RAPID 2017: Paxis LLC Introducing WAV Additive Manufacturing Process

About a year after Carbon introduced its breakthrough CLIP 3D printing technology in 2015, it announced four partners that would be using the high speed technology, including CIDEAS, which was one of the first 3D printing service bureaus in the world to get early access to the CLIP process. CIDEAS has been around since 1998, and with over thirty in-house machines, offers all of the major 3D printing processes, including SLA, SLS, FDM, CLIP, and PolyJet, and a variety of urethane castings and part finishing options. Last year, a small team within CIDEAS worked together to launch a new company, Paxis LLC, which recently announced its new 3D printing technology, called WAV.

WAV, or Wave Applied Voxel, is a new, large build area industrial manufacturing process. The pioneering, scalable new technology offers one of the fastest large vat systems, with speeds projected at up to 4, 8, and 24 times faster than the other additive manufacturing photopolymerization systems currently available on the market.

Mike Littrell

“WAV’s large build area and truly unique production method is ideal for large investment casting masters, large parts and large batch builds of smaller parts built on one platform,” said Mike Littrell, co-inventor of WAV and founder of Paxis LLC. “WAV (pronounced wave) is a truly scalable, modular industrial additive manufacturing technology, which is expandable in both build size and speed. The attributes of the WAV process will allow resin developers to re-think material development which was hindered by the limitations of previous technologies.”

Littrell has close to 20 years of experience in the additive manufacturing industry; Paxis is the second company he’s formed. The company’s patent-pending WAV process was imagined and developed, by a CIDEAS team, from the ground up. Co-founders Littrell and Fred Knecht were trying to solve an issue associated with large, trapped volume parts in vat-based processes.

The invention process is described on the Paxis website: “Fred described his theory on how to fix the issue to Mike Littrell, president of CIDEAS Inc., and ‘it was like getting hit with a ton of bricks…Fred didn’t just solve trapped volumes, he solved other issues plaguing the vat and jetted based processes for years.’  At this very intersection in time, WAV was born.”

The technology yields a lower cost of operation, while still enjoying upgradeable speeds that have modular hardware expansions. The technology was specifically designed in order to break through the limitations of existing technologies.

Some of the benefits of the WAV technology include:

• larger parts with a small footprint: WAV can produce parts larger than the traditional AM systems currently on the market, but can actually fit through a standard doorway. It requires a smaller footprint, per cubic inch volume, than any current jetting, laser, or DLP-based process.
• expandable and fast: WAV has exponentially upgradeable speeds, and internal tests gave projected speeds of 4, 8, and 24 times faster than the largest vat systems.
• resin choice: WAV has a higher level of access to third party resins, and its design is the optimal deployment platform for hybrid and exotic materials.
• conquers current system limitations: WAV doesn’t have large vats to maintain, and can change materials in minutes, with no waste or loss of resin during change-over.
• multiple additive manufacturing applications: WAV technology is not limited in what it can do for additive manufacturing: large and small prototypes, resin development, investment casting, short-run bridge tooling, and large-scale manufacturing are all available.

Paxis has not announced any materials partners yet, and is currently looking for investment partners. CIDEAS, together with Paxis LLC, will be at RAPID + TCT in Pittsburgh this week, in booth #1429. 3DPrint.com is also at the event, bringing you all the latest news from the showroom floor. Discuss in the WAV forum at 3DPB.com.