x3D Group SAS, located in Lyon-France, have launched the Rapid Series, a range of patented High Speed 3D printing solutions.
In addition to unveiling their new printers, the company has launched its own online 3D printing service.
Rapid Series printer
MFP technology is the new disruptive 3D printing technology that will help its users to reduce their prototyping costs. What would usually take 30 hours to print will take between 1 and 10 with the Rapid Series. The smooth finish also means that no post processing is required.
The technology comes from the photo industry, where the patented lighting technique was used to print high quality photos at high speed. After 2 years of R&D, this light source has been brought in the 3D world, to make the SLA technique print much faster.
The process resides in that light source exposing each slice of the 3D model on the whole surface of the resin tank, therefore curing all the parts at the same time.
Continuous printing or MFP layer-per-layer?
Although both printing processes give the same surface finish, layer-per-layer will help users to overcome some challenges that continuous printing may face. For example, large surfaces can print right away. Also, discontinued pins would come out just nicely. And whether you print 2 models or 200 on the platform, the printing time will be identical.
So how fast?
As an example, four hundred 5cm high Eiffel towers would take most printers anywhere between 6 and 12 hours to print. The Rapid Series will print them in less that 2 hours. The amount of miniatures the machine is capable of printing in a day is around 2000
The price
The Rapid Series are offered in the €40-80 K range, making them a bit more attractive compared to the usual 200K we see on the market. It also comes with a full parts and labour 12-month warranty and a maintenance contract for those who wants to ensure their machine is well looked after. Consumables are very affordable too, starting at €130 per kilo, with more materials coming out soon.
The Rapid400 is a beautiful machine, winning the German IF Design award in January 2016
The machine also looks different to the others on the market. The unique trihedral modeling allows users to observe the printing state from three perspectives. This demonstrates the dynamic molding process in an all-around way. The unique shape and the scientific and technological sense endow the product with the unique visual value.
The Rapid400 can print in large build envelope of 384x384x216mm. That makes it perfect to print several parts at the same time, or to print large models. For the first time in the industrial 3D printing history, x3D offers Open-Source technology. Due to the increasing demand of customized materials, the Rapid Series can allow its users to run it with third-party resins. And x3D Group is committed to help its customers to optimize this benefit, with dedicated staff skilled in materials elaboration.
