Orbital Composites - Making 3D printing Super Fast

[Brian_Krassenstein]

Some 3D printing startups manage to fly under the radar, despite their development of groundbreaking technology. At last month's Inside 3D Printing Conference in NYC, hosted by MecklerMedia, Cole Nielsen was on hand representing his company, Orbital Composites. The startup is developing some truly impressive technology that could change the shape of the 3D printing sector, particularly for FFF/FDM-based machines, with technology that could increase print speeds by 100 times. Orbital Composites has patents pending for its technologies, including three offered in the company's print heads. The Coaxial Extrusion, Capillary Injection Molding, and Active Molding Roller technologies hold exceptional promise to enhance strength and speed of 3D printing. Find out more details in the full article: http://3dprint.com/60662/orbital-composites/


Below is a photo of Cole Nielsen, Orbital Composites' founder and CEO, at Inside 3D Printing:

[Wolfie]

Ok, finally someone is thinking differently. Most companies in the 3D realm continue to refine what already works. Making better extruders. Better filament. Better hot ends. Essentially they are all the same as they were 10 years ago. All better hammers but deep down, still a hammer. These guys are re-thinking what does NOT work and coming up with solutions that are not hammers.

One of the comments I found enlightening... "FDM printers add heat to plastic in a precisely controlled manner, but no printers extract the heat from the print in a precisely controlled manner". A brilliant and now so freaking obvious problem! An analogy... Hundreds of companies have all been working and improving fuel consumption and alternate fuels for cars for decades. Better body styles, new composites. All that dedicated for helping the car do what its done from the beginning, go forward. Nothing new, nothing innovative, just helping it do what its done since the first guy slapped wheels on a wagon. Imagine if nobody had been working on developing better breaks...to help it stop better. Thats essentially what the 3D industry had been doing. Working hard on making it better at heating and extruding filament and nobody has been working on cooling it off after its extruded. I am not sure their solution is the best one. But its the first one to really start fixing an inherent problem with FDM.