HP is the latest technology manufacturer to pursue the opportunities of 3D printing, saying it will launch a metre-wide model in 18 months.
The company says its new Multi Jet Fusion is designed to provide low-cost 3D printing at faster speeds than anything on the market, and will arrive in 2016.
Multi-Fusion was announced alongside a new ‘blended reality’ desktop product named Sprout, which is potentially of interest to packaging and pre-media businesses in graphic arts.
The company says Multi-Fusion will be 10 times faster than anything currently on the market, and significantly more affordable.
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The technology uses a print bar that produces more than 350 drops per second at 21 microns, which, according to HP, is able to print 1000 working gears in three hours.
In addition to these gears, HP showcased a heavy-duty chain link that was created with a Multi Jet Fusion printer.
At the launch event in New York, HP showed off a currently-unnamed printing device that uses Multi Jet Fusion. The device is about as tall as a small refrigerator, and as wide as a heavy-duty copy machine.
HP inkjet and graphic senior vice president Stephen Nigro says: “As we examined the existing 3D print market we saw a great deal of potential but also major gaps in the combination of speed, quality and cost.”
Multi Jet Fusion printers will not be generally available until 2016. It is not yet known whether it will be shown at drupa.
Until launch HP is working with a several customers on the technology, as part of its Open Customer Engagement Program.
The scalable Multi Jet Fusion devices will have working areas from 10.8cm to in excess of 101cm. The printer has a dual carriage design, which involves layering materials and special chemical agents in what is described as a ‘multi-agent printing process.’
Meanwhile, Sprout is described as the first of series of products in HP’s new ‘blended reality ecosystem.’
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