Thermwood Corporation

• Booth: 2213

Thermwood will be printing aerospace tooling on an LSAM Additive Printer 510 LIVE at RAPID + TCT 2022 in Detroit, MI May 17th-19^th.  This promises to be an exciting demonstration of the LSAM Additive Printer Large Scale Additive System.  The LSAM Additive Printer features a single fixed gantry, 5’x10’ moving table, 4’ maximum print height and a maximum print temperature of 450°.  Come see us in Booth #2213!

 Press Releases

• Meet the LSAM Additive Printer (Feb 17, 2022)

  Thermwood Corporation, manufacturer of some of the largest composite thermoplastic additive manufacturing systems operating in industry today, has announced the availability of a new line of lower cost “print only” LSAM systems, called LSAM Additive Printers.

  Thermwood’s current LSAM line of large scale, dual gantry, “print and trim”, near-net-shape additive manufacturing systems use an advanced print technology that produces high quality, fully fused products from a wide variety of reinforced composite thermoplastic polymers, including materials that process at high temperature like PSU, PESU, and PEI.

  These systems are being used primarily to produce molds and tooling, most for aerospace and industrial production applications.

  The gantry structure of our highly successful 5 axis CNC routers was re-engineered to use the incredibly strong “slot and tab” structural steel approach used on flagship LSAM machines. The same table, base structure and servo drives used on their five axis CNC routers could be used pretty much as is. With these changes the “LSAM Additive Printer” was born.

  Although smaller than the flagship systems, the LSAM Additive Printer is capable of producing large parts at temperatures up to 450° C, with overall size limited primarily by the table size and working envelope. 

  AVAILABLE SIZES

  The new LSAM Additive Printers are all fixed gantry, moving table designs with table sizes of 5’x5’ and 5’x10’ and are capable of printing parts up to 4’ high.  The 5’x10’ machines are available in two styles, 5’ wide with 10’ of front to back motion or 10’ wide with 5’ of front to back motion. Maximum table print weight is 1,000 pounds, however, the 10’ wide 5’ deep machine is available with a dual servo drive which doubles the weight carrying capability (2,000 pounds). It is planned to equip the 5’ wide 10’ deep version with a Vertical Layer Printing option which will allow it to vertically print parts up to ten feet tall.

  VERTICAL LAYER PRINTING

  All LSAM Additive Printers can print parts up to four feet tall. If you need taller parts, you may be able to print them by lying the part down and printing vertically. The only Additive Printer that supports Vertical Layer Printing is the 5 wide 10-foot-deep version. It can print parts up to 10 foot tall.

  SAME POWERFUL FEATURES

  The same powerful, feature rich LSAM control used on the large flagship LSAM systems, along with all its unique patented additive print features is standard on the new LSAM Additive Printers. A system for drying and conveying pelletized polymer material is also included as is a liquid chilling system to maintain temperature control on vital systems. This is especially important when processing high temperature materials.

  OPTIONAL DUAL HOPPER DRYER

  The machine comes standard with a single hopper material dryer; however, an optional dual hopper dryer is also available for applications that change materials often.OPTIONAL ENCLOSURE

  An optional enclosure that surrounds the machine is available.   The machine with this full enclosure can also be built to meet European CE standards.

  THERMAL SENSOR LAYER AUTOMATION SYSTEM

  Thermwood’s new Thermal Sensor Layer Automation System is also available on the LSAM Additive Printers. This is an exciting new system that automates the print process to easily and automatically obtain the highest quality layer to layer fusion.

  With this system, a servo controlled thermal sensor, which travels with and rotates around the print nozzle, measures the temperature of the bead an instant before a new bead is added. This data is sent to the control which automatically adjusts print speed to print at the precise temperature that results in the best bead fusion for that particular polymer. Thermwood’s

  LSAM print technology already produces the best quality, strongest large-scale additive parts and this system not only makes it better but also easier.

  FUME COLLECTION MODULE

  The specially designed, highly rigid tab and slot, structural steel gantry also incorporates a fume extraction system that pulls print fumes through specially designed activated charcoal filters to remove them and “sweeten” the air.  The collector is equipped with (4) carbon cartridges for high efficiency collection of air borne smoke generated from the printing process and produces approximately 5,500 CFM filtered airflow.

  SAME POWERFUL PRINT 3D SLICING SOFTWARE

  The same Thermwood LSAM Print 3D slicing software used on all the other LSAM systems is used to program LSAM Additive Printers. Several levels of software training are available.

  THE BOTTOM LINE

  This new LSAM Additive Printer is intended to introduce LSAM additive technology to a whole new level of application and customer. It targets companies that want to print top quality, large composite thermoplastic parts, but don’t really need, nor can they cost-justify, the really large LSAM systems. These new systems also target companies who already have sufficient trimming capability and may only need a quality print function. Applications include industrial fixtures, molds (including high temperature molds), tooling, foundry patterns, and hundreds, if not thousands of similar applications.

  With the addition of the LSAM Additive Printers, Thermwood now offers the largest selection of large-scale additive manufacturing systems for thermoplastic composite materials in the industry with models available for just about every application and budget.

• Thermwood Announces a Major Advance in Additive Print Technology (Feb 17, 2022)

  Thermwood has unveiled a new LSAM additive print technical capability that insures complete fusion between large scale thermoplastic printed layers plus, for the first time, makes print temperature control completely automatic.  

  Thermwood’s LSAM additive manufacturing systems are already producing almost perfectly fused large scale thermoplastic composite structures in multiple industry applications today. To a large extent this is because of a patented feature called “Layer Time Control”.  With a newly announced development, it is now even better and easier. 

  When printing thermoplastic material, each polymer has an ideal print temperature at which the best fusion between layers occurs. This new system not only attains but precisely maintains this ideal temperature automatically. 
  
  Thermal Sensor Layer Automation System 

  Called “Thermal Sensor Layer Automation”, it continuously measures the temperature of a printed layer just before a new bead is added. This allows the machine to automatically adjust the feed speed, using “Layer Time Control”, to print at, or very close to, the perfect temperature needed to achieve the best possible layer to layer fusion. This results in superior printed part quality. Until now, these adjustments relied primarily on operator skill and judgement. Now it is not only totally automatic, but also much more precise. 
  
  The new process uses a non-contact temperature sensor which rotate about the print nozzle under servo control and continuously measures the temperature of the existing layer less than a half inch in front of the moving print nozzle. This provides precise feedback of the temperature at the moment of layer fusion, insuring integrity of the bond being generated at every point on every layer.  

  Data from the probe is processed through an advanced algorithm which adjusts the speed at which each layer is printed. The algorithm takes into account not only the temperature at the point of printing, compared to the target temperature, but also the changing geometry of the part as it grows. Print speed is no longer defined in the print CNC program but instead, it is continuously adjusted by the LSAM control system itself during printing, in response to changes in the print environment. This is important because there is no way to know exactly what the print environment will be when you are creating a program or whether that environment will change during the sometimes lengthy print process, leaving the operator responsible for achieving and continuously maintaining print temperature. This is not a particularly easy task. 

  Automatic Print Temperature Control 
  With Thermwood’s new system, optimum print temperature is now part of the parameters stored in the control for each polymer and is determined when the polymer is first qualified. To run a specific material using a properly equipped LSAM, it is only necessary to load a part program, specify the material and turn it on. The entire build process, including all temperature control, is then pretty well automatic.

  This system achieves much tighter control of the basic print process than is currently possible and best of all, it is totally automatic, not requiring input or adjustment by the machine operator.  
  As a bonus, temperature data from the print process is available in several forms. A digital readout displays, real time, the current temperature reading as well as the average temperature for the layer being printed. These displays are color coded so that the operator can tell at a glance if the program is printing within temperature tolerance. When the print is complete a report is available that details the print temperature profile of each printed layer. This documentation could provide the quality control basis needed to verify more critical parts, such as flying parts on an aircraft, further expanding the capability and potential use of LSAM printing. 
  
  Real-Time Temperature Measurement and Control 
  There is one additional significant aspect to this new development. For the first time in extruder based large scale additive manufacturing, the temperature at the moment of layer fusion can be measured and controlled. This opens the possibility for more advanced research, focused on the very core of an extruder based print process. Research using this technology should result in a better, more thorough understanding of the print and layer fusion process that is at the very core of this emerging industry.  

  Thermwood believes this is a major advance in the base technology and will make large scale additive manufacturing not only better, but also practical for a broad range of new users. It makes a once complex and highly specialized process, pretty well automatic, allowing almost anyone to produce parts today that are better than the best that could be made by highly skilled experts in the past.  
  
  Retrofits Available 
  Existing LSAM customers can also upgrade their current systems to the new Thermal Sensor Layer Automation System in the field.  Please contact our Retrofit department for details. 
  
  The Bottom Line 
  With “Thermal Sensor Layer Automation” large scale composite additive manufacturing has become a valuable new production tool, suitable for a much larger segment of manufacturing applications. It is no longer exclusive to the rare few with highly specialized personnel but it now works for about anyone.

• Thermwood Receives 32 Additive Manufacturing Patents as an Early Christmas Gift (Feb 17, 2022)

  Thermwood routinely applies for patent protection on additive manufacturing technology it develops for its LSAM large format additive systems. During COVID, we received electronic copies of patents that were granted, however, the official hard copies were withheld.

  A couple of days before Christmas 2021, we received a package containing the official hard copy of 32 additive manufacturing patents. This was certainly a one-day record for Thermwood and a welcome sight!

  In addition to these latest patents, Thermwood already has a large portfolio of earlier issued patents covering the unique, large format (5x10 foot table and larger) 3D print technology it has developed. This LSAM technology is currently the most widely used large scale additive print technology operating in industry today. It’s used in a wide variety of industries including aerospace, transportation, heavy equipment, foundry and large decorative structures. It is being used to produce a diversity of products including aerospace patterns, molds and tooling, heavy equipment foundry patterns, bus chassis, large valve body foundry patterns and trim tooling. It was even used to print the tallest 3D printed structure in the world, the 92 foot tall Al Davis Memorial Torch at Allegiant stadium in Las Vegas.

  Thermwood offers this unique patented technology on a wide variety of equipment, the largest, most diverse product offering of its kind available today. It includes a broad selection of machines, including single and dual gantry, fixed and moving table configurations, with both print-only and print-and-trim systems, from 5 by 10 foot to 20 by 60 foot print envelopes. We are working on even larger machines but that’s for another day.

  The primary focus of the patented LSAM technology is to reliably and repeatedly produce the highest quality, best fused, most homogeneous printed structures possible from a variety of reinforced thermoplastic polymer composites including those intended to operate at elevated temperatures. Although it is nice to have been granted these patents, it is even nicer to finally have the official hard copies in hand.

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