Product category:
Rapid Prototyping
News Release from: EOS Electro Optical Systems (UK)
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 23 May 2005
User meeting draws record attendance
This year's EOS International User Meeting again saw a record number of delegates arrive at the company's headquarters.
This year's EOS International User Meeting took place from 25th to 27th April Following the tradition from previous years, EOS offered a guided tour through its headquarters in Krailling near Munich on the first day
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 24 Jun 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The tour included a demonstration of the latest generation of EOSINT machines for plastic laser-sintering, direct metal laser-sintering (DMLS) and sand laser-sintering, followed by stops in the development department, the metrology room and in production.
Software demonstrations rounded off the programme.
The first day also gave EOS customers the opportunity to exchange ideas and meet other users of laser-sintering technology as well as EOS personnel.
In the early evening, the participants were brought to the conference hotel in Bad Reichenhall near the German-Austrian border.
And as last year, EOS again set a new participant record: 122 delegates from 21 countries joined the conference.
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The following two days of the IUM offered a broad mix of presentations from guest speakers and EOS employees as well as technology workshops, in which the most recent EOS developments were presented and discussed, along with application trends and customer wishes.
The particular focus of the event was on e-manufacturing, the fast, flexible and cost-effective production directly from electronic data.
Dr Hans J Langer, CEO and EOS founder, gave a review on the development and growing acceptance of e-manufacturing over the last three years.
More and more application cases show that laser-sintering is not only suited for building prototypes or tooling, but that the technology is also being embraced as manufacturing technology.
"E-manufacturing solutions perfectly meet current market requirements such as product individualisation, shortened product life cycles or one-off manufacturing", stated Langer.
Different users of plastic laser-sintering technology presented impressive and interesting guest speeches at the IUM.
The suitability of laser-sintered parts in series production processes was confirmed by several customers.
The participants of the event were able to experience how plastic laser sintering has already been successfully integrated into today's production processes.
By using e-manufacturing with laser sintering, users of the technology gain completely new benefits such as high freedom of creation, short procurement times and low production costs.
Plastic laser sintering also offers convincing solutions for casting applications: an EOS user described how he was able to produce end-use cast parts in as few as 10-15 days on the basis of laser-sintered polystyrene investment patterns.
The benefits of e-manufacturing such as no investment in tooling were also highlighted by other companies.
One user is investigating several ways to maximise the quality of laser-sintered parts.
One of the projects confirmed that coatings considerably increase the functionality of laser-sintered parts, thus making new rapid manufacturing applications feasible - an exemplary method for paying the way towards e-manufacturing.
EOS also presented various product news items at the IUM.
Among them were the new machine for plastic laser-sintering, the EOSINT P 385.
Together with the new version of the process software PSW V3.2, this system offers increased system productivity and part quality as well as more ease of use.
It has a new x-axis for higher accuracy and part quality.
The improved laser control produces a better detail resolution, especially for tiny parts and features.
The EOSINT P 385 also builds with even thinner layers: 0.1mm compared with the previous 0.15mm.
And the new material PrimePart has now been released as a series product.
The material offers reduced costs per part.
Beta customers have confirmed up to 40% reduced powder consumption which further paves the way to successful e-manufacturing.
The workshops for direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) enjoyed a very good attendance.
There was big interest in the technology and applications as well as lively discussions between the presentations and during breaks.
Several guest talks were also offered for DMLS.
In a customer project, DMLS has been integrated for the first time in a glass squeeze forging process.
The process requires that the DMLS mould is subjected to temperatures of up to 1300Cs.
More than 40 glass parts, in this case candle holders, have already been produced from one such laser-sintered mould.
In another project, a long-standing customer performed a comparison of four different tooling technologies, one of them being DMLS.
The result was once again a success for EOS - best results for DMLS among all technologies.
Decisive factors were dimensional accuracy and surface quality.
The main focus with regards to product news were on software and on new developments in materials.
The new process software PSW V3.2 will also be available for EOSINT M systems as of summer 2005.
It contains several new features which mainly increase building speed, part quality and ease of use.
EOS is also developing several new metal materials at the moment.
Stainless steel, cobalt chrome alloys and titanium are promising materials for a variety of industries, such as medical devices or aerospace applications, as was demonstrated in the IUM workshops.
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