Zortrax
Machinery : Additive Manufacturing : 3D Printer
Zortrax is a Polish developer of comprehensive 3D printing solutions. It has built a strong position on the global market of desktop 3D printers, while also offering dedicated filaments, Z-SUITE software and additional devices to improve the printing process and post processing.The company uses innovative solutions and high quality materials to focus on providing precision of printing primarily to business professionals. At the same time, thanks to their ease of use, financial availability and unique design, Zortrax 3D printers are also chosen by individual clients - prosumers and amateurs alike.Therefore, Zortrax products are used by thousands of customers around the world in a wide range of industries, such as architecture, medicine, automotive, engineering, industrial prototyping, or fashion.Zortrax offers its products through a network of over 130 Partners operating in 90 countries around the world on six continents, including the largest markets in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. The company and its products receive a lot of positive feedback from users and have garnered multiple awards in the 3D printing industry.
Assembly Line
How Toyota Factory Works with Zortrax 3D Printers
Toyota factories in Poland use a Zortrax M300 Plus 3D printer to make manufacturing jigs on demand. According to Toyota, investment in the 3D printing technology in automotive can pay for itself within one year. The key advantage of the Zortrax 3D printing technology, according to Toyota engineers are its agility.
βWe have been using 3D printers for years now. They were already here when I came to work at Toyota four years ago.β, says Kondek. According to him, jigs that are 3D printed in automotive industry today used to be made by a separate tooling division equipped with CNC machines and other subtractive manufacturing tools. Fabrication of more demanding designs were simply outsourced to external subcontractors.
βObviously, using such tools severely limited what we could do design-wise. Every time we thought about a new jig, we had to think twice about whether it could be fabricated or not. 3D printing in automotive sector solve this problem.β, explains Kondek. He adds that currently over 95% of the 3D printed jigs made at Toyota factory are manufactured in the LPD technology. The rest is 3D printed in other 3D printing technologies.
BASF Forward AM and Zortrax Forge a Long-Term 3D Printing Partnership
Zortrax has entered in a long-term partnership with BASF, the largest chemical company in the world, to further expand the range of high-quality materials compatible with its machines.
Zortrax Officially Partners Up with Henkel/Loctite
βWe engaged with Zortrax a few years ago when they decided to open their system to industrial focused materials and re-design their system towards the engineering and industrial users. It is worth mentioning that Zortrax focuses on, in addition to print performance, an integrated solution including post processing. They were taking a new approach, and we wanted to be a part of that process as a high-performance material provider,β says Maarten Adolf, Senior Business Development Manager β 3D printing Europe at Henkel AG & Co. KGaA.
3D Printing Mock-Ups to Solve Problems with Equipment Placement in Factories
Alfonso Buonora is a mechanical engineer with 15 years of experience in working for ABLAB3D, a Design and Consultancy studio. He cooperates with various industries helping them to devise the most efficient layout of production lines within their factories. To do so, he designs and constructs mock-ups of whole industrial plants as well as individual machines that compose them. For both prototyping and manufacturing purposes ABLAB3D takes advantage of Zortrax M200. Here are the reasons for using 3D printing in Mechanical Engineering and the step-by-step process of developing a mock-up for food industry, commissioned to Alfonso by an Italian producer of canned goods.