Coverage of Days of 3D Printing: The biggest polish 3D Printing Fairs

Janusz Wójcik and Paweł Rokita from an Association of Innovative Technologies SIT Poland – organizers of the event – state that the fairs are growing bigger every year. This year’s edition saw the exhibitor booths take up almost 1500 square meters, which gives a pretty decent result since generative technologies are still quite a novelty for many polish companies.

.JANUSZ WÓJCIK: The number of exhibitors remained at the same level as last year since the fairs gather companies that already have deep roots in this industry branch. Nevertheless we can clearly see that every year our exhibitors offer more and more solutions, thus they are interested in bigger booths. – Janusz Wójcik comments.

PAWEŁ ROKITA: Although the polish Days of 3D Printing are still far behind Formnext and other events of this calibre, solutions and achievements of 3D printing and 3D scanning featured at the fairs exploit the matter almost completely.

WHAT WAS FEATURED AT THE 11th DAYS OF 3D PRINTING?

One of the biggest revelations of not only Days of 3D Printing but also the whole Industrial Spring was ATMAT’s booth and Caudron CR. 714 aircraft. The airplane will soon enrich the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków collection, and many parts used for its reconstruction was created using ATMAT machines. Caudron is still undergoing reconstruction works and seeing any exhibit during this process would be a big deal for the observers. ATMAT company is building its brand since a couple of years now as a specialist in manufacturing large, heavy-duty 3D printers and creating big 3D prints.

For several years now we could observe more and more machines that were fully created and manufactured in Poland. One of them was an atomizer from 3D Lab (short coverage coming in the next paragraphs), along with some new models of Poland’s only fully-industrial machines from SondaSys – creator of SL01 machine working with SLS technology (still the only machine on the global market which uses a dynamic galvo instead of f-theta lens to sinter the powder; thus drastically increasing the sintering quality); this time SLA and SLM machines were presented. As in previous editions, European company Sinterit got a lot of recognition for their budget-friendly SLS printer and desktop vacuforming device Vacu3D (using 0,1mm up to 3mm thick sheets made from different plastics: HIPS, ABS, PVC, PETG, PE, PP, PC, PMMA. There are two variants of this product available – standard Vacu3D using A4 sheets and Vacu3D MAXX using A3 sheets).
Polish manufacturers’ offers were perfectly complemented with distributors. The widest choice was available at CadXpert booth (distributor of Formlabs and Makerbot) and BibusMenos (EOS, Makerbot). The first focused on FDM and resin printing technologies, the latter presented a handful of metal, ceramic and SLS printers. Distributors of some big brands like HP were present as well.

As usual, thermoplastic printing was the strongest group at the fair. 3DGence reveiled their soluble support material for PEEK printing. UBOT 3D attracted a lot of interest with out-of-the-box solutions in their line of business and professional products. PRUSA, the famous Czech manufacturer of 3D printers made a major appearance as well. Domestic VSHAPER once again came up with new authorial solutions. Filament manufacturers were there as well, not only domestic, but foreign too.

One of the groups gave an interesting presentation on working on a printable, bionic pancreas, which attracted the attention of most visitors. At March 14, 2019 for the first time in history, bionic pancreas with blood vessels had been printed in 3D. It has been done by team of Polish scientists, leaded by dr. hab. Michał Wszoła.

There were also companies offering services of designing and 3D printing like the biggest company of that kind – Materialise (present in Kielce as well).

OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM

TRIS GROUP made its first appearance at the fairs. It is a syndicate created by one of the most experienced and present on the polish 3D printing market companies: Sygnis New Technologies, and Solveere, joined by the mentioned earlier industrial printer manufacturer SondaSys. Founding of TRIS GROUP was justified with the need of a new approach towards implementing 3D printers in companies and factories followed by a massive demand for R&D in 3D printing, that is not offered yet by any of the existing market players. Solveere and Sygnis New Technologies conduct R&D in terms of 3D printing, rapid prototyping and material knowledge for their customers and for themselves with commercializing in mind, f.e. low-temperature glass 3D printing or Jet3Spinning technology (a mashup of electrospinning and 3D printing).

Companies outside the 3D printing branch like sub-suppliers made their appearance at the fairs too. German company IGUS, producing highly-durable plastic mechanical elements was the most popular amongst them. For the first time in Days of 3D Printing history we could visit HIWIN and Henkel booths (the latter came with Loctite Instant Bonder and Loctite Universal Bonder glues; their unique composition allows them to be used in various applications, such as joining printed elements (gaps up to 5mm) or filling up surface defects in created shapes.

Awarded products
Product award is handed out during Days of 3D Printing since 3 years and it’s used to promote the most innovative solutions featured at the fairs. The Contest Committee made up of well-known scientists working in the field of generative technologies: prof. dr. hab. inż. Grzegorz Budzik, dr inż. Tomasz Durejko and dr inż. Artur Szmidh granted two product awards and three distinctions.

PRODUCT AWARDS:

• ATMAT Saturn 3D printer
• ATO Lab Atomizer for metal powders

The atomizer was created by a Warsaw-based company 3DLab which provides 3D printing solutions for over 10 years; they went global 2 years ago. The machine allows you to achieve the finest metal powders and, in opposition to other technologies, it can be used for a small scale (an excellent economic justification in R&D).

DISTINCTIONS

• 3DGence for double-extruder printer 3DGence DOUBLE P255.
• Omni3d for highly durable CF-PA12 filament (during the fairs they hung a heavy industrial printer on one element printed from that material).
• The Institute of Advanced Manufacturing Technology in Kraków, for the technology of electroplasmic smoothing of metal parts (stainless steel 316L) created with additive manufacturing.

We already know the dates of the next edition. The fairs will start on March 31st and last till April 2nd 2020. Vast majority of the exhibitors has already confirmed their participation in the 12th Days of 3D Printing edition.