Strong like metal, ready on demand

Components made of super polymers and composites are able to outperform metal under the extreme conditions faced in industries like aerospace, automotive and energy. With its B&R automation platform, Roboze brings 3D printing of these advanced materials to the shop floor.

A satellite, a submarine, a wind turbine. From extreme temperatures and mechanical stress to high voltage and abrasive chemicals, applications like these put every component to the test. Traditionally, only metal alloys have been up to the task, but a growing range of high-performance polymers and composites reinforced with carbon and ceramic fibers are now able to compete with metal in terms of strength and durability.

Fuel efficiency is more important than ever as both a cost and environmental factor. That makes lightweight polymers and composites an attractive alternative to metal in cars, planes and anywhere else energy makes things move. They are also highly resistant to harsh chemicals and can improve safety and comfort by insulating against heat, electricity, sound and vibration.

3D printing specialist Roboze combines these cutting-edge materials with disruptive additive technology. The result is a dramatic reduction in lead times and production costs, along with the flexibility of building custom parts on demand. Their revolutionary printers utilize fused filament fabrication (FFF) – a 3D printing technique where material is extruded through a heated nozzle to create products layer by layer. To attain the critical material properties and tight dimensional tolerances needed for metal replacement, however, Roboze had to make some key adaptations.

In addition to an entirely new extruder system to handle the high-viscosity materials, Roboze designed a unique heated printing chamber that maintains an optimal printing environment and prevents shrinkage during extrusion. And crucially, to eliminate one of the main shortcomings that 3D printers typically have compared to conventional machine tools, Roboze came up with a patented beltless motion control solution.

To move the print head along the x and y axes, conventional FFF systems rely on belts, which are subject to deformation, wear and loss of calibration over time. Roboze's beltless system replaces these belts with direct mechatronic movement, making it not only precise, but also highly efficient and easy to maintain. A helical gear ensures smooth movement of the rack and pinion for a significant reduction in noise, wear and localized overheating.

"To compete with a CNC machine, we needed to achieve consistent micrometric tolerances," says Davide Schiena, Roboze's head of application engineering and customer success. The 50-μs sample time of B&R's ACOPOS P3 gave Roboze the performance it needed. "B&R's servo drives help us guarantee a positioning precision of ±10 micrometers," says Schiena. "That's six times better than a belt-driven system."

When people think of a 3D printer, they typically imagine a standalone unit used for rapid prototyping. "We knew they can be much more than that," explains Roboze founder and CEO Alessio Lorusso. "So, together with B&R, we designed the ARGO 500 from the very beginning to integrate seamlessly into the production line."

The ARGO 500 offers fully automated control of every step performed in the heated chamber. That includes the extrusion process itself, but also steps that come before it – like drying of the filament to ensure reliable production – as well as post-processing steps such as annealing. This required serious processing power, for which Roboze selected an industrial PC from B&R's Automation PC 910 series.

Following each print cycle, the ARGO 500 generates a comprehensive process data log to create a digital model and allow automatic certification of every part produced. Remote connectivity enables predictive diagnostics to maximize availability and productivity, while also allowing the ARGO 500 to evolve over time with easily updated features, parameters and intelligence.

The ready-made software components of B&R's mapp Technology allowed Roboze to quickly implement important functions needed for factory integration, including alarm management, data acquisition, process variable logging and user management. "That allowed our team to focus on implementing and optimizing the printing process itself," explains Antonio Pastore, Roboze's head of engineering.

"Having a complete B&R automation solution gives our 3D printers best-in-class performance with unparalleled reliability, while also making them very easy to set up and maintain," says Lorusso. He is quick to add that B&R's contribution went beyond simply supplying hardware and software. "At every step along the way, they made sure we had the tools we needed to ensure our success – from training courses and code snippets to a flexible support team that was always quick to clear up any doubts."

The ARGO 500 is the first commercial product to emerge from the collaboration that began in 2020. "We've been thoroughly impressed by the performance of the B&R system," says Lorusso, "and we look forward to using it in new 3D printing platforms, where we will add IIoT connectivity and even enable cloud-based machine control."