Solukon Releases SPR-Pathfinder PRO—and a Smart Software Strategy

Large-format LPBF darling Solukon Maschinenbau launches SPR-Pathfinder PRO, an upgrade to its depowdering software. This is a smart play because it enables the company to keep ahead of potential competition through software. It could also enable the better use of existing Solukon machines.

The company says the new software offers improved process time prediction, simulation, and validation. The company also has a BASIC version of the software. This again seems like a smart move. If I have something relatively simple to depowder, like some engine block components, then maybe BASIC is just fine. I don’t have to pay for the McSalad Shaker Tom Cruise in Cocktail, top-of-the-line stuff, then.

Meanwhile, if I have a rocket engine, I’m a money-no-object type of person anyway, looking at a backlog of 300 satellites, so I’ll upgrade for every willy-nilly advantage, no matter how small. This can let the company make a good software offering for car companies and other cost-conscious buyers, and develop super-premium features for the heat-exchange and rocket-engine crowd. Too often, most of the differentiation, value-based pricing, and premium offerings in 3D printing are stupid. But this is an example of letting the cost-conscious spend less. Letting the performance crowd get more while showing improvement to your product. And let’s not forget that this software will improve your existing machine. What Solukon is doing here may seem simple, but it is anything but. Too often, in any kind of differentiation in pricing, a lot of people will feel “had,” or worse yet, you kind of break your product somehow. So far, at least here, there is a balance around the right lever for pricing and channel complexity that parallels the cost consciousness and price elasticity of their customers.

The company says there were customer parts that were simply too complex for the previous version of the software. Here, more accuracy and simulation were needed than they could provide. The firm says it previously had a limit of 2.4 million voxels for predictive capability but no longer does.

Additionally, the company needed greater traceability for customer certification and has now implemented it. The company also said that it is now looking to let customers design for depowdering so that it can enable more structures and customers can design parts that are easier to depowder reliably.

Solukon CEO Andreas Hartmann said,

“At Solukon, we have always believed that reliable and intelligent automated depowdering can be achieved when machine, process, and software are aligned. The parts our customers print today are more complex than ever and we have grown alongside that ambition. SPR-Pathfinder® PRO reflects years of listening to the market and advancing our software in step with the most demanding AM applications: parts with sub-millimeter channels, densely packed internal surfaces, and geometries previously inaccessible.”

Improvements in prediction will also make life easier for schedulers and other staff, especially in high-mix environments. The new software can measure over 1,000,000 particles and an unlimited amount of voxels. This could be used for very complex channels measuring under 1mm.

According to the company,

“The software now enables cross-sectional views of the component in all planes (X, Y, and Z), giving operators full visibility inside the part at any point and from any direction. Also, the part’s transparency can be adjusted very granularly. This makes it straightforward to identify powder traps and bottlenecks before a single layer is printed.”

Hemank Raj, Product Owner of SPR-Pathfinder, says,

“SPR-Pathfinder PRO is the result of working closely with operators who push LPBF to its limits every day. The standard version already removes the guesswork from depowdering program creation. With PRO, we go further: users can now look inside the most complex geometries, predict process time with confidence, and validate depowderability before the first layer is printed. That changes how engineers think about postprocessing from the very start of a project.”

Both software versions work with the SFM-AT350, SFM-AT350-E, SFM-AT800-S, SFM-AT1000-S, and SFM-AT1500-S units.

This seems to be excellent business sense. The differentiation seems fair to all involved and useful as well. It’s also easy to understand. And yet the company is adding more capabilities, ease of use, and utility to previously sold Solukon units (although not all of them) through a software upgrade that should see their owners save time and money.

This seems like a very sensible approach to creating and adding value for yourself and your customers. Other machine tool companies, not only in Additive, should look at what Solukon is doing here, as it may very well help them make more money while demonstrating greater utility and keeping them ahead of the competition.