Could you tell us about Essentium and why you're exhibiting at MPE?
Essentium is here at MPE to showcase 3 of our distinctive technologies. We've got a multi-layered filament, for extrusion-based additive manufacturing.
We have a unique plasma welding solution to make 3D printed parts strong in all 3 directions, X, Y and Z.
We also have a high speed printer. Essentium is highlighting those 3 technologies here at MPE.
What sets your technology apart from any competition in your space?
Our multi-layered filament provides a variety of advantages over straight monofilament. 99%+ of all the filament in the world for 3D printing is just pure monofilament. With multi-layer you can have low friction coatings, you can have electrically conductive coatings, a variety of multi-functional coatings on the outside, and a really good strong fast printing part as a result of that outer coating.
The printer itself is really quite fast. We can print an order of magnitude at least faster than the next closest printer, nozzle size for nozzle size. Our printer is in development so it will be launching in the 4th quarter of 2018. Available in the US and in Europe, so we are going to bring it to Germany and the UK in 2018.
Which industries are you aiming to break into or do you already serve?
Our entire target markets center on manufacturing. The folks that are building molds, or tooling, or jigs, or fixtures, those are the folks that we are really excited to bring our technologies to. Anyone in the jigs and fixtures industry knows how frustrating it is to tie up a CNC mill, for example, to make a jig, fixture or tool, instead of making the finished part on that mill.
Instead, what we can do with high strength polymers like we offer and our high speed printer is actually make all the jigs, fixtures and tooling for those mills which makes them much more efficient. So those are the markets we are going after.