3D PRINTING HAS COME

“3D PRINTING HAS CERTAINLY COME A LONG WAY.”

Diana Kalisz, VP Engineering at 3D Systems on three decades of AM, great lessons and big prints.

What was the culture like in the early days at 3D Systems?

Chuck Hull founded 3D Systems with his invention of Stereolithography (SLA). His spirit of innovation and curiosity permeated the place. It was a fairly small crew in the early days, and we were all on a steep learning curve. But we were all energised about the potential of the technology and what it could achieve. I often describe the engineering of 3D printing as a pie. The entire pie is comprised of several slices, and each slice represents everyone’s specific area of expertise. In addition to individual domain expertise, everyone needs to learn something about every other slice in that pie, to have a chance of creating a 3D printer that delivers parts into a customer’s hands – because that’s the point. The level of difficulty shouldn’t matter to the end customer, just get parts into their hands fast!

You were heavily involved in the development of the first large-format SLA system, can you talk about what that was like?

In the early days, we thought – quite naively – that a large-format SLA system would just be “a big SLA-250.” As we began the development work, we quickly realised how wrong that was. We aimed to make the system not just bigger, but also much faster. The intention was to build a system that could produce a large part for the engineer on a tractor programme just as fast as a small part for a medical device. This project taught me really important lessons about scaling, which is difficult no matter what you’re doing - but when you add the third dimension in printing, it’s a killer. Each technology since then has its own challenges when you want to scale size, speed, or any other attribute. Great lessons!

What were the material options like for SLA back then?

Early on, there was just one material available for each 3D printer. For 3D Systems’ SLA printers, there were only acrylate materials at that time. The parts produced from these materials were yellow and brittle but served the purpose (i.e., prototyping) very well. They were miraculous. 3D printing has certainly come a long way since then – with a host of print technologies and each printer typically has dozens of materials, all with very different characteristics.

AM is increasingly being used as a means for production; were people talking early on about that potential?

When 3D printing was first introduced, producing prototypes was the main goal. Simply having a part in your hand quickly, that represented the CAD fairly faithfully was a real challenge. As the printers, techniques and materials evolved, we envisioned creation of functional prototypes as a possibility. This would allow engineers and designers to use the printed part in the same capacity as a final part, just for a short time. When hybrid epoxy materials were developed in the mid- ’90s, the use of 3D printing for functional prototyping increased as the materials had better properties and parts were more accurate. 3D Systems also invented QuickCast that allowed faster production of metal parts through investment casting. Now, with our Figure 4 materials, we have materials that possess true production properties that are comprehensively tested to both ASTM and ISO standards including the indoor/outdoor lifetime properties needed for direct use of the parts.

What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the conversation around AM over the last 30 years?

When you look at how long AM has been around – its history is comparatively short. Chuck Hull invented the technology a little over 30 years ago, but the industry has made remarkable strides. We’ve gone from prototypes that resembled the desired shape to materials and accuracy that allowed functional prototyping, to being in a position now to do direct production. AM is now enabling creation of parts that couldn’t be achieved using traditional technologies alone. It’s been an amazing road to run.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT: MYTCT.CO/DKALISZ