Motion Control Brings Injection Molding Quality to Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM), also referred to as 3D printing, moved beyond its initial use in industry solely for prototype development years ago. It’s no longer uncommon for manufacturers to produce assembly-ready components created with AM processes. However, the AM process is not quite ready to replace many established manufacturing methods due to material quality requirements for some parts and unit costs (typically due to the longer production times associated with AM). To address these AM issues, Evolve (a supplier of AM production equipment) has created its SVP (scalable volume production) platform. The central component of the SVP platform is Evolve’s STEP (selective thermoplastic electrophotographic process) technology, which deposits layers of material and then fuses them into three-dimensional parts with uniform density and quality. According to Evolve, this approach can achieve speeds up to 10 times faster than any industrial 3D printer. It also allows for the creation of multi-material and multi-color parts.