“Hardware at the Speed of Software”: Inkbit’s CEO on the Future of Materials in 3D Printing
Matt Kremenetsky
Inkbit, the Massachusetts-based original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the Vista line of 3D printers, has launched a new material offering, TEPU 50A, at Formnext 2023 (November 7-10 in Frankfurt, Germany). Vista 3D printers leverage Inkbit’s multi-material and intelligent Vision Control Jetting (VCJ) technology. TEPU 50A, a thiol-ene polyurethane-based elastomer, is the second elastomer in Inkbit’s portfolio, after TEPU 30A (Vulcan Soft Elastomer 30). The selling point of TEPU 50A is that it is medium-soft, which enables customers to achieve highly functional prototyping for rubber-like components.
As Inkbit’s CEO, Davide Marini, told me in an interview about the product launch, TEPU 50A was specifically created to align with Inkbit’s users’ needs:
Silicone-like materials are not only in increasingly high demand for a diverse range of high-value sectors, they are also uniquely difficult to work with in a 3D printing context, which adds much to the business case for Inkbit’s platform. Enabling customers to effectively use a material like TEPU 50A for AM applications requires a deep background in that particular area of material science, a proficiency that few other companies can claim as their own:
Although being so ahead of the curve has in some ways made the lead-up to commercialization more challenging than might’ve been the case with a more common underlying technology, it also seems to have allowed Inkbit to find equally innovative partners in other sectors, especially robotics:
Of course, again, the potential to achieve that objective depends precisely on a company like Inkbit’s ability to negotiate between the needs of both software and hardware by cultivating the right material solution:
I finished up by asking if the development of new materials like TEPU 50A is the key to unlocking scale at this juncture in the AM sector’s history. Marini’s response was wholly unequivocal: