The Aitiip Technology Center in Spain, one of the largest laboratories for additive manufacturing in Europe, has optimized its production processes by using an S1 blasting system from AM Solutions. The aim of the investment was to automate the previously completely manual post-processing in order to increase efficiency and production capacity and improve the surface quality of the printed components.
As a leading technology center in the development of 3D printing solutions, Aitiip works on a variety of applications ranging from prototypes to end products. With the increasing demand for additively manufactured parts, the importance of efficient post-processing has grown, as this has a significant impact on production costs and part quality.
“Before the introduction of the S1, we carried out all post-processing steps manually,” explains Pablo Murillo, Chief Business Development Officer at Aitiip. “As a result, we had much higher personnel costs and were very limited at the same time. Thanks to the automated system, we were able to increase our production capacity. For example, we can now offer end-use parts in various assemblies of products already on the market as 3D-printed parts. This was hardly conceivable before. Thanks to the very high surface quality, they now meet the customer’s requirements without the need for further processing.”
The S1 blasting system enables time savings of up to 90 percent and combines cleaning and surface treatment in a single step. Uniform rotation of the workpieces during the process ensures a gentle and reproducible result. The higher surface quality opens up new application possibilities, for example for end-use parts in existing product series.
“The whole process is much faster, cleaner and more efficient,” adds Pablo Murillo. “Considering that with the average size of our parts, we can print around 300 parts per HP cake, it used to take between 4 and 6 hours to remove the powder in a manual blast cabinet. Now the automated S1 process takes just 30 minutes to deliver clean and ready-to-use parts. AM Solutions has a lot of knowledge about surface finishing and gives us very good advice here in Spain. We really appreciate this and already have further projects in the pipeline,” says Pablo Murillo.
In addition, the S1 system offers flexibility through the use of different blasting media and the option of working both manually and automatically. According to Murillo, Aitiip is already planning further projects with AM Solutions, as the cooperation is also convincing when it comes to on-site technical advice.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
3DPresso is a weekly newsletter that links to the most exciting global stories from the 3D printing and additive manufacturing industry.