Part from the VSHAPER
Printed without supports
Last week we brought you news from Polish 3D company Verashape which was set to unveil its new additive manufacturing platform here at formnext powered by tct.
A quick swing by the booth reveals an impressive piece of kit that although still only in development has plenty of scope to carve out a niche in the market.
Inside the VSHAPER
The platform tilts to create two extra axes
The VSHAPER's USP is a 5-axis printer housed inside a heated build chamber. The extrusion head moves in the regular three axes and then the platform tilts meaning a part requires no support.
Eliminating support has several benefits, firstly, anyone who has ever used an extrusion-based system knows what a pain support removal is; not only is the process itself often infuriating, but the surface quality is affected. Another benefit comes when using a more expensive material such as PEEK (which the company specialises in printing on its other machinery), doing away with support is evidently cheaper.
The added axes can also increase part strength because layering is not consistently in the z-axis.
The team on Verashaper booth informed me that the capabilities of the machine go far beyond the removal of supports, in future the device will be able to scan an object and then print directly onto that surface.
