BMF CEO John Kawola on the new microArch S350, the company’s new 25µm resolution printer

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“Really good surface finish and really good performance, which we believe, from a part quality point of view, is better than the rest of the market.” John Kawola, CEO of BMF, told TCT at Formnext 2022 in Frankfurt.

The company’s new system, the microArch S350, is the latest addition to the line-up of industrial grade micro-precision 3D printers. The S350 offers a 25µm resolution and has the highest throughput in the BMF portfolio.

The BMF microscale printers are built on the company’s patented Projection Micro Stereolithography (PµsL) technology. A method which works by allowing rapid photopolymerisation of layers of liquid polymer using a flash of UV light at micro-scale resolution.

Kawola said: “We have two platforms, one at the ten-micron level and one at two microns. A lot of the parts you see here [Formnext] are the ten-micron parts, and the really small parts that you can fit thousands of in your hand are the two-micron parts. The technology we’ve developed over the years is really to take a DLP platform with speciality optics, and high precision movement to really get the performance that we can get. We’ve now decided to package that in a 25-micron class. That’s what the 350 is, a new machine, which is 25-micron. It can’t quite get down to the detail of ten-micron or two-micron; it’s intended to do slightly larger parts, but also maintain a lot of that really good accuracy.”

BMF works with 4D Biomaterials. The materials produced by the British-based company allows parts to be created with the BMF printers that can be accepted by the human body and absorbed, such as tissue scaffolding or a screw that can be inserted but doesn’t need to be taken back out. 

Kawola said of these applications: “We get to work with lots of different, truly talented innovators. We’re not the ones developing the device, they are the true innovators. We’re just developing the tool to help them get there whether they’re prototyping or manufacturing. We’re assisting in the process, but it feels fantastic to play a part.”

The new machine uses a lot of the same philosophies that the company used to build the previous systems in the portfolio. According to Kawola, it was important for the company to do this and build on 'what it is good at,' in terms of optics, movement, software and materials. 

“We’ve gotten very good at choreographing those things to make them cheap,” Kawola said. “What’s a little bit different about this machine is the fact it is 25-micron. We are also using a different DLP chip, which means a larger zone that we can print into. A lot of DLP technologies print in a whole zone, and that’s good for throughput, but you end up losing accuracy and precision, especially around the edges, so we don’t operate that way. We typically project into certain zones to maintain the tight image and tolerance. With 25-micron we have many fewer zones, we only have six zones. If you were printing only one part on this printer and the other printer, they would both fit in the same zone, the speed difference wouldn’t be that different. But if you’re printing a whole tray, it would make a huge difference. So, it is significantly faster in terms of when you’re printing a whole tray.”

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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.

Kawola also told TCT that BMF is taking the first steps towards automating the workflow. According to the BMF CEO, the system doesn’t 'yet have a tool, such as a robot, to come in, but the team has enabled the machine to be set up for that.' The company says it has enabled the machine to have the first part of the integration. In the new system, when the print is done, it moves across and the build plate presents itself.

Kawola said: “We’ll have customers who are better in terms of using some of their automation and adapting to this machine. When it happens is going to depend on the pace of adoption and some of our customers, but we would hope within a year.”

Speaking more broadly about excitement for the future and what is next for the technology, Kawola said: “What excites me the most is end-use applications. I’d like to say we’re pushing for that but it’s really a lot of our customers are pulling us in that direction about materials, quality, yield and certification. We’re still learning on how to do that but that’s the most exciting part.”

Kawola also spoke about what the most attractive candidates are for production for BMF: “This wasn’t intuitive to us, but what we’re finding is the smaller the part, the more interesting it is for us. When we think about our top couple of customers who are pushing toward production, it’s the ones making really small parts. It’s because they can’t make it today, not because of geometry, but because it is so small that they can’t make it cost effective. Those are the ones that open our eyes. It’s certainly a challenge, but what we’re finding is that it’s just telling us that the need is there.”