Plastometrex is set to commercially launch its PLX-AutoStage module in Q4 of 2026.
The modular addition to its PLX-Benchtop product has been developed to allow users to collect data from ‘precisely the right location’ on each sample part in a more automated way.
Plastometrex’s PLX product range is powered by the proprietary Profilometry-based Indentation Plastometry (PIP), which extracts stress-strain curves from indentation data using inverse finite element analysis. The PLX-AutoStage has been introduced as an add-on to the PLX-Benchtop product, an office-friendly non-destructive testing solution that can return results in minutes, with Plastometrex hoping to enhance the speed and efficiency of PIP testing by automating a significant portion of the process.
By integrating the PLX-AutoStage with the PLX-Benchtop, users will be able to load and queue ‘hundreds of tests’ and run an automated test programme with no further human intervention required. Users will get a digital picture of the test samples, select the indent locations on each part, and the combination of PLX-Benchtop and PLX-AutoStage will work through the queue of samples independently.
With PIP, users are able to make indentations within 150 microns of the point selected, while also programming indent spacing as close as 1.5mm apart across single components, gathering fine-scale mechanical property data.
“[This will] allow you to interrogate very small volumes very accurately,” Jimmy Campbell, Plastometrex CTO, told TCT. “How do you do that? You get your mechanical property data, typically, in one of two ways. Either a tensile test, which is quite slow and very difficult to automate, or you do a hardness test. You don’t get yield strength or ultimate tensile strength (UTS) from a hardness test; you get a proxy for how strong the material is. The PLX-AutoStage will allow you to streamline the workflow, give you yield strength and UTS across hundreds of different tests very accurately so you can get the properties from those areas that you really want.”
Plastometrex currently has multiple PLX-AutoStage modules running at its headquarters and has taken pre-orders from several customers.
It expects the PLX-AutoStage to be implemented by manufacturers when they want a range of data points on any given testing sample. One example is the printing of density cubes in all eight corners of the build envelope of an additive manufacturing system, with the cubes able to be removed, PIP tested, and the data from all eight corners mapped out within an hour.
As the company prepares to launch the PLX-AutoStage commercially later this year, Plastometrex is likely to recommend the product as part of its standard package.
“Of course, you can decide not to take it if you want,” Campbell said, “but it’s the standard package because the benefits of it for our users are time and cost savings, as well as being able to generate more data than they could previously.”
The PLX-AutoStage has been developed in direct response to customer feedback, with Campbell describing it as ‘the most requested feature.’ Plastometrex sees the product as a tool that can extend what its PLX-Benchtop product can do while ‘bridging the gap’ between the ‘time-consuming and expensive’ tensile testing and ‘fast, cheap, but somewhat ambiguous’ hardness testing.
Sitting in between these two types of testing, the company anticipates users being able to reclaim engineering time and spend more time analysing the data than generating it. Ultimately, Plastometrex believes its customer base will conduct more tests, and generate more insights, with the introduction of PLX-AutoStage.
“I suspect we’re going to see an inflection point in the number of tests that people carry out,” Campbell said. “Suddenly, it will go from this manual process to ‘I can queue hundreds of tests and walk away.’ I think we’re going to see a bit of a spike and long may that continue.”
