Nexa3D
QLS 820
Nexa3D has announced the commercial availability of its new ultrafast Quantum Laser Sintering platform, the QLS 820.
The company says the platform has the highest part throughput in its class and is designed from the ground up for higher volume production and higher temperature processing for greater material selection.
The company is showcasing the QLS 820 production platform at a product launch celebration at IMTS 2022.
“My hat is off to our entire team of determined innovators, passionate engineers, and experienced marketers for bringing to market an industry leading thermoplastic production platform that fully delivers on our ultrafast brand promise,” said Avi Reichental, co-founder, and CEO, Nexa3D.
Reichental continued: “We founded Nexa3D with a sole purpose in mind; to digitise supply chain sustainability by making the world’s fastest polymer 3D printers affordable for professionals and businesses of all sizes. As we attend IMTS 2022, we are very proud, that our new QLS 820 is printing at speeds of up to 8 litters per hour, at packing density of up to 20%, delivering orders of magnitude productivity gains without the typical costs and lead-times associated with tooled plastics.”
Nexa 3D says that the QLS 820 represents a new class of powder bed technology that combines ultrafast printing with open materials and cloud software platform to deliver production volumes that are orders of magnitude greater than other powder-bed solutions on the market.
The QLS 820 contains Nexa3D’s Quantum Laser Sintering print engine, consisting of four CO2 lasers with 100W power each. The company claims that this engine delivers 4x the print speed of other laser sintering and powder bed fusion technologies. The platform also features an exchangeable build station that operators can use for continuous production during the cooldown process.
Nexa3D described how the QLS 820 delivers a polymer-based production alternative to traditional injection moulding without the design constraints, costly tooling investments and extended lead-times. The new platform works with standard materials such as PA11 and PA12, direct replacements for injection moulding grade materials, and is compatible with higher temperature materials, such as PA6, at processing temperatures up to 240 degrees Celsius.
The system offers print speeds of up to 8L per hour and average packing density of 20%, which Nexa3D claims delivers up to 4x productivity gains over other powder-based polymer 3D printing systems. The QLS 820 has a build volume of 350 x 350 x 400mm, a 50–200-micron Z resolution, and four 100W CO2 lasers.
The system offers an open and automation-ready platform that is technology-agnostic and adaptable to integrations ranging from MES and ES systems to modular post-processing solutions. The QLS Command Center is a large touchscreen control station, powered by NexaX software.
The system has a wide-use temperature range, an inert processing atmosphere and an open-source platform. This allows the system to print a range of materials, including PA 12, PA 11, Polypropylene, PBT, aluminium, glass, and fibre-filled plastics.
Quickparts has signed on to be the foundational partner of the QLS 820 Manufacturing Network Program.
“We are thrilled to be the first on-demand manufacturing service provider to experience the benefits of higher throughput, thermoplastic additive manufacturing. We pride ourselves on offering quick turn manufacturing services to our customers and look forward to introducing an even faster and more efficient production of higher volume thermoplastic components with the QLS 820,” said Ziad Abou, CEO of Quickparts.
Additive and subtractive manufacturing service provider JawsTec has also signed up to be a foundational partner.
“We’re very excited about the new applications and customer requirements we will be able to meet with this new additive production system,” said Oscar Klaasen, CEO of JawsTec.
