion of the images to editable CAD models takes about two minutes. For a company like AM Craft, which has produced over 35,000 flight-certified parts, all that time saved per part adds up.

    In a press release about Novineer’s partnership with AM Craft on AI-backed reverse engineering capabilities, Didzis Dejus, CEO of AM Craft, said, “Part availability is one of the most persistent operational challenges facing airlines and MROs today. AM Craft was built to solve it — combining EASA-certified [AM] with the kind of speed and flexibility the traditional supply chain cannot offer. Our partnership with Novineer takes that capability further. By integrating NoviVision into our workflow, we can move from a physical part to a certified replacement faster than has previously been possible, and we can do so from almost anywhere in the world. That matters enormously to the engineers and procurement teams we work with daily.”

    Beyond the specific benefit of broadening access to reverse-engineering software for design, one thing to like about this partnership is that Stratasys is a partner of and strategic investor in AM Craft. At the end of last year, Novineer announced its own partnership with Stratasys, centered around integrating Novineer’s NoviPath simulation function with Stratasys’ GrabCAD Print Pro software.

    Cupholders printed by AM Craft on Stratasys machines. Image courtesy of Stratasys.

    Thus, a user like AM Craft can now reverse engineer a part file on their phone, then upload that file into GrabCAD and use the simulation function to help guide the editing process. As Novineer’s CEO and co-founder, Dr. Ali Tamijani, told me in an interview about the Stratasys partnership, one of the big holes in the market that Novineer aimed to address with NoviPath was the lack of simulation software explicitly tailored to FDM printing.

    In the same way that the success of AI-for-manufacturing solutions requires that the specific needs of manufacturers be taken into account, AM users need software tools that go beyond a one-size-fits-all mentality applied to a field with as many internal subdivisions as manufacturing. This suggests that over the next few years, it will be especially important for AM companies to establish their own partnerships with software enterprises that specialize in addressing the precise set of challenges most relevant to the AM industry.

    That opens up opportunities for the software providers and the OEMs and contract manufacturers alike, but it also means that AM companies will likely have to go back to the drawing board for a few more years in order to genuinely capitalize on incorporating AI into their ecosystems. The capital expenditure associated with that kind of endeavor should further accentuate the relative positioning of the companies that are experienced at forming partnerships and attracting government funding.

    Featured image courtesy of Novineer

  • Astrobotic Tests Rocket Engine Made with Elementum 3D Materials

    Astrobotic has completed a series of hot-fire tests for its Chakram rotating detonation rocket engine, with additive manufacturing (AM) playing an important role in how the engine was built. The company conducted the tests at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, where two prototypes ran across eight tests totaling 470 seconds, including a 300-second continuous burn that may be the longest of its kind to date. Of course, the performance stands out, but what really matters here is how the engine was built.

    Astrobotic used a metal 3D printing process called PermiAM, Elementum 3D‘s proprietary approach for controlling porosity inside parts, which lets engineers adjust how dense or porous different areas are during printing. That means a single component can combine dense regions for strength with more porous sections for cooling and fluid flow, which is especially useful for applications like propulsion and thermal management.

    That matters for rocket engines. Heat and fluid flow are hard to control, and traditional manufacturing usually requires multiple parts, complex internal channels, and assembly steps. With 3D printing, those features can be built directly into one component. Here, controlling porosity inside the metal helps handle heat, improve stability, and boost efficiency,  which are three of the biggest challenges in advanced rocket engines.

    Why Rotating Detonation Engines Are Different

    The engine Astrobotic tested is not a conventional rocket engine. Rotating detonation rocket engines use supersonic waves that travel around a ring-shaped chamber to burn fuel. As the company explains, this approach can extract more energy from the same amount of propellant, potentially improving efficiency by up to 15%.

    At the same time, these engines are harder to design and build. They face issues with stability, heat, and durability. That is where AM becomes more important. 3D printed metal components make it easier to build complex internal structures and manage heat, helping solve problems that are difficult with traditional methods.

    Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander is encapsulated with ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Image courtesy of Astrobotic.

    During testing, each engine produced more than 4,000 pounds of thrust and reached stable operating conditions. Astrobotic reported no visible damage to the hardware after the test campaign. However, the company plans to continue developing the engine, with future work focused on cooling, throttling, and reducing mass. The technology could eventually be used in systems like lunar landers and in-space vehicles.

    This work is part of the broader push to return to the Moon. Programs like NASA’s Artemis are focused on building a long-term presence beyond Earth, and that will need more efficient and reliable propulsion systems. Advances like this, especially when combined with new manufacturing approaches, could help make those missions easier over time.

    Astrobotic’s work on propulsion ties directly into that goal. The company is preparing for its next major mission, the Griffin-1 lunar lander, which is targeting a launch no earlier than July 2026 as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The lander is designed to carry scientific instruments, rovers, and commercial payloads to the Moon’s south pole, a key area for future exploration.

    Looking ahead, Astrobotic is planning additional missions beyond Griffin-1, including new landers and spacecraft systems aimed at supporting a growing lunar economy. In that context, technologies like 3D printed propulsion and in-space manufacturing are not side projects. They are part of a larger effort to make space systems lighter, more efficient, and easier to build.

    A rendering of Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander on the surface of the Moon. Image courtesy of Astrobotic.

    What’s more, this is not the first time Astrobotic has worked with 3D printing. The company has been using AM across several areas. Through its acquisition of Masten Space Systems, Astrobotic gained access to work on a 3D printed aluminum rocket engine, showing early interest in additively manufactured propulsion hardware. It is also involved in projects like MOONRISE, which aims to 3D print structures directly on the Moon using lunar dust. The idea is to build landing pads, roads, and other infrastructure without having to bring materials from Earth. 

    Over time, this points to a bigger goal, which is using 3D printing not just to build spacecraft, but to manufacture parts and structures off-Earth. It shows that Astrobotic is using 3D printing where it matters most, especially in tough environments.

  • How AtomForm’s 12-Nozzle System Cuts Multi-Color FDM Transition Waste by Up to 90%

    Pull up the print stats on multi-color FDM jobs. The number that stings isn’t time; it’s material efficiency. On six-color models, single-nozzle systems consume significant filament during transition flushing, expelling waste as purge towers or blocks. For high-transition prints, this overhead sometimes approaches the final part’s mass. Operators know this. Most have absorbed it into production economics and moved on.

    MOVA AtomForm, however, has chosen a different approach.

    Walking at RAPID + TCT 2026, you see plenty of multi-color solutions — most still fighting that same problem. But at Booth #1313, something stood out.

    Making its debut, the Palette 300 doesn’t just optimize flushing; it removes the condition that makes extensive flushing necessary. Twelve dedicated nozzles, each locked to its own filament path. Color change: an approximately 40-second mechanical swap. No shared nozzle requires flushing during material transitions.

    “It Wasn’t a Slicer Problem”

    Waste became hard to ignore during beta deployments, according to AtomForm. “This wasn’t solvable by optimizing slicer settings. It was a structural bottleneck inherent to single-nozzle architecture.”

    The OmniElement™ turret exists because software alone cannot fully eliminate shared-nozzle constraints. Waste optimization, however sophisticated, still operates within the limitations it’s trying to overcome. So, the Palette 300 engineers removed the reason for it.

    Twelve Nozzles and Why It Matters

    Here’s how AtomForm landed on that figure. Internal data showed 90% of real-world multi-color jobs use six colors or fewer. That’s the floor. Engineering constraints set the hard ceiling: twelve is the maximum the turret can accommodate without sacrificing the 300×300×300mm build volume. Between coverage, redundancy needs, and mechanical footprint, twelve satisfied all three.

    While the OmniElement™ houses twelve nozzles, the system supports up to 36 colors by daisy-chaining six RFD-6 filament units. This enables massive palettes that are impossible to achieve on a single-nozzle setup without hours of manual intervention.

    AtomForm palette 300.

    What twelve nozzles provide beyond six is redundancy. A nozzle clog on a conventional machine at hour eight of a ten-hour print is a total loss. On the Palette 300, onboard cameras catch the failure, the system pulls a spare of matching diameter, and the build continues from the exact layer where the interruption occurred. No restart. No operator intervention. That recovery capability has long been an industrial feature, but never before on a desktop machine.

    Beyond the Turret: Motion Control Is the Real Enabler

    Forget the turret. Look at the motion system.

    MOVA Group’s background is robotics: sensor fusion, closed-loop control, precision actuation at scale. That shows up in the Palette 300’s closed-loop step-servo motors: the actual position is checked against the commanded position, corrections applied in real time. This continuous synchronization maintains positional integrity under dynamic loads, mitigating the risk of mechanical drift during long-duration prints.

    Add 50+ sensors, four AI cameras performing live extrusion monitoring, a 350°C hotend, and a 65°C active chamber. The Palette 300 targets engineering-grade materials, starting with common filaments, with validation for high-performance options underway.

    AtomForm palette 300. Image courtesy of Mova.

    What the Waste Reduction Looks Like

    In AtomForm’s six-color benchmark, a traditional single-nozzle setup consumed 422.15g of filament, with 292.89g purged as waste. Using the OmniElement™ turret and ReadyPrint™ feeding system, the Palette 300 eliminates the purge tower, achieving a claimed 90% reduction in transition waste. For a studio, that means recovering over 70 kg of filament annually — a saving that multiplies quickly with engineering-grade materials.

    A New Brand Backed by Established Robotics Engineering

    AtomForm is a young brand. That’s worth saying plainly.

    MOVA Group is not young. The parent company’s manufacturing scale, engineering depth, and design recognition — MUSE Design Awards Gold, iF Design Award — back a subsidiary making significant hardware claims in its first major North American appearance. For any robotics spinout entering additive manufacturing, the gap between ambition and validation is normal. What closes it is production cycles, not press releases.

    AtomForm chose RAPID + TCT over a consumer electronics venue, a deliberate decision to stand before an audience that will scrutinize every claim here. The machine is on the floor. The engineers are in the room. That’s the right test.

    Two years ago, flushing 70% of your filament as waste on a multi-color job was just the cost of doing business. Today, that math is harder to defend. The Palette 300 largely removes the need for traditional purge-based flushing. Whether it holds up in daily production is the only remaining question.

    Reservations will be open soon at atomform.tech.

    Images courtesy of Mova

  • RAPID 2026: Democratizing Metal Laser Powder Bed Fusion 3D Printing with Mastrex

    Aside from a quick mention in an episode of our Printing Money podcast, I didn’t know much about Mastrex. But when I heard that the U.S.-based company had developed a $39,000 desktop metal laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) printer, I knew I had to learn more. So I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to speak with CEO Ilay Fridland at RAPID+TCT 2026.

    It’s not just polymer 3D printing that’s being democratized these days: metal 3D printing is as well. There are plenty of examples from the last few years, including Metal Base, Scrap Labs, Xact Metal, One Click Metal, FastForm, and more.

    “The growing number of consumer metal 3D printing applications in the market is leading to that the LPBF technology is gaining traction among end users and will increasingly be considered for producing a wide variety of products,” One Click Metal’s CEO Gerrit Brüggemann told Joris Peels when asked his predictions for industrial production in metal AM.

    Mastrex booth at RAPID+TCT 2026.

    At RAPID, Fridland told me that Mastrex started selling machines over a decade ago, offering polymer 3D printers, CNC milling machines, and fiber laser cutters.

    “We always had demand for metal 3D printing, but the technology wasn’t mature enough for our customers,” he explained. “It was great for some critical applications like aerospace, and parts that you can’t make any other way. But for our customers, it was too expensive, sometimes unreliable, and tolerances weren’t always great.”

    But, he said that this all changed about three years ago. The price of components went down enough, and the technology matured enough, that it was possible to get good LPBF-specific components, like software and laser optics.

    Fridland said that with other AM technologies, such as FDM and SLA, the machines started out huge and then went down in price and form factor.

    “Now we are seeing the same happen with metal LPBF 3D printing,” Fridland said.

    Mastrex MX100 at RAPID+TCT 2026.

    Then he showed me the desktop MX100, the company’s entry-level metal LPBF printer, which starts at an almost unbelievable $39,000. It features a 100 x 100 x 80 mm build volume, one 300 W laser, a “fast and reliable galvo scanner,” and 20-60 µm layer height. The printer is compatible with a variety of materials, including stainless steel, copper alloy, aluminum, titanium, Inconel, cobalt-chromium, and more.

    “You get real metal parts straight from the machine, you don’t need to sinter them, so you don’t have an issue with shrinkage and deformation,” Fridland said. “Same technology, same tolerances, same powder as industrial machines that cost over a million dollars, just with a smaller print area.”

    Mastrex offers several other metal 3D printers, going up in both print volume and number of lasers.

    The desktop MX100 is good for desktop prototyping, education, and R&D purposes, while the slightly larger MX120, which starts at $49,000, offers a 120 x 120 x 100 mm build volume, and also has a 300 W laser, is more for research labs and larger prototypes. After that, the lasers in the printers go up to 500 W, making them “comparable with the real industrial machines.”

    Mastrex MX300 at RAPID+TCT 2026.

    The other printers in the MX Series are:

    • MX150, 150 x 150 x 120 mm build volume, one 500 W laser
    • MX220, 220 x 140 x 200 mm build volume, two 500 W lasers
    • MX300, 300 x 300 x 350 mm build volume, two 500 W lasers
    • MX400, 400 x 350 x 400 mm build volume, four 500 W lasers
    • MX800, 800 x 600 x 900 mm build volume, eight 1,000 W lasers

    Mastrex is only selling its printers up to the MX400, as the MX800 is still in development and won’t be released until later this year.

    “With the largest system, you can get a 400 millimeter working area and eight lasers, which is suitable for real production. In one build, and depending on the size of the part, our customers are getting dozens of parts all the way up to a thousand parts plus.”

    Fridland says that the second largest Mastrex system, the MX400, “is still very reasonable in price.”

    “You are looking at 400 millimeters, four lasers, and it’s around $360,000. Other solutions with these specs would be a million plus,” he said. “So across the board, it’s revolutionary.”

    Mastrex is mostly seeing applications in dental labs, universities, and prototyping for its smaller MX Series printers, while the medium-sized systems are being used for medical applications and in machine shops.

    The larger format MX400 has mainly been sold for aerospace applications, but Fridland says they’re getting interest from the DoD, especially because Mastrex is a U.S. company and its printers are assembled in the U.S.

    The company was founded in New Jersey, but is moving most of its operations to San Diego in just a few months, in order to be closer to its aerospace customers and suppliers in California and Mexico. Mastrex will keep some offices and a showroom in New Jersey to maintain an East Coast presence, though.

    Mastrex has been making the rounds at 2026 trade shows, starting at CES in January and also attending AMUG last month, before coming to RAPID.

    “It’s very different than what people are used to,” Fridland said about the company’s technology. “Even after the events, I’m getting many emails and messages from people about how interesting it is to see something that is truly different. And not just 10% faster, but something that is really changing the industry.”

    With the company’s background of selling CNC milling machines for aluminum and stainless steel to machine shops, Fridland said that a lot of those customers weren’t using plastic polymers, so they never adopted FDM printers or any additive technology.  So for many Mastrex customers, this is their first LPBF metal 3D printer, or even their first 3D printer altogether.

    “When they see the parts that we have, great surface finish, great tolerances, the variety of materials…this is something they recognize,” Fridland explained. “These are the parts that they actually need. This is not just prototyping.”

    Fridland also said the cost of Mastrex’s printers is similar to a CNC machine, depending on which system you’re talking about. So they “don’t have to spend five times more on a piece of a equipment that they never had a chance to try.”

    “Most of them, they waited, just because it’s a big risk for them. But now, instead of getting another CNC machine, they’re getting one of these and they’re getting into LPBF.”

    He also told me that some customers have purchased one of the smaller Mastrex printers, like the MX100 or MX150, and liked them so much that they came back and bought the much larger MX400. This says a lot about the quality of these low-cost metal LPBF systems.

    “The first machines we sold about a year ago, and we have some repeat customers already, because they see the benefit, and it’s different than other solutions in the market,” Fridland said.

    Tool steel 3D printed mold insert, after and before polishing. Mastrex booth at RAPID+TCT.

    In his keynote presentation at AMS 2026, Stratasys CEO Yoav Zeif said that “desktop is taking over the industry.” It’s clear that this isn’t just the case for polymer 3D printing, but metals too. With its low-cost, high-quality desktop metal LPBF systems, Mastrex is definitely a company we’ll be keeping an eye on in the future.

    Images courtesy of Sarah Saunders.

  • VBN Components Used for Cemented Carbide Slurry Pumps

    Swedish firm VBN Components has been making high-performance, high-wear additive powders for a number of years now. Usually working with high-carbide-content materials, the company has brought the hardest 3D printing steel to market, as well as biocompatible materials. Now the company has increased the wear resistance of slurry pumps. Working with an unnamed pump company (possibly Atlas Copco, Metso, or Grindex), they’ve developed a new path to industrial components.

    Using their Vibenite materials, they’ve made possible a Vibenite Nucleation Net Zone (VNNZ), which makes for easier bonding of cast iron to Vibenite 480, the company’s 66 HRC cemented carbide material. The VNNZ makes it easier to cast these parts. What the company is now doing is to make parts out of traditional casting methods while using 3D printing for key wear areas in the casting mold. I love this very much. By using additive where it matters, the company is showing that wear is not evenly distributed across the entire functional areas of slurry pumps. Just as extra tips are sewn onto work gloves, this could point to broader applications of 3D printing in larger assemblies, where it would be too costly for the entire part or only make sense in these areas. Such approaches have often been overlooked because people want to print the entire part.

    The company said that,

    “Printing a nucleation net zone in Vibenite 480 is simple, yet it enables precise placement of the wear resistant material inside the mold at the most critical position significantly extending pump lifetime.”

    “Without the VNNZ, molten cast iron tends to melt or intermix with the printed inserts, compromising both geometry and material performance. The VNNZ eliminates this issue, ensuring structural integrity and strong metallurgical bonding during casting.”

    The company is now using this approach to print key wear areas in larger multi-meter-sized pumps. They say that the approach is cost-effective.

    VBN Components CTO, Dr. Ulrik Beste, stated,

    “This is an exciting development for our additive manufacturing technology. We are demonstrating how the superior wear resistance of Vibenite 480 can be integrated into large industrial components in a practical and scalable way—combining material performance with the design freedom of AM. It opens up significant new business opportunities.”

    3D printing can seem so magical that we often look to those cases where we print an entire thing in a new way. And we often dream of directly manufactured parts, not necessarily intermediates or molds. Here we can really see that limiting ourselves to dealing only with the tip of the spear is a cost-effective way to leverage the technology. We want to print the whole golf club, and maybe we can, but then it will probably use several different materials and processes. What if we just print the club surface, where we can create the greatest value for the player? That approach cements the value. We should often be thinking about how we can get the greatest benefit while expensing the fewest layers. Thin, small, and short in the machine parts can be used to reap great rewards. By looking at where we add value and just how cheap we can make those parts that add value, or where vision is concentrated on the worthwhile. A printer can be seen as a box. It could be a box that could make most anything. That kind of broad vision is how many people have looked at 3D printing and its potential. But you could also see that box as capable of making things at a certain dollar amount per minute. And through that focused vision, you will see not the forest but the individual fruits that make sense to grow.

    Images courtesy of VBN Components

  • LOOP 3D Reveals 3D Printer Designed for Industrial Uptime

    LOOP 3D Additive Manufacturing has released the LOOP PRO X+ TURBO Gen2. This version has been improved to meet the needs of manufacturing clients. The printer is meant to be a production unit that can scale from single parts to higher volume print jobs. Upgrades have also been made specifically for CF- and GF-type materials. The printer is open but has optimized settings for the company’s own Dynamide material family. The LOOP 3D Cloud software works in the browser. The tool tracks builds and settings, you can remotely monitor prints and subdivide files and settings per project or client. The tool includes a remote access option for tech support.

    LOOP 3D booth at the MACH 2026 trade show in Birmingham, UK. Image courtesy of LOOP 3D.

    The 500 x 350 x 500 mm printer is made from a milled aluminum chassis and comes with a flexible spring-based build platform with PEI (polyetherimide) build sheets. The printer has a modular architecture, and the idea is that it will be easier for users to replace components. One module consists of the controller board and motor drivers; another consists of all the UI (user interface) and communications. The two high-flow printheads are swappable, and it comes with HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) and carbon filters. A unique feature is automated sliding doors, which could be very cool. There’s an automated filament changeover in case of runout as well, while a material bay can hold four filaments. Motion comes from servos and linear rails.

    The overall architecture is H-Bot, with H-Bot one belt loops around the gantry in the form of an H. This belt can move very quickly but may cause racking, making the gantry lopsided or out of spec when pulled in one direction. LOOP solves this by having a durable, massive aluminum chassis that weighs 170 kilos. That also helps mitigate vibration, leading to more stable prints. Core XY printers use multiple belts working simultaneously, pulling from both ends. Core XY printers can therefore be fast and cheaper because the chassis doesn’t have to be as durable or heavy. That’s one of the keys to Bambu Lab‘s success, making something quick that doesn’t have a ton of metal in it. With shorter belts, less jumping about with crossed belts H bot architectures can be much more stable, quick, reliable and repeatable. Racking, meanwhile, can be reduced through the linear rails and heavy chassis elements. Bambu tries to get around the errors and vagaries of Core XY through software compensation, while the LOOP has a more industrial, reliable architecture and frame. The two approaches are fundamentally different: Bambu bets it can be a better software company than anyone else, while companies like LOOP aim to engineer a well-functioning device primarily through mechanical engineering.

    The new system has improved kinematics and a renewed motion system. I really like the design and philosophy behind LOOP. These systems are solid. I like the modular architecture as well. This would really make sense in areas such as hospitals, the military, or oil platforms, where you want high uptime and easy, local paths to mitigating errors.

    CEO Erkan Ustaoglu said,

    “The Gen2 is built for one purpose: production. Every subsystem has been engineered to push speed, reliability, and consistency to the next level. This is where additive manufacturing stops prototyping—and starts delivering at scale.”

    Against the onslaught of Bambu & Co, LOOP has a real uphill struggle. But reliable, long-lasting, and easy-to-maintain systems will be in high demand across many industries. Especially in strict regulatory environments or where many people need to use common printers, the LOOPL architecture and offering make a lot of sense. Their ease of use and quick maintenance fixes are paramount. Yes, something else can be cheaper, but it needs to work on the day. If LOOP offers complete solutions for specific industries, working with partners and users to deliver the exact performance, certifications, and value proposition they need can be highly successful. Industry-specific solutions that work even when knocked about, with gloved hands, or in dusty environments remain an unmet need for many users. And for these kinds of applications, this really seems like a good option.

  • A Museum Dig, Brought to Life with 3D Printing

    At the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, a team inside the Frontier Tech Lab has built one of the most engaging examples of additive manufacturing (AM) in education right now. Led by lab coordinator Isaac Regier, the team created a fully hands-on fossil dig experience inside the museum. Using 3D printing, they reproduced real fossils from the museum’s own collection, along with the surrounding rock and sediment, so visitors can dig up bones just like paleontologists would. The work is part of a broader renovation of the museum’s Paul D. and Betty Marx Discovery Center, set to open in June, which is adding more hands-on activities focused on “nature’s engineers.”

    Instead of placing rare, fragile fossils in a pit where they could be damaged, the team recreated them using 3D printing, creating a space where visitors, especially kids, can dig, touch, and explore without limits. And to this team, that’s the key idea, having access to these fascinating experiences. Because nothing drives interest in things like ancient fossils quite like being able to actually handle them. It’s a change we’ve been seeing for some time in museums around the world, moving beyond the “look but don’t touch” rule toward spaces built for real, hands-on discovery, or play, even.

    Real fossils are incredibly delicate. Many are one-of-a-kind, and we’ve seen some so valuable they’ve sold for hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. You don’t hand them to a six-year-old with a brush and say, “Go for it,” right? But with 3D printing, you can create accurate replicas that look and feel real, or real enough, to teach the same lessons, without the risk of having the fossil break.

    The Frontier Tech Lab worked closely with museum scientists to produce lifelike fossil replicas and even entire fossil beds, turning what could have been a more traditional exhibit into something hands-on and immersive. To recreate the fossil bed, the team produced more than 100 realistic fossilized bones. Many of these are based on Menoceras, a rhino species from the Miocene era discovered at Agate Fossil Beds near Harrison, Nebraska.

    A museum built for discovery

    This “experience replication” meant the team didn’t just scan a fossil from the collection and hit “print.” In fact, they recreated the entire context: the way paleontologists find fossils in the ground, the textures, even the arrangement, so visitors can understand how these incredible, headline-making discoveries actually happen.

    And that’s because in paleontology, the story isn’t just about the fossil. It’s about where it’s found, how it’s uncovered, and what surrounds it. By printing these entire dig environments, not just objects, the lab is using 3D printing to tell a story. And it works really well.

    They’re using a mix of realistic fossil types tied to Nebraska’s paleontology, which is actually pretty rich. That includes ancient mammals (Nebraska is well known for Ice Age fossils like mammoths), smaller vertebrates, and general fossil fragments that reflect what a real dig site looks like. So rather than “digging up a full dinosaur,” visitors are uncovering partial bones and pieces, which is much closer to how real paleontology works.

    Isaac Regier, lead and design coordinator for the Frontier Tech Lab, sets down one of the “bones” the lab 3D printed for a new fossil dig in the redesigned Marx Science Discovery Center at Morrill Hall.

    The museum, part of the University of Nebraska State Museum, has been around since 1871 and houses one of the largest vertebrate fossil collections in the United States. In fact, it’s known for its massive displays, like its mammoth skeletons in Elephant Hall, and for telling the story of life across millions of years.

    But like many museums, it faces a common challenge, and that is how to make ancient history feel real to someone walking in today. And this 3D printed fossil dig changes that whole perspective. Instead of looking at bones behind glass, visitors become part of the process. They have to kneel down, use brushes to remove the sediment, and find something. Visitors will find this hands-on fossil dig experience inside Morrill Hall, as a type of interactive station built right into the museum floor.

    3D printed fossils.

    The Frontier Tech Lab itself is part of Nebraska Innovation Studio, a collaborative space where engineers, designers, and researchers work with advanced manufacturing tools, including 3D printers. Launched in October 2025, the lab operates as a full-service prototyping, design, and fabrication center, working with campus units, municipalities, businesses, and individuals.

    The team had to take real scientific data and turn it into something people can actually use, strong enough to handle, simple enough to understand. That’s not easy. A fossil replica has to look real, but it also has to hold up after being dug up over and over again. That level of accuracy required close coordination with museum experts, including Susan Weller, who noted the complexity behind even the smallest details.

    “They worked closely with our scientists to create the bones and ensure they were placed in the correct order and orientation,” Weller said. “There are many tiny bones when you think about the vertebrae or toe bones, and they can get very confusing to those of us who don’t work with those bones. (Frontier Tech Lab staff) went above and beyond, and they delivered everything on time and on budget.”

    In this case, 3D printing is enabling something different. It’s making the inaccessible accessible. And here, that means giving someone, maybe a child visiting for the first time, the chance to uncover a fossil and feel, even for one single moment, like they’re discovering the past for themselves. It’s not just a better exhibit, it’s a better way to learn.

    Images courtesy of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

  • 3D Printing News Briefs, April 25, 2026: Competition Winners, AI Platform, X2D Printer, & More

    In this weekend’s 3D Printing News Briefs, AMUG announced the winners of its Technical Competition, and Authentise launched AI platform Whisper at RAPID. Bambu Lab wasn’t at RAPID, but launched a new 3D printer, and AMGTA released an independent report on the role of additive manufacturing (AM) in resource-efficient manufacturing systems. Finally, we’ll give you an update on an open source 3D printer enclosure designed by university students last year.

    AMUG Announced Winners of Annual Technical Competition

    At last month’s Additive Manufacturing Users Group (AMUG) Conference, the group held its annual Technical Competition, recognizing excellence in AM applications and finishing methods. This year, the categories were modified, and many of the entrants were first-time competitors, or even first-time attendees. A panel of 12 AMUG DINOs chose the winners. The winner for Finishing & Post Processing was Joshua Boykin, PhD, a senior research chemist with REM Surface Engineering, with his entry on “Breaking the Powder Barrier: Selective Chemical Declogging Enables Truly Free AM Design.” It was a production-ready chemical process, validated through high-resolution X-ray CT analysis, that selectively removes sintered powder from fully enclosed internal passages in metal LPBF parts without degrading thin-wall geometries. The judges were so impressed that they also gave it the Members’ Choice award. Halil Tekinalp of ORNL won second with “Multiplexing Extrusion System (MExS): Multi-material AM System for Tailored Hybrid Composites,” and Jason Jones with Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies won third for “Seeing Beneath the Surface: Accelerating AM Adoption through In-situ Volumetric Inspection.”

    The winning entry for the Advanced Concepts category, “Additive-Enabled Miniature Silicone Component Manufacturing via Sacrificial Tooling,” was submitted by Ethan Hartmann, solutions engineer at B9Creations. This demonstrated a novel workflow for high-resolution, microscale DLP printing and silicone-safe soluble tooling of true platinum-cure silicone components. Fine features and complex internal geometries of just a few hundred microns in size were created, thanks to careful development of print parameters, silicone processing techniques, and sacrificial mold design. There was a tie for second place in this category: Aaron Sherman of HellermannTyton for “Pip-Boy 3000 Mk V—Prop Replica from the Fallout TV Series,” a detailed, functional prop replica, and Joe Olguin of Sandia National Laboratories for “Adapting an As-printed LPBF Design for Ultra-Thin Sectioning,” which demonstrated a process-driven approach to enabling the sectioning of LPBF 3D printed 316L components.

    Authentise Announced Whisper AI Platform at RAPID+TCT

    At the recent RAPID+TCT conference in Boston, data-driven AM software company Authentise announced the launch of its new AI platform, Whisper, which was created to capture, understand, and act on engineering intent across the full lifecycle, from idea all the way to finished part. This “agentic AI backbone” captures engineering activity and intent as soon as it happens and connects everything, turning it into real-time action inside enterprise systems. Most valuable knowledge at engineering organizations comes out in meetings, emails, and informal decisions, without actually making it into the systems, and Whisper is meant to fix this problem, capturing activity from tools like emails, Slack, and enterprise systems. The platform’s configurable agents work in the background to organize the data, apply context and permissions, and act on the data within an organization’s existing workflows. Authentise says the result is real-time compliance checks, earlier risk detection, full provenance to specific parts and projects, and automated updates across ERP, PLM, and QMS systems.

    “Engineering intent is the missing layer in digital transformation. We’ve spent 14 years helping companies digitize workflows. Whisper is the next step,” explained Authentise CEO Andre Wegner. “It doesn’t ask engineers to change how they work. It listens, understands, and acts.”

    Whisper was released as source-available, so customers can extend and deploy it within their own environments. Early access programs are immediately available for select customers and partners, requiring a low upfront commitment; full costs are only incurred once value is proven.

    Bambu Lab Launched X2D Printer, Second Generation of X-Series

    Many of us on the show floor at RAPID were surprised to learn that Bambu Lab did not have a booth. But, its lack of attendance didn’t stop the company from launching the second generation in its flagship X-Series, the X2D printer with dual extrusion. We all know that Bambu Lab changed the desktop game when it launched the X1 in 2022, showing everyone that you didn’t need to spend hours experimenting with parameters and calibration. People without specialized knowledge could use the system right out of the box, without any trial and error. Designed for people who want to create, rather than mess with technical issues, the new X2D takes this a step further, and is said to be a system “that operates like any household device, yet prints like a professional production studio.” The X2D is what the company has been building towards all this time: a machine that’s ready to go right out of the box.

    The X2D automatically calibrates before each job, monitors the process with dozens of sensors and offers real-time compensation for any deviations, and prints with two nozzles, which should make it easy to remove supports. It features an enclosed, temperature-controlled print chamber, a triple-stage air filtration system that absorbs odors and captures particles, and a noise level that’s below 50 dB in silent mode. With a single main nozzle, the build volume is 256 × 256 × 260 mm, and it’s 235.5 × 256 × 256 mm with the dual nozzle intersection. There’s an optional Vision Encoder, which Bambu says offers accuracy down to 50 microns, a PMSM motor with 20 kHz sampling rate, and models come with validated print settings. Finally, Bambu Studio, Bambu Handy, MakerWorld, Maker’s Supply, Maker’s Lab and the designer crowdfunding program are not just add-ons, but, as the company write, “the context in which the printer operates.” The new X2D is available at $649 (before tax), and the Combo version, which includes a multimaterial feeding system, starts at $899 before tax.

    AMGTA Released Report on Role of AM in Resource-Efficient Manufacturing Systems

    At its recent Annual Member Summit, the Additive Manufacturing Green Trade Association (AMGTA) presented and released an independent report titled Additive Manufacturing in Resource-Efficient Manufacturing Systems. It pulls from six years of observation from both sides of the ecosystem to establish a structural argument for how AM should be evaluated, communicated, and deployed at the part, system, and enterprise levels. These are where the technology’s most significant advantages in supply chain resilience, resource efficiency, and capital allocation really materialize. When you do standard cost comparisons of AM vs. conventional manufacturing, you get the same direct production costs for both, but end up excluding costs that the latter “embeds as invisible background,” like obsolescence write-offs. This results in a structural bias that makes AM seem more expensive, and the AMGTA report calls this not a technology problem, but a framing and measurement problem. The report offers an evaluative structure that organizations can use to conduct better comparisons across all levels.

    “The technology is proven. But the current adoption curve doesn’t reflect it—and one major reason is that the industry has been evaluating AM against a standard that was never designed to capture what AM actually changes. This report is the result of six years of watching that gap play out across industries, applications, and geographies. It is the argument the industry has needed and that only an organization with no commercial interest could make,” said Sherri Monroe, Executive Director of AMGTA.

    You can get the report on the AMGTA website. Its companion Strategy 2030 document, What We Do and Why Membership Matters, is only available to AMGTA members.

    Student-Built Clura Enclosure Reports Successful Kickstarter

    Last summer, we reported on a modular, affordable, open source 3D printer enclosure, called Clura, that was developed by TU Delft aerospace engineering student Fabrizio Blasio and some of his fellow students. The idea was to improve air quality during desktop 3D printing, but do it in such a way that the solution was accessible (re: affordable) for everyone. They added all kinds of great features, such as a dual-layer HEPA + carbon filter system, integrated sensors that track air quality, temperature, humidity, and particulate matter, an optical smoke sensor, smart touchscreen interface, filament tracking with load cells, and a gas detection module. Blasio, Clura co-founder Goncalo Martins, and head of logistics and manufacturing Peter, made the 3D printed enclosure open source, sharing all the documentation and putting the CAD files on Github so that other makers could benefit from their design. This winter, the team launched a Kickstarter campaign, which raised $41,907—over eight times the amount they set out to raise. So clearly, other makers think this enclosure is a necessary product.

    The team says Clura supports several popular desktop 3D printers, including the Prusa MK3, Prusa Mini, Bambu A1, Bambu A1 Mini, Ender 3, and Creality HI. It filters fumes, reduces noise, detects fire, measures filament weight, illuminates your printer, and just generally improves the 3D printing experience. The Clura Pro is $259, which includes the base feature, load cells, advanced smoke sensors, and air quality sensor, whilte the Clura Lite is $189, including the full structure with aluminum extrusions and acrylic panels, the filtration system, and LEDs. The $239 Clura Base includes everything you get with the Clura Lite, plus a screen and basic environmental and smoke sensors. Finally, you can get the Electronics Kit for $119, which offers standalone electronics (screen, mainboard, sensors, load cells, LEDs, etc.) for DIY builds. By making the 3D printed enclosure open source, the Clura team is improving safety for other passionate makers who may not be able to afford a more professional solution.