Farsoon Technologies/Evonik
Evonik and Farsoon Technologies are collaborating once again to bring INFINAM TPC (thermoplastic copolyester) to market, a new ‘ready-to-use’ elastomer powder material for 3D printing. The process testing of the material was conducted at the Farsoon Americas Demo Center in Austin, Texas.
The companies say that they are committed to an open systems philosophy of customers having the freedom to choose materials for 3D printing applications. Farsoon said that itself and Evonik each contributed expertise to ensure the new material is thoroughly tested and tuned to produce repeatable benchmark parts with optimal mechanical properties.
The teams supported each other on multiple test builds in x, y and z orientations at varying refresh rates. This was to successfully hone in machine parameters to produce accurate material properties reflected on Evonik’s material data sheets according to the companies.
Ray Jones, Applications and Technical Pre-sale at Farsoon Americas said: “We see both strength and flexibility in this new TPC material. It is of excellent elasticity and is easy to process with Farsoon’s powder bed fusion technology. Post processing is efficient as well, from breakout and media blasting to sieving.”
Farsoon says that INFINAM TPC is the first high-performance flexible thermoplastic co-polyester powder on the market. The company highlighted the tear strength of parts 3D printed with TPC, the elongation at break, impact resistance and rebound as key parts of its performance.
Farsoon says that the material properties of parts 3D printed with TPC are beneficial to a variety of applications in the automotive, sporting goods and medical industries.
“We are very happy to work with the material experts at Evonik on their new TPC material. With Farsoon’s open systems, we along with Evonik are able to produce parts with excellent elastic properties, enabling us to provide our customers with an even greater choice when it comes to material selection,” said Don Xu, Managing Director of Farsoon America.
Dr. Arnim Kraatz, Director of Powder Bed Fusion at Evonik added: “We believe in open source platforms as a market growth booster to unbound 3D printing at scale. Furthermore, an open technology approach also meets our material development focus on ready-to-use high-performance materials for main 3D printing technologies.
“Having successfully qualified our PA613 powders on Farsoon’s machines two years ago, we are now jointly entering the market for elastomer-based 3D applications. This will open up new opportunities for users to push boundaries of 3D printing by being able to manufacture tough parts with reliable and easy processing.”
Farsoon and Evonik first collaborated in 2021, working together on new 3D printing materials with higher temperature resistance. As part of this work, the ready-to-use polymer powder INFINAM PA 6005 P (polyamide 613) with higher temperature resistance on Farsoon’s ST252P and HT403P series machines.
