Desktop Metal® expands its partnership with Henkel® and qualifies Loctite® 3D IND405™ Black & Loctite® 3D 3843 materials on ETEC®’s Xtreme 8K™, the world’s largest DLP 3D printer.
Desktop Metal, Inc. (NYSE: DM), a global leader in additive manufacturing technologies for mass production, has announced that it is expanding its partnership with Henkel on photopolymer material development. beginning with the qualification of Henkel’s Loctite® 3D IND405 Black and Loctite 3D 3843 for their use on the Xtreme 8K, the world’s largest DLP printer for high-volume production of end-use parts. This announcement adds to the Henkel LOCTITE 3D printing materials already available on ETEC platforms.
Why are these two photopolymers so popular? And what are the benefits of using them on Xtreme 8K 3D printers?
- Loctite 3D IND405™ Black is a rigid, high-strength, high elongation material with outstanding impact resistance and surface finish – properties that make it ideal for a wide range of end-use parts and products
- Loctite 3D 3843 is a rigid, high-strength engineering plastic with an excellent surface finish, making it a good general-purpose material for end-use products
- The ETEC Xtreme 8K offers the world’s largest DLP build areas for 3D printing extremely large parts, such as automotive armrests and bicycle helmets, or a high volume of smaller parts, such as snap-fit joints, fasteners, brackets, housing and more
- 3D printing IND405 Black on the Xtreme 8K saves time and money for manufacturers by eliminating the need to use expensive tooling that can take weeks to produce for the final production of injection molded plastic parts.
And last but not least,
- Customers can now print Loctite 3D IND405 and 3843 on the Xtreme 8K, which features a market-leading build area of 450 x 371 x 399 mm (17.72 x 14.61 x 15.71 in). This new combination of trusted and popular material on an extremely large printing platform will enable users to deliver all-new sizes and throughput of parts without tooling.
“Our team is delighted to partner with Henkel and offer their Loctite materials on our truly differentiated DLP printing systems,” said Ric Fulop, Founder and CEO, Desktop Metal. “By printing Loctite 3D IND405 HDT50 High Elongation and Loctite 3D 3843 HDT60 High Toughness on the ETEC Xtreme 8K, manufacturers will be able to produce on-demand end-use parts in all-new sizes and at higher throughputs that help drive down the per-part cost. Moreover, they won’t need to pay for, or wait for, tooling to get the job done affordably.”
The uniqueness of the Top-Down DLP Printing Highlights
Digital Light Processing, or DLP, harnesses the power of light from a video projector to cure liquid resins into part designs layer by layer, one quick flash at a time. It is one of the most mature methods of 3D printing, and it’s been used for high-volume manufacturing for years.
While most DLP printers feature a video projector below a build tray, where parts must be suspended hanging down from a build plate as they are printed, manufacturers interested in high-volume throughput have begun to appreciate the provocation of this approach. Extremely large parts, especially those with heavier or elastomeric properties, are difficult to suspend from a build plate. This strategy also requires more support structures that must be removed after printing, a real challenge when processing a higher volume of parts.
The ETEC Xtreme 8K, already used today to manufacture end-use parts for consumer goods, is one of the 3D printing industry’s few commercially available top-down DLP printers, with two overhead industrial video projectors. The different approach allows extremely heavy parts to be 3D printed on a tray in a vat with thicker viscosity materials. This simplifies throughput workflows, as parts do not require mechanical removal from the build plate.
What’s more, this top-down DLP printing technology allows the light or energy from the projector to directly penetrate the photopolymer, eliminating the barrier of a tray in bottom-up DLP printing. This allows processing of different material types, which can deliver new properties.
What other materials can be printed on the Xtreme 8K?
In addition to Loctite IND405 and 3843, the Xtreme 8K prints an all-new category of durable, highly resilient DuraChain™ photopolymers that deliver two-part material strength in a single pot such as FreeFoam™, Elastic ToughRubber™ and Soft ToughRubber™. DuraChain materials are available exclusively on ETEC printers.