Materialise improves productivity and safety with the Russell AMPro® Sieve Station
With headquarters in Belgium and branches worldwide, Materialise provides rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing services to a wide range of industries from healthcare, automotive, aerospace and consumer goods. It has one of the largest 3D printing facilities in the world providing customers both flexibility and fast response times in order to meet customers tight production deadlines.
The company’s competence center in Bremen, Germany specializes in metal 3D printing and selective laser melting. More than 100 specialists from R&D, software, and partner businesses work together at the center to manufacture components for customers. Materialise uses 316L stainless steel powder along with EOS M280 and SLM printers for its prototyping and additive manufacturing.
With its previous powder reclaim process, the company relied on the powder handling solutions provided with its 3D printers to convey, sieve, and refill the printers with metal powder. Each of these process steps was a manual task for the operators causing productivity and safety issues.
As the demand for Materialise’s services grew, it increased the number of 3D printers on the site. However, this also increased the quantity of powder to reclaim. Materialise had difficulty handling the larger powder volume as its recovery process could not scale up with the increase in additive manufacturing. The manufacturer also wanted to improve safety for its operators.
With the Russell AMPro® Sieve Station installed, Materialise was able to support multiple 3D printers. This allowed the manufacturer to increase its production capacity. The Russell Finex system is now setup to be able to be able to reclaim powder from up to four printers when production is at its peak level.
The Russell Finex machine has automated the sieving process and delivered faster sieving times. In addition, the quality of the sieving ensures there is no loss of good powder with the oversized particles. The Russell AMPro® Sieve Station integrates all the elements of the powder recovery process. Operators no longer need to have contact with the open powder which helps to improve their safety.pdf
About Russell Finex
Founded in 1934, Russell Finex is a specialist global supplier of sieving and filtration equipment. With its head office in the U.K. and subsidiaries in Belgium, the U.S.A., India, Brazil and China the company supplies to over 140 countries.
To speak to an experienced sales engineer to improve your productivity, contact Russell Finex today.
What our clients say
“The machine is a good alternative to the previous systems and simplifies the work in one process step by combining the suction unit, sieving, and filling into one vessel,”
