New York City additive manufacturing (AM) services provider PrintParts works to help customers in several industries print their end-use components on-demand for an affordable cost. The company was founded in 2016, and in addition to DLP, FFF, FDM, SLA, and SLS 3D printing, it offers other manufacturing services, such as consulting, quality assurance, design, and prototyping. Now, PrintParts announced that it’s expanded its 3D printing production capacity by adding some new offerings: eight industrial-scale Envision One cDLM 3D printers from EnvisionTEC, to be exact.
EnvisionTEC, which was purchased by Desktop Metal in January, counts PrintParts as one of its trusted network partners, and the company now also has one of the largest service bureau installations of the Envision One. By adding several of these systems to its portfolio, PrintParts is majorly increasing its production capacity, and also making EnvisionTEC’s medical and engineering materials available to customers in need of mid-to-high volume production runs, which isn’t something it usually targets.
PrintParts focuses mainly on short run production services for applications in a multitude of industries, such as robotics, defense, automotive, aerospace, and medical devices. This last was definitely helpful last year, as the 3D printing industry showed the world how the technology could be scaled up to meet important on-demand production needs when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major disruption to supply chains. In order to support the NYC government, PrintParts expanded its operations in 2020 to become the city’s prime contractor for COVID-19 testing supplies, and obtained EnvisionTEC printers to help meet this demand, eventually delivering more than 1.5 million 3D printed nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs.
“We worked closely with EnvisionTEC as we developed our production strategy and we selected the Envision One System to expand our capacity to keep up with the high demand for NP swabs. Moving forward, we are excited to apply this capacity to help our customers scale their additive manufacturing production with an amazing selection of industrial grade materials from EnvisionTEC and Henkel,” said Robert Haleluk, the PrintParts Founder and CEO.
The Envision One cDLM offers 3D printed parts with similar quality to ones that have been made with injection molding, and also supports a multitude of industrial materials. While PrintParts will be adding more materials throughout the year, initially it’s offering only the following:
- E-ABS Tough, able to hold high stress and force for applications that need elasticity
- E-RigidForm, a versatile polyurethane-like resin with high tensile strength of 68-73 MPa and good heat deflection
- Loctite E-3840, semi-rigid, acrylic liquid resin, available in Black and White, that offers fine print resolution
- E-Guide Soft, a medical-grade material for printing flexible, functional end-use parts with fine feature sizes
- E-Clear, a liquid photopolymer with high durability and rigidity for making strong, water-resistant parts
“We were happy to support PrintParts during 2020 as we jointly addressed the critical need for COVID testing supplies in NYC. Our range of materials is constantly expanding as we continue to add new engineering and production offerings to unlock high-volume manufacturing applications, and we look forward to working with PrintParts to provide these materials to their customers,” said EnvisionTEC’s CEO Al Siblani.
By adding eight of EnvisionTEC’s industrial Envision One printers to its offering, PrintParts customers will now be able to scale up their 3D printing ideas to meet production applications.
(Source/Images: PrintParts)