These materials are the kind to feature on approved lists inside factories in the aerospace, automotive, and medical industries. There are similar documents at Danfoss, a company currently testing FIM, which include grades such as PEEK and 40% glass-filled PPS, the former of which is notoriously not the easiest to 3D print, and the latter of which is barely 3D printable at all. It means that Danfoss is rarely able to 3D print prototypes of parts in the same materials it intends to use when it steps into production.

“If I want to be able to scale into the millions, then I want to start with injection moulding from day one. The decision point is not, 'do I want to prototype on a 3D printer?' It's, 'what is my end production going to be? Is it going to be a highly specialised geometry or is it going to be a high run of product?’ If it’s high run, let’s start with injection moulding from day one. That’s why we’ve built this platform and that’s why we want to be able to comply with the requirements of the injection moulding industry.”

Wittmann Battenfeld has made advances in its robot and automation line since the last NPE, notably adding new features to its R9 robot control system. Most of these new features involve making the control easier to use with the addition of a quick “wizard” programming function and ergonomic vertical touch screen pendants. Other new features have made the R9 smarter and more error-proof through the addition of Replay troubleshooting and the incorporation of anti-collision features. A digital twin simulator helps users better simulate complex processes ahead of time to more accurately predict outcomes.

NPE 2021 may have been cancelled, but that hasn’t stopped Wittmann Battenfeld from refreshing its product line. It recently shared information on new products and upgrades it has made across its portfolio of injection molding machines, automation systems, and auxiliary equipment. Here are some of the product announcements that stood out.

AddiFab is a company positioning itself in the in-between, hoping to relieve manufactures of the above considerations: “I see a gap between the prototyping and production that is not really being remedied by many 3D printing solutions,” Stall emphasised. The company has brought to market Freeform Injection Molding (FIM) and a portfolio of open digital light processing (DLP) 3D printers promising high precision and high repeatability for the additive manufacture of advanced single-use moulds with proprietary tooling resins.

Two of the newest product lines from Wittmann Battenfeld are Mold Area Protection (MAP) and the Internal Air Cooling System (IACS). MAP is used to prevent condensation on the mold surface. This allows for cold-water temperatures — below the dew point of the ambient air — to be run year-round without concerns about the impact of climate conditions on production or the life of the mold. Operated through a FIT controller, all processes are monitored and any potential errors can be quickly corrected and addressed. The low-maintenance MAP is available for use in injection molding and blow molding applications. The IACS improves the quality of blow-molded products by exchanging the internal cavity with cold air during the cooling phase, which reduces thermal stress on the material and shortens the cooling time.

What happens in between often requires a lot of thought, even more action, and more time than anybody would like to spend. It’s likely that prototypes are 3D printed in one material and the subsequent end-use components injection moulded or machined in another.

“Because of minimum order quantity, a lot of products get scrapped,” Staal said. “With Freeform Injection Molding, we don’t have a minimum order quantity. That means [users] can move into the market incrementally. When you hit the tipping point where you can see that it now makes sense to invest in a tool, you can make that investment because your demand is there. You can step away from Freeform Injection Molding into conventional injection moulding, but you haven’t over-invested in capacity from the beginning and you can do the capacity investment when demand has been verified. That means you save a lot of material and you save a lot of energy in the start-up of a new product.”

"That is a risky process because it entails new validations, it entails new materials, it entails extra time, extra costs,” Lasse G Staal, Co-founder and CEO of AddiFab, said for possibly the umpteenth time on the third afternoon of TCT Show.

Available as a package with the EcoPower and SmartPower injection molding machines, the Ingrinder system integrates an advanced granulator and sprue picker with the press itself. The Ingrinder works best as a solution for smaller injection molding machines that run with molds incorporating cold runner technology with a corresponding need for scrapping or recycling sprues, according to Wittmann Battenfeld. Ingrinder integration provides cost savings through a more efficient grind and smaller footprint.

Wittmann Battenfeld’s ultra-high-speed Sonic robot series is already a customer favorite because of its performance, according to the company. It achieves maximum acceleration of 65 m/s2, allowing for mold-open times of less than 1 second and sub-10-second cycle times at payloads up to 15 lb. The ultra-high speeds require a robust design, said Wittmann Battenfeld, and it has created a streamlined, efficient, and durable new look for the Sonic Ultra series.

“Mitsubishi Chemical has aligned now with Freeform Injection Molding as a platform, it has a clear need we have demonstrated we can meet, but I’m not sure either Mitsubishi or AddiFab know where the collaboration is going to end up in a couple of years,” Staal finished. “We can see some evident opportunities with the KyronMAX, Tefabloc, Trexprene and DIAKON series of materials – materials which are difficult to 3D print. But I think Mitsubishi Chemical has about 450  subsidiaries. I haven’t even started talking to ten of them yet. It’s going to be a very interesting journey.”

Walk the floor at an additive manufacturing trade show and one will find companies pitching their solutions for the design and prototyping of a product, the manufacture and measurement of the parts, and everything in between.

These moulds are then placed in an injection moulding machine – AddiFab exhibited alongside a Babyplast system at TCT Show – where a material will be pressed into the mould’s cavity. The mould is then dissolved, inlets and outlets trimmed away, and the final part revealed. Because AddiFab only expects the printed moulds to last one shot, the company says it can process thousands of high-performance injection moulding materials – from flame retardant ABS grades to ultra-soft TPEs to carbon- reinforced PPA injection moulded at 350°C – and enable users to validate their components before scaling to thousands of parts with the same material and the same technology.

“If you’re basing your prototyping on 3D printing, you may get to a point where you get it qualified, then you need to decide how to produce. If you want to scale up to massive levels, you need to go into injection moulding because 3D printing is neither cost competitive nor quality competitive for higher volumes,” Staal argued. “If you decide ‘I’m only going to sell this [product] in low volumes’, then stay with 3D printing, but you need to make that decision before you go into market. That’s a pretty important decision to make.

Until she retired in September 2021, Clare Goldsberry reported on the plastics industry for more than 30 years. In addition to the 10,000+ articles she has written, by her own estimation, she is the author of several books, including The Business of Injection Molding: How to succeed as a custom molder and Purchasing Injection Molds: A buyers guide. Goldsberry is a member of the Plastics Pioneers Association. She reflected on her long career in "Time to Say Good-Bye."

The company’s Primus robots are designed for pick-and-place applications, and Wittmann Battenfeld recently expanded the series with the largest Primus model yet — the Primus 48T. The 48T carries a 20-kg payload and has clamping forces between 20 and 900 T while maintaining the smooth and quiet operation for which the Primus series is known.

AddiFab believes FIM has the capacity to resolve this issue and encourages manufacturers to work backwards from how they intend to manufacture their part in order to decide how to prototype it.

Mitsubishi Chemical sees FIM as a possible gateway into the additive space, having users of FIM process o  the shelf injection mouldable materials to produce prototypes, and perhaps draw conclusions as to the demand that way. That, AddiFab told TCT, is a main goal of the collaboration – and its general industrialisation efforts – but beyond, conversations are still to be had about how the partnership moves forward.

Similar tentativeness in launching products into market can be found at Mitsubishi Chemical, who recently invested in AddiFab as their partnership intensified. The company would quite like to make around 7,500 of its materials available in the additive manufacturing space, but with further hardware and process developments still needed, Mitsubishi can’t place an accurate measure on demand for many of its products. Without a guarantee of demand, the company is reluctant to invest in the required conversion processes.

“We’ve tried to create a platform that combines the benefits from 3D printing with injection moulding, so you get the same low start-up costs, short lead times and design freedom, but the baseline is injection moulding. That means we can process all the materials that an injection moulding user would normally want to process: all those pre-qualified grades for the automotive industries, all the pre-qualified grades for the aerospace industries, the stuff you use for medical devices, which also have to be biocompatible. Most of those materials are not available as 3D printable materials, but FIM allows us to process them off the shelf.”

The company shares information on new products and upgrades across its portfolio of injection molding machines, automation systems, and auxiliary equipment.

While AddiFab is looking to meet the accuracy, repeatability and materials standards of the injection moulding space, it also hopes FIM can bring change to the sector. A big driver for the commercialisation of FIM was to help companies produce small volumes in the early days of product development to test the water. Typically, companies have to meet a minimum order quantity to injection mould parts but, prior to launch, will often be uncertain of the level of demand in the marketplace.

In Birmingham, UK in September, AddiFab pitched this to hordes of visitors who, at times, waited up to 20 minutes to learn about FIM. Talking to TCT - just the ten-minute wait for us - Staal revealed the motivation behind the company’s cross over between additive manufacturing and injection moulding.