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Reprint from Additive Manufacturing Some say yes and we say no! Additive Manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing are overlapping terms but not synonyms. 3D printing is the operation at the heart of additive manufacturing, just as “turning” or “molding” might be the operation at the heart of a conventional manufacturing process. In a nutshell, 3D printing is one step in an overall additive manufacturing workflow that also includes design, build preparation, postprocessing, business considerations, and [...]

A reprint from Additive Manufacturing New Electric Dirt Bike Is Designed for Molding but Produced Through 3D Printing Cobra Moto’s new all-electric youth motocross bike could not wait for mold tooling. Parts have been designed so they can be molded eventually, but to get the bike to market, the production method now is additive manufacturing. Sean Hilbert, president of Cobra Moto, says manufacturers make a mistake in the way they justify additive manufacturing capability. “We [...]

Reprint from Additive Manufacturing  Manufacturing technology supplier Extol has always served customers who are producing polymer parts. Now, it's making some of those parts in-house through 3D printing, providing new options ranging from functional prototyping into bridge production and beyond. As the automakers centered in Detroit have been chasing electrification and faster, more agile product development, a manufacturer on the other side of the state of Michigan has felt a shift in the supply chain [...]

Reprint from Additive Manufacturing The chance to launch a product into the world using additive manufacturing as the initial process delivers important new possibilities and even keeps on delivering advantages far into the product’s life. We are watching additive manufacturing find its place as an accepted and established method for making production parts. What will be the ultimate extent of additive’s share of production? One way to think of this is as a percentage: the [...]