Belt pulleys printed on the NXE400 platform with xCE-Black material.
Belt pulleys printed on the NXE400 platform with xCE-Black material.
Nexa3D has announced the immediate availability of a new high-performance polymer for the additive manufacture of end-use parts and injection moulding tools.
The new material, xCE-Black, is a single cure polymer that is said to deliver a high flexural strength typically only achieved in dual cure cyanate ester resins, while also exhibiting long-term environmental stability and ‘excellent’ isotropic properties. Nexa3D believes the material, compatible with its NXE 400 stereolithography platform, to be suitable for application in the automotive, electronics and a host of other industrial sectors.
It has been launched after a period of extensive testing in which its thermal stability stood out, giving Nexa3D confidence that it could be applied in the automotive and electronic sectors, potential for end-use components and injection moulding tools. Testing this latter application, moulds printed in xCE-Black have been successfully injected hundreds of times at temperatures between 230°C and 280°C with no apparent mould temperature degradation or adhesion.
automotive interior car door control panel made from xCE-Black
Automotive interior car door control panel made from xCE-Black.
“When I needed to produce thousands of belt pulleys in our flexible factory overnight, I selected our new xCE-Black material for the job because of its high flexural strength and long-term stability,” said Brent Zollinger, Customer Success Lead, Nexa3D. “Within the first 2.5 hours into the project, I was able to print 2,000 pulleys in a single build or 13 parts every minute. That’s really fast and extremely practical for serial production of industrial parts.”
The launch of this new material comes after an announcement made earlier this week that 3DZ Group would distribute the NXE 400 3D printing platform throughout Southern Europe.
“Our rapid materials portfolio and reseller network expansion are consistent with our post-COVID-19 plan to deliver greater supply chain resiliency to our customers,” commented Izhar Medalsy, COO at Nexa3D. “With every addition of new materials and market coverage, we are taking decisive steps to deliver a substantial speed and productivity upgrade to our customers through our fast, industrial printers and high-performance polymers at an attractive cost of ownership.”
