Trinckle launched its paramate software in 2015 and since it has established itself as a revolutionary tool for the customisation of complex products. Ranging from prosthetics to jewellery, paramate can be leveraged to build customised products in many different areas. A chance meeting with Hannes Kuhn, the CEO of Kuhn-Stoff, a robotic system developer, brought trinckle's attention to a gap in the market. One which paramate might just have filled.
The configuration of robotic gripper components can be arduous, meticulous and time-consuming. These components also need to be customised to ensure maximum performance. Kuhn relayed these challenges to Florian Reichle and Gunnar Schulze, Co-Founders of trinckle, and in response, they posed paramate as a potential solution. Working together the two companies have sought to realise the potential of paramate in streamlining the process of producing robotic grippers.
3D technology's customisation proficiencies have contributed to its mass adoption in the healthcare, dentistry and consumer goods markets. Paramate takes the customisation concept, and with a user-friendly interface, allows users of almost any capability to configure a product to their needs, right down to the millimetre. When configuring robotic grippers, the software receives the desired parameters of a part and work the shape to that size. It stands to save a lot of time, and stress, for users who want a fast, efficient solution.
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Paramate software allows you to configure your gripper in any way you like.
Reichle, trinckle's CEO, self-effacingly concedes tailoring robotic grippers may be ‘boring' in comparison to a customised medical prosthetic, for example. Interest is simply a matter of personal intrigue. For manufacturers, it goes beyond interest, into business. And a design software with this volume of capability certainly does not constitute a bore to them. Rather, it provides them with significant advantages and creates new opportunities for the creation of custom products.
"We talk about customisation, and maybe people first think customisation for jewellery, [where you can] change the colour or put a name on a smartphone case, for example. We know this as the annoying part of customisation," Reichle tells TCT. "We're thinking about customising more useful, custom-made functions, for example, robotic grippers. There are a lot of cases where you need a particular gripping system to make sure [your application] works, and if you have to design everything from hand, it takes a lot of time.
"If you have a very specialised gripping system, it helps to handle a lot of problems that you might not have [been able to] before. The same happens in the MedTech industry for prostheses or implants or hearing aids; it is adjusted to your needs, it gives an extra value within the optic. It's not like a name on a phone case; it can improve the part and makes it beneficial for the user."
Hannes Kuhn met the trinckle team a little over a year ago at an exhibition, and it soon became apparent that the paramate software was exactly what he needed. He explained the restrictions and challenges he faced building gripping systems to Reichle. Among other things, this would involve whether the air pipes were smooth enough and could hold enough air pressure. Designing one gripping system by hand typically takes industrial engineers up to eight hours. The complex design tasks, coupled with the recurring demand for custom robotic grippers, made this product an ideal candidate for trinckle's paramate software.
3D printed customisable grippers for robotics arms
The resulting web application promises to save creators hours of design time for each design, and it perfectly demonstrates the strengths of paramate. Based on parametric design principles, with an intuitive Constructive Solid Geometry-based workflow, paramate gives the manufacturer the freedom to define parameter ranges for any configurable product element. These pre-defined parameter limits guarantee functionality and stability, while the advanced algorithms in the background take care of the more complex configuration. This has allowed Hannes Kuhn to balance the considerable design challenges, and also leave enough flexibility to customise the grippers according to his customers' specific needs. Paramate's web-based configuration function was also particularly welcomed by Kuhn, who suggests it will grant end users access to a simpler design process, especially suitable when changes need to be made quickly.
Additionally, the paramate platform allows multiple components to be arranged simultaneously and boasts a secure and scalable cloud-based web hosting, keeping product data safe. The result is the potential for a protected, practical, customised design within minutes, or maybe even seconds.
"Once we included [Kuhn's] design rules and paramate ranges into the system, he was able just to define what he wants, and the application can just automatically calculate the right gripping system," Reichle added. "Thanks to paramate, the design time was reduced from eight hours for one gripper, to a matter of minutes or seconds. And the gripper itself is not very expensive to print but having eight hours for designing effort is a lot [of time], and it was by far the biggest drawback of this gripper system."
Though confidence in the paramate software is high, trinckle is not a company for resting on its laurels. Gunnar Schulze, trinckle's Technical Director, outlined the intent to integrate more CAD systems available on the market to broaden paramate's scope and expand its ability to create configurable products. Playing it coy, Schulze avoided naming names but did reveal there is a list of potential candidates, and an announcement of at least one new program was hinted at before the end of the year.
Trinckle's ambition with paramate doesn't stop there. The German company believes it can have a significant role to play as additive manufacturing continues its upward trajectory and cements its role in the next industrial age.
"Maybe a little bit of wishing, but I could see paramate also playing a role in the whole concept of this smart factory," Schulze told TCT. "So when you think of modern production facilities that are very versatile, which can be adjusted to produce new and different goods quickly, then I think we will probably come to the point that you have to modify some elements quickly and generate new custom components on the fly. This is somewhere I could see paramate as a solution in this particular field of automatisation."
Founded in 2013, trinckle has come a long way to put itself in a position to strive for such heights. Providing industry-standard, web-based CAD software and a 3D printing service that allows users to take products from ideas to finished goods, trinckle has established itself in the additive manufacturing industry. In 2015, it was one of five start-ups to be recognised at formnext powered by tct, an award which brought the company a lot of attention in its early days. Its latest gift to the market, the paramate software, has reinforced its growing status, illustrated by occasions where trinckle is no longer required to sell its product. Instead, potential customers are trying to sell themselves.
"We have noticed more and more companies are interested in 3D printing right now, so whoever we meet is interested in our solutions," Reichle concludes. "The first feedback we got [for paramate] was positive. But, it has developed considerably since the beginning, people are excited about the possibilities. Now, sometimes I see my customer pitching applications of paramate to me and not the other way around.”
