Velo3D Creating large, mission-critical parts with additive manufacturing | So Good News

Founded in the United States by Benny Buller, Velo3D is known for its metal additive manufacturing solutions, particularly in sectors such as aerospace. Its solutions not only eliminate the need for Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) to minimize compromises in creating parts, but also fully integrate all their metal solutions, giving users the freedom to print the parts they want. They have continued to grow over the past few years. its solutions; We spoke with Dirk Rathsack, Managing Director of Sales at Velo3D to learn more about its current expansion into Europe and more.

3DN: Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Dirk Rathsack, I am the Managing Director of Sales. I joined Velo in April of this year and my previous employer, Protolabs, is associated with 3D printing. It is a fast manufacturing company and some technology headquartered in Germany. I was introduced to polymer and metal additive manufacturing over six years ago in my work as a sales representative and am now excited to expand Velo3D and its innovative 3D printing solutions to Europe.

3DN: Can you tell us more about Velo3D?

Velo3D is a technology manufacturing company with fully integrated metal AM solutions for mission critical components. Our customers often have difficulty manufacturing their parts with first-generation 3D printing or traditional methods, and we are looking to overcome these design challenges. What we do is help customers print or manufacture their parts without compromising quality.

for us Mission critical components are components that are required to do what they do. The rocket engine will be a critical part of the mission; Because if it doesn’t work, Because your mission may be dangerous. We need to ensure that these components are manufactured in a way to optimize their functionality while reducing weight or increasing lifetime or, if they are critical, cost. That’s where our answers come in.

Velo3D is known for its Sapphire range of fully integrated metal insert manufacturing solutions (Photo: Velo3D)

Therefore, We are looking for customers looking to manufacture end-use components in our machines, Our goal is to help customers use our technology and produce components for their applications. We are not in the research and development or prototyping industry, but our real value is mostly experienced when a customer is looking to use AM technologies for their final parts.

3DN: Velo3D is particularly known for laser powder floor synthesis. How does the solution work? What are the benefits of using it?

We offer what we call a fully integrated metal am solution, which means that we not only supply or provide hardware to our customers, but also aspects such as print preparation with our proprietary Flow™ Print Preparation Software. Velo3D allows users to go from a CAD file to optimizing for printing. We strive to be consistent across all our devices. We use pre-defined and configuration-controlled parameter sets to ensure high quality and repeatability.

Yes, We also have printers. We have a wide range of printers of various sizes, from the standard Sapphire® to the Sapphire XC with a compact build plate. With the Sapphire XC 1MZ solution, you can zoom up to one meter. These all use the same software, so you can easily transfer to Sapphire XC after launching Sapphire® and print there. Finally, The packaging and solution is completed with Assure™ Quality Control Software, which uses data before and during the printing process to give the customer full visibility and understanding of the quality of the 3D printed part at any time. Part of the process. It also helps ensure that your parts meet standards while printing.

One of the reasons we are able to help customers print the parts they are facing is because we are able to print parts at much lower cost on our system than others. This means that our users have many limitations, especially when it comes to design. Another thing is, What I’m talking about is the information we provide to ensure the quality of each component is correct and to continuously improve our solutions.

Velo3D’s technologies can be used for components in a variety of sectors, including aerospace. In this image you can see the launcher from Launcher (photo credit: Launcher)

Regarding large-scale 3D printing and its benefits; In traditional manufacturing, they produce many different parts related to a single application and assemble it to find the final part. ok If you have a large build room, you can basically combine all the different parts into one part and just make one part. Where we see the most adoption is not only in aerospace, but also in sectors such as oil and gas.

3DN: Velo3D recently expanded to Europe. Can you tell us more about your projects?

That’s why I’m here to help Velo3D really expand our footprint into Europe. It is true that we are primarily successful in developing in the US for our American customer base. At the beginning of last year, The management team says we are space, oil and natural gas; We were told that we needed to expand into Europe as we found similar applications in aerospace and so on, and similar businesses that we could firmly trace. The second largest aircraft manufacturer is Europe. In target industries and markets, we see many similarities to what we see in the United States. Therefore, taking that step makes a lot of sense.

Currently, We are in four major markets in Europe: the UK; Germany Focusing on France and Italy. There we have established local teams that speak the local language to provide the support that customers expect, and we are present across the industry targeting similar markets. We have a good footprint in space and aerospace; So it makes sense that we are talking to major airlines across Europe. There is a lot of pressure to innovate in the oil and gas industry, especially with the current geopolitical challenges. It is also an area where we will continue to grow as our solutions can help improve productivity within the sector. So that’s what we’re currently focusing on.

3DN: Formnext is here! Will there be Velo3D? What can attendees expect?

Formnext is an important event for us as we will be able to meet customers interested in the industry and our technology. We will choose interesting products to display. In addition, We’ll show you some of the new parts coming out of the bigger machines. Attendees can expect demo components, including performance demonstrations for large components, with examples from all of our solutions.

An engineer with parts made from Velo3D’s latest high-quality M300 Tool Steel (Photo: Velo3D)

In addition, Some new items will be shown along with applications and large components. We have a copper alloy product as well as an M300 Tool Steel application. We are going to demonstrate why we started our journey in space and aerospace industry. At the same time we are heavy industry, power generation; oil and natural gas; automobile, It will show how it has expanded into industries such as tools and more. All of this will definitely show. We want to show that we can help anyone with their metallurgical production needs.

3DN – Any final words for our readers?

When we talk to people who don’t know who we are at all; Summarize with a sentence like this: If you have design, If you have or have challenging production parts that are important to you without compromising quality or performance. We are working on building a distributed manufacturing process for the spare parts. We believe we can help you find the solution to your challenges, so you should visit us for a discussion. We will be at Booth #12.0-D01 at Formnext, Visit us there! You can also learn about our solution here.

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*Cover photo credits: Velo3D