Raise3D has taken a swing at an industrial 3D printer. The first proprietary additive system in this class has a 500x500x500mm working volume and is designed to work with carbon and glass-filled polymer filaments.
The RMF500 3D printer is designed with a focus on small-scale additive manufacturing of functional components, including large-scale components, with high speed and repeatability. The system uses IDEX kinematics with independent positioning of two extruders in the X axis, allowing not only to handle two materials, such as core and reference but also in some cases to increase productivity by building two identical or mirrored models simultaneously.
The mechanics are built on linear motors with a positioning accuracy of up to 0.001 mm in the X and Y axes and 0.0009765 mm in the Z axis. The build area size is 500x500x500 mm and the material stacking speed is said to reach 300 mm/s with accelerations up to 2g and a maximum positioning speed of 1000 mm/s.
Based on available information, the new system will work exclusively with proprietary filaments. For now, a pair is offered of a core material in the form of carbon-filled polyamide-12 under the designation PA12 CF and a PA12 CF backing material that can be separated without the use of solvents. In the future, carbon-filled filaments based on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyphthalamide (PPA) and polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) as well as a glass-filled version of polyphthalamide are planned to be added to the range of compatible consumables. The filaments are available in cartridges of up to 2.5 kg net weight. The filament compartment holds four spools – two each of main and backing material with automatic switchover from empty to full spool.
Because the equipment is designed to work with composite materials with low thermal shrinkage, no temperature-controlled chamber is provided, although the system features a heated platform that heats up to a maximum of 110°C. Hotands can be heated up to 330°C. Due to the high abrasiveness of carbon and glass-filled composites, wear-resistant nozzles with silicon carbide (carborundum) are used.
More information is available in this review from Top 3D Shop.
