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 shoppers, 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 assist product growth by means of the fast prototyping of design iterations, however have signalled they might be occupied with a machine with extra superior capabilities and a broader supplies compatibility.
“In case you’re asking what was our motivation, it’s simply plain apparent that with our fundamental machines, we now have so many firms utilizing it and I would like to have the ability to supply one thing extra superior,” Prusa advised TCT. “The businesses are very pleased with our machines however once we begin speaking about extra industrial supplies, they’re bummed by the actual fact they need to go to a different firm and power chain.”
With the HT 90 machine, Prusa says prospects will have the ability to do fast prototype components utilizing ‘fundamental polymers’ however with a profile change and materials change, they will even have the capability to print fixtures, moulds and end-use elements. The machine helps supplies corresponding 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, giant objects might be printed with out warping, poor overhangs or layer delamination.
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Its cooling system is a spotlight, in response to 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 means of a tube instantly into the print head, whereas the high-speed flap redirects its circulate inside milliseconds due to a patent-pending low latency cooling know-how.
“We have now a specifically engineered cooling system the place if you’re printing regular polymers, it will get air to chill down the print from the skin 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 whenever 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 current relations with the aforementioned high-profile producers, but additionally facilitate start-ups and small firms by opening up decrease quantity manufacturing functions. The HT 90 involves market working 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 current customized on this world.
“We have now hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of MK4s and MK3s at firms like Volkswagen, NASA, SpaceX,” Prusa stated. “After we discuss to those folks, they’re excited we now have an providing which is extra suited to the scale and complexity of their enterprise. They usually’re excited that they don’t need to go exterior our ecosystem [to get these capabilities]. For us, it actually simply is smart to do that.
“My grand imaginative and prescient is to have firms 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 will present them with every part they want.”
