As the conversation meandered into general chit-chat about the flow of traffic between IMTS halls or the discussions taking place between exhibitors and visitors, the sounds from a synthesizer reverberated across the Nexa3D booth.
A presentation detailing the benefits of the company’s product portfolio had come to an end, delegates dispersed to peruse the printed applications in glass cabinets, and a playlist of 1980s pop music resumed. This time, Yazoo’s 1983 hit ‘Nobody’s Diary’ rang out. A melancholic song, with an upbeat melody, it was perhaps the perfect soundtrack for Nexa’s past month.
Many in the industry had long known that IMTS was the target for the official launch of its Quantum Laser Sintering (QLS) technology acquired via NXT Factory in 2021. But few saw coming the bump in the road before Nexa got there. Within a month of the launch date, Nexa3D was forced to lay off several key staff members, including communications directors, applications developers, channel marketing managers, and even its VP of Powder Bed Solutions – the very department in which the QLS technology falls.
Nexa3D cited ‘unprecedented economic cycles and persisting macroeconomic uncertainties’ as the reason for a ‘shift in focus’ that ‘drove the need to eliminate a few roles.’ Given most were relatively recent hires, it wasn’t part of the plan. The company pressed on, though, exhibiting what it believes to be a ‘high throughput, lights out solution’ at IMTS, and allowing Kuba Graczyk, its Head of Business SLS, to tell TCT all about it.
On the opening day of IMTS, Nexa3D distributed the announcement that its QLS 820 platform was commercially available. Its name references the technology’s capacity to print at 8,000 ccm per hour with up to 20% average packing density, while it has been designed to enable production at scale. Though the QLS technology was only integrated into the Nexa portfolio in 2021, it has been in development for much longer.
“For me, personally, it was a journey,” Graczyk began. “I was [involved] since the project’s inception, I was CEO for eight years of a company called NXT Factory, and then through the acquisition, we get into Nexa. It’s kind of like my dream’s come true, materialising today, right now, and there will be another milestone when we install the machines on the production floor of those companies and much more to come.”
Those companies are Quickparts and JawsTec, two service providers who have signed up to be foundational partners of the QLS 820 Manufacturing Network Program. This represents Nexa’s primary target audience, but the company also has eyes on opportunities in bridge manufacturing – helping manufacturers build up to their optimum production volumes while tooling is being procured.
“There’s always this grayscale when you want to invest in tooling and whether your design’s final and finished,” Graczyk said. “So, we believe this perfectly fits into launching your product, validating it, it’s the safest way to release your product out there and if something goes wrong or, all things considered, the product wasn’t the best, you’re not left with tooling [being] scrapped. You just change your design and have a different product. We see more and more people validating their product with the use of additive manufacturing and then you get the volumes of 100,000, 200,000, whatever it is, then you switch to the hard tooling. I think it’s a huge promise.”
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Hand grip components printed on the QLS 820 using Nexa3D's xPA12 material.
Automotive is another market Nexa wants to penetrate with this technology, and as early as RAPID + TCT 2019 the company was fielding interest from the industry. As such, Graczyk and his team are aiming to reach a Six Sigma standard to align with the injection moulding and extrusion processes that are already widely used in automotive. Graczyk, along with several others working on the technology, has experience working in automotive, which they feel will stand them in good stead to introduce QLS into that vertical market. With these users, the aim is to sell and install multiple printers onto the same shop floor, enabling fleets of machines that facilitate manufacturing in significant volumes.
The QLS 820 is equipped with four 100W CO2 lasers, a 350 x 350 x 400 mm build volume and a 50-200-micron Z resolution. The four lasers work simultaneously to ensure productivity, while Nexa has also a built in capability that allows users to swap out build units 15 minutes after the build is complete to keep production running around the clock. An inert atmosphere enabled by a nitrogen purging system and an ability to sinter up to 240°C in the build platform allows Nexa to process materials such as PBT and PA613, materials common in injection moulding. The machine is also supported by several modular material processing stations (MMPS) that contain, blend, breakout, reclaim and sieve powders.
Supplementing the hardware is Nexa’s NexaX software which acts as the ‘command centre’ to help run the machines efficiently. With key performance indicators (KPI), users can measure success rates, system utilisation, the number of parts printed and average print speed. The software is also compatible with Ximplify, the portal developed with CASTOR to select the ideal parts for AM, and provides APIs to integrate a variety of other software tools that facilitate generative design, part-costing, and MES.
Textured shift knobs printed with the Nexa3D QLS 820 and dyed with DyeMansion technology.
All in, Nexa believes this offering addresses several bottlenecks of powder bed fusion technology. In addition to a promise of high-speed printing and the swift removal of build units, the powder modules are automation ready and the next step for Nexa is to add automated guide vehicle capabilities – a proof of concept is already running in Nexa’s Ventura facility. On the materials side, Nexa is developing certain polymer grades – such as PA11, PA12, TPU and PPE – but is happy to lean on third-party suppliers via an open system for other materials products.
The QLS technology has been in development since late 2015. Graczyk was always working towards a high throughput, lights-out solution, but it required several iterations to get where the company is today.
“It’s been a while, refining and figuring out. We pivoted a couple of times with the light engine,” Graczyk said. “Initially, we started with the idea of using a projector to sinter a layer at once, and we built a prototype. It was an amazing machine, it sits in Ventura in our lab, but the technology didn’t scale, it was super expensive. The speed was amazing, but the resolution and scale weren’t there, so we decided to switch to four lasers, and we created an algorithm to help make sure they’re all aligned. It’s all AI-driven image recognition software, this is our secret sauce.”
Harnessing that secret sauce, and all the other capabilities that Nexa boasted about at IMTS as thousands of visitors from the manufacturing space passed through the AM pavilion, Nexa3D is hoping to ‘deliver orders of magnitude productivity gains’ as the company ‘digitises supply chain sustainability.’ To do that, the company is going to need tools that are consistent, materials that are reliable, and an awareness that disrupting the manufacture of polymer parts is not easy.
Graczyk finished: “Injection moulding with polymer, it’s so widespread that the momentum has to be changed. It’s way more difficult than in metal […] It’s all about creating a robust product, and amazing support. For them, they don’t care if there are four lasers, they don’t care if it has this and that. It can be a black box that works. I want this to be boring. I don’t want people to be excited about this. The time when we’re excited about the 3D printer on the production floor is long gone. Nobody is excited that we bring a new extrusion machine, a new injection moulding machine – maybe operators for one day. What I want people to be excited about is the results, like I show you the key performance indicators. I want the CFO to be excited. I want them to call up and say, ‘we made so much money on this project.’”
