We’re taking care of business first in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, as Sevaan Group has launched an additive manufacturing service and Farsoon Europe is partnering with MostTech to expand industrial AM to Austria. Moving on, Additive Industries and Additive Assurance are working together to enhance LPBF monitoring, and nLIGHT announced a process monitoring tool for the welding market. Finally, a new lab at the University of Texas in Dallas is using 3D printing to efficiently produce pediatric hearing aid earmolds.

Sevaan Group Expands Manufacturing Services to Include AM

Sevaan Group’s Markforged X7 carbon fiber 3D printer produces industrial-grade parts.

Sevaan Group, the parent company of parts contract manufacturer Sevaan Manufacturing, already offers an end-to-end workflow from design, prototyping, and testing to production, assembly, and finishing of manufactured metal parts. Now, to give its customers more choices and deliverables, the company has expanded its manufacturing services to include 3D printing. Its new AM service includes parts design, prototyping, testing, and production, as well as reverse engineering and parts inventory auditing to determine components well-suited for 3D printing. Industrial-grade AM solutions, such as Markforged, are used to create precise components out of robust plastics, continuous fibers, and composites. Plus, the company is also 3D printing tools for its own in-house needs.

“Our customers can choose to have their required parts manufactured via either traditional processes or 3D industrial printing. For certain components and production runs, 3D printing can offer specific benefits including rapid prototyping, a faster production turnaround, enhanced quality and cost savings, making it a very attractive manufacturing option,” said Sevaan Group CEO David Green.

“Thanks to AM, customers who only require a small number of parts or perhaps longer-lasting components, now no longer need to wait for parts to come in from overseas while experiencing downtime, and can explore more cost-effective part options.”

Farsoon Europe and MostTech Announce Distribution Partnership

L-R: Michael Hofer, owner of MostTech, and Oliver Li, managing director of Farsoon Europe GmbH.

Farsoon Europe GmbH, a subsidiary of Chinese Farsoon Technologies, has established a strategic distribution partnership with Austria-based advanced 3D printing solutions provider MostTech. The company has over three decades of experience in supporting industrial customers through technology consulting, digital management, 3D printing, and post-processing, and has set itself up as a respected, professional volume reseller, especially with metal AM. Farsoon is a globally diverse company, and was founded with the vision to create open platform systems, so that users have freedom to innovate. The partnership between MostTech and Farsoon Europe will improve technical capabilities in open metal and plastic 3D printing solutions to serve the needs of local customers and industries in Austria. MostTech will be offering Farsoon’s industrial-grade metal and plastic AM technologies, materials, machines, and part manufacturing services to the Central European market.

“We have been deeply connected to the topic of “Advanced Manufacturing” through decades of experience, from development to the finished part. Our approach of “Connecting People and Technologies” is the guarantee for sustainable technology implementations,” said Michael Hofer, the owner of MostTech and ManofManufacturing. “The partnership with Farsoon enables us and our customers to reach the next level of advancement with industrial additive manufacturing. We are proud to elevate our service portfolio to the next level with Farsoon.”

Additive Industries & Additive Assurance Enhancing LPBF Monitoring

AMiRIS mounted on MetalFAB G2

Additive Industries and Additive Assurance are collaborating to enhance in-situ process monitoring with the former’s portfolio of MetalFab laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) printers. These systems have high automation, capability, and scalability, and the new MetalFab 300 Flex is said to be the only metal 3D printer on the market with a unique on-demand platform size for improved accessibility. AMiRIS by Additive Assurance offers quality inspection during the 3D printing process, which speeds up validation and can result in higher yield and production consistency of LPBF parts. As build rates and productivity of 3D printers increase, the need for in-process monitoring and quality assurance is higher than ever, and AMiRIS is a logical choice for addressing QA in the MetalFab printers with real-time, in-situ monitoring. The partnership between these two companies will leverage strengths from both to improve process monitoring of high-performance 3D printed parts, and will hopefully result in broader adoption of LPBF.

“Our partnership with Additive Assurance aligns perfectly with our commitment to advancing the capabilities of metal additive manufacturing,” said Mark Massey, CEO at Additive Industries. “By integrating AMiRIS® with our MetalFab portfolio, including our new MetalFab 300 Flex, we’re enhancing real-time quality assurance, offering our customers greater flexibility, and setting new standards in production consistency and reliability.”

nLIGHT’s ProcessGUARD Plasmo Process Monitoring Systems

Speaking of process monitoring, Vancouver, Washington-based nLIGHT develops, designs, and produces laser technology products, and wondered if it was possible for lasers to complete process monitoring. Vienna-based plasmo has long been an industry leader in QA and process monitoring solutions, and joined with nLIGHT this year to become nLIGHT plasmo GmbH. Leveraging the skills of both companies, ProcessGUARD was created for the welding market. This process monitoring solution puts plasmo’s intelligence, power, and powerful QA inside an nLIGHT laser. Thus, it’s able to eliminate the maintenance and integration complexity inherent in third-party process monitoring solutions.

“A completely new solution has emerged from the synergy of our laser and monitoring technology. Our ProcessGuard offers everything that modern welding applications need.”

New UT Dallas Lab Uses 3D Printing to Produce Hearing Aid Earmolds

Earmolds produced in the Callier Clinical Innovation Lab.

Recently, the Callier Center for Communication Disorders at The University of Texas at Dallas celebrated the opening of a new clinical innovation lab, as well as its use of 3D printing to efficiently produce custom earmolds for pediatric hearing aids. Earmolds channel sound from hearing aids to the eardrum, and must be made to fit each patient’s ear canal; plus, young children will typically need many sets of earmolds in their first five years. Traditional methods of ordering these custom earmolds normally takes two to three weeks, but by using 3D printing, the production process is now less than six hours. Callier Center leaders are sharing this innovation with other clinics and audiologists around the country so that all patients can benefit from the process. Plus, the center recently hosted what it called “a first-of-its-kind” workshop, welcoming over 20 attendees from six states to the new innovation lab for training in logistics, otoscopy options, impression scanning, design, 3D printing, and post-processing of custom pediatric hearing aid earmolds.

“Callier is committed to raising the standard of patient care through designing innovative solutions to improve health care efficacy and efficiency. With the help of generous donors, the newly opened Callier Clinical Innovation Lab is changing how earmolds for hearing devices are produced, providing training workshops for audiologists and clinics, collaborating with other departments at UT Dallas, and so much more,” Angela Shoup BS’89, MS’92, PhD’94, the Ludwig A. Michael, MD Callier Center Executive Director, said at the ribbon-cutting. “This is one example of the type of clinical innovation made possible through community support of the clinical innovation lab.”