3DPrinterOS Partnering with MilleBot to Containerize Large-Scale 3D Printing

January 10, 2020 by Sarah Saunders 3D Printing 3D Software

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Thanks to a newly announced partnership between Orlando 3D printing startup MilleBot and 3DPrinterOS, a privately held Silicon Valley company that developed an operating system for advanced digital manufacturing, 3D printer users will be able to produce and monitor production factories in real time, anywhere, for the first time. Together, the two tech companies have launched 5G-connected, large-scale advanced manufacturing crates.

Founded in 2014, 3DPrinterOS developed a system that can easily operate the entire end-to-end workflow from one platform. The venture-backed company’s software helps power many 3D printers, like Kodak’s Portrait system and all of Robo’s 3D printer models, and expanded its worldwide reach when it bundled with Microsoft Azure two years ago.

“We are very excited to work with Millebot to provide easy-to-use software that powers independent large-scale advanced manufacturing factories. Just-in-time manufacturing is the future, and giving customers the ability to scale on-demand worldwide will be critical in saving costs and improving time-to-market,” said John Dogru, Founder and CEO of 3DPrinterOS.

Its partnership with MilleBot, which designed, created, and now builds its system within an ISO shipping container, will make it possible for customers to achieve decentralized manufacturing anywhere in the world – even the company hopes in transit.

Millebot’s mission is to help people create large-scale products that can be rapidly deployed anywhere. In 2015, the company’s founder, Andy Tran, told us about his Mille 3D printer, which uses large shipping containers as its frame and body. The industrial digital fabrication system was officially launched in 2016, and can 3D print, mill and more, with several interchangeable tool heads that include clay and concrete extruders, a plasma cutter, and a laser head.

The partnership between MilleBot and 3DPrinterOS will be centered around developing advanced, digital manufacturing machines, using state-of-the-art software that supports a variety of materials, techniques, and tools to build large-scale plastic and metal parts with directed energy deposition (DED) technology.

Tran said, “For the price of a sports car, you can now have a personal micro-factory capable of 3D printing, cutting and engraving on a large scale anywhere in the world. We chose to work with 3DPrinterOS as they are able to adopt changes very quickly, and have over seven years of experience working in the industry with OEMS, F5000, and governments. Their ability to execute software in a short time to meet our customers’ demand was unmatched.”

This new system was successfully tested with intermittent 2G connections and found to work around the world, and the 5G capability provides enough bandwidth that customers can encrypt, and monitor, their whole workflow from a completely secure web browser anywhere.

Several industries, such as telecommunications, could potentially see positive impacts thanks to this advanced manufacturing technology. In the logistics sector, crates prove that technology can be securely shipped around the world at less cost, and the system could use batteries and 5G-connected solutions to produce replacement parts en-route. The military and enterprises can even prototype large parts, like submarines and helicopters, and, as a 3DPrinterOS press release states, “instantly push-to-production anywhere on-site in the world.”