Spritzguss + Formenbau Bergamn purchasing an EOSINT M 280 direct metal sintering system is not just another company wanting to get into rapid prototyping services. This is a 250 employee group with 70 injection moulding machines buying into the promise of additive manufacturing for the future by investing in one of the top metal sintering systems on the market.
Bergmann designs and produces injection mould tools and produces high-grade, custom plastic components through injection-moulding systems. Through its purchase of the EOSINT M 280 the group will become a service provider for EOS but it will also be able to produce high-grade tool inserts (such as cores or slides), as well as its own prototypes, directly from metal.
“We are pleased to have found a strong and highly professional partner for injection moulding,” pointed out Augustin Niavas, business development manager for tooling at EOS. “One who has many years of experience with conventional technologies but who is at the same time also open to innovative technologies. The fact that Bergmann has chosen the EOS technology reflects the level of maturity that additive manufacturing has now attained”
Nivas went on to explain how the two companies, together, are now able to cover the entire process chain, from the engineering design stage of the tool to the finished plastic component. “This is a foundation on which we will continue to jointly support customer projects in the future and in turn continue to develop the market for additive manufacturing in tool construction,” he concluded.
According to André Gerbert, assistant to the senior management at Spritzguss + Formenbau Bergmann, EOS DLMS technology will allow for a 20% reduction in cycle times and, through conformal cooling of tool cores (that is the when the cooling lines in an additively or traditionally manufactured metal tool closely follow the geometry of the part to be produced), up to a 50% increase in the quality of tools produced, even with complex geometries.
Since one of the most common reason companies used to give for not having yet adopted 3D printing is that injection moulding yields better quality results, we are probably on the verge of quite a radical change in metal manufacturing. But we already know that, don’t we?
