Hyundai has installed two ExOne VX1000 HSS polymer 3D printing systems at its Namyang R&D Center in South Korea.
This facility supports pre-production and test-part manufacturing, small-batch production and prototyping for research, as well as the urgent sourcing of long-lead parts that would otherwise require tooling.
The automotive company has worked with 3D printing technology since 1996 and has recently made a significant investment in ExOne's High Speed Sintering (HSS) technology to produce large parts quickly, reducing assembly effort and tolerance stack-up errors.
“Hyundai is using High Speed Sintering exactly as we designed it, for full-scale functional parts,” said Eric Bader, Chief Executive Officer, ExOne Global Holdings. “Keeping large polymer parts accurate and repeatable, print after print, is one of the hardest challenges in polymer 3D printing. We solved it, and that turns additive manufacturing into a tool automotive teams can rely on for real development work.”
In ExOne’s HSS technology, an infrared-absorbing ink is applied selectively to PA12 powder and fused layer by layer with a sintering emitter. The powder- and ink-based process depends on consistent, highly precise temperature control to achieve the desired part properties, and the VX1000 is said to deliver excellent temperature management across the entire build volume.
The VX1000 HSS printer was initially commercialised by Voxeljet, with the product being integrated into the ExOne portfolio as a result of the merger of Voxeljet and ExOne assets by Anzu Partners. It is considered to be one of the largest polymer 3D printers on the market, thanks to its 1,000 × 550 × 190 mm build volume, and utilises a high-performance printhead with 8,000 nozzles. Hyundai is said to be leveraging these capabilities to additively manufacture 'full-scale parts,' including complete door panels, which can be printed in a single build.
Voxljet designed the VX1000 for high availability and low maintenance burden, with the replacement of the sintering emitter and print module said to be routine tasks. The machine also makes its process data available in real time, so operators and manufacturing systems can continuously monitor and integrate the printers into existing production environments. A dedicated video livestream provides real-time visibility into the printing process.
Additionally, both VX1000 HSS printers are run from a single unpacking station and a central powder supply that can be flexibly arranged in a variety of factory and R&D environments.
“The intelligent powder management balances very different build jobs and utilisation levels and consistently delivers high-quality powder to both machines,” added Alfred Griesser, Deputy Head of Research & Development, ExOne. “That lets the team run up to 80 per cent recycled powder without compromising part quality.”
