“So, how it works is… actually, I don’t know if I can tell you. I need to make sure my team doesn’t kill me.”
Before he checks himself, Inkbit CEO Davide Marini is on his way to detailing exactly how the company’s chemistry team was able to achieve the ‘quite amazing feat’ of developing the Titan Tough Epoxy 85 material launched at Formnext.
Formulated for durability with the ability to facilitate intricate geometries and the suitability for application in production-grade parts that require toughness, Marini notes: “It’s almost a miracle that this is a thermoset. We’re making the thermoset behave like a thermoplastic.”
Impact resistance and the capacity to withstand long-term UV exposure is, Inkbit believes, to pique the interest of manufacturers across a plethora of industries. The company, though, is more interested in talking about the parts it enables, than the chemical formulations trade show visitors like to geek out on.
Integrational valve printed in two materials with the Inkbit Vista platform.
Fortunately, Inkbit had several applications on its stand that leaned on the Titan Tough Epoxy 85, as well as the company’s other offerings to market. Namely, its Vista inkjet system and its inherent multi-material capabilities. One such part is a multi-material valve that integrates a soft gasket into the component. This application is for a customer that is experimenting with parts that need to be in contact with harsh, chemically corrosive fluids. Predominantly, the component is manufactured in the grey tough epoxy material, but the beige elements have been printed with a chemical-resistant epoxy. Though it looks like the product is made up of several assembled parts, it is actually printed as a single piece on the Vista platform.
“We are taking inkjet to production,” Marini states.
In Frankfurt, the company was showcasing its Inkbit Vista machine inside Europe for the first time. The machine was developed off the back of Inkbit’s Series A funding and has been commercialised with the funds raised in its Series B round. It is powered by an inkjet technology developed at MIT, with Inkbit spinning out in 2017.
Since then, the company has built a full-scale prototype and then developed the system that has been taken to IMTS and then onto Formnext. It has also secured a 1.7m USD contract to supply three machines to the US Air Force, and shipped its first Vista platform to investor Saint Gobain. Different to the inkjet systems offered by Stratasys, for example, Inkbit’s technology works by the build plate moving back and forth, while stationary printheads jet the material. Vista has four build modules, each equipped with four printheads and 4,000 nozzles, and one always dedicated to support material. UV photochemistry is used to cure the material, while a proprietary 3D scanning system provides real-time monitoring of the build.
“The scanner system is the heart,” Marini says. “This is a laser profilometer that was built and designed by us in order to be extremely fast and to act in real-time. The machine scans every single layer immediately after the position and essentially detects any variation from the CAD file in real-time. It’s a machine that is self-correcting, so it constantly monitors what is happening.”
Through this scanning process, each layer is ‘dynamically generated based on the data from the previous layer’, with this capability enabling Vista to process high-performance photopolymers, per Marini.
“There is no mechanical flattening,” he explains. “In traditional inkjet, after every layer is jetted, you have to scrape off typically the top 30%. Because nothing ever touches the part, we can use slowly curing chemistries that tend to produce much higher properties. In this case, we’re printing with epoxy materials, we also have Tyrolean materials, and we can also mix and match in the same quantity. That’s the system. The first advantage is, of course, higher accuracy, higher repeatability. But at a deeper level, the true advantage is moving away from the need for mechanical flattening, which opens up a world of new chemistry beyond acrylates.”
Exploring that world is the Inkbit chemistry team, who are, for now at least, being relied on for all of the company’s materials productivity. These materials are being designed specifically for the Inkbit process and by people who know the technology like the back of their hands. In addition to the newly launch Titan Tough Epoxy 85, the company also offers a Titan Tough Epoxy 75, Titan Chem Epoxy and Vulcan Soft Elastomer 30 material. In addition to those build materials, Inkbit has also developed a wax support material which can be melted away, filtered and then reused. Inkbit is currently developing a supplementary system that will allow users to take advantage of this benefit, with the company already proving the capability behind closed doors.
Moving forward, the company is open to working with third-party materials suppliers, noting that the Inkbit business model ‘is amenable to it.’ It is not the only element of the business subject to change. Having engineered its flagship product to the point it is ready for commercial consumption, and made headway on the development and release of several material grades, attention will soon turn to software.
Marini tells TCT that the concept of a software layer that ‘sits on top of the hardware’ is a key part of his vision for the company. On the Formnext booth, parts had been printed with QR codes incorporated into the design – a handy marketing tactic to direct people to the Inkbit website while at a trade show, but also a nod to where the company is going.
“Traceability is one important point, but also at the beginning of the process, during the design, I’m very intrigued by the idea of enabling the user to have software tools that will enable the engineer to design parts to take full advantage of the technology. For example, multi-material capabilities, simulation tools,” Marini explains. “I like the idea of having a full ecosystem, start from an idea and you can design it having the platform in mind already, knowing that the machine can give you traceability. We don’t offer this capability yet, but we can do it internally, offering customers a digital twin of this part because the machine naturally scans every layer.”
Inkbit showcases parts printed with the Vista platform at Formnext.
Currently, that data goes unused, but behind the scenes, Inkbit is working on how best to utilise it. Marini imagines a printed part that has been in production for five years, at which point a defect emerges in one print run. He would his users to be able to scan the part’s QR code with a mobile device and be directed straight to the CAD file to understand when it was produced, what the material is and assess every layer of the part. This, he says, is just one idea for the Inkbit software ecosystem.