Feature first published in 3D ADEPT MAG in September–October 2020, then online in February 2021. It includes a contribution by Harshil Goel (Dyndrite) and Ty Pollak (Open Additive), whose opinions and market references are preserved in their historical context.
How can users access process settings, use alternative materials and gain greater control of machine data? For some metal AM stakeholders, more open platforms offer answers. But what can actually be accessed, modified and documented needs to be made clear.
This feature discusses the rise and the reasons that led companies to consider “Open Manufacturing”. Most importantly, it aims to give manufacturers in various industries another option to consider when it comes to investing in metal additive manufacturing technologies.
Openness can concern accepted materials, parameters, data, software interfaces or hardware. It does not necessarily mean that source code is available under an open-source licence. These different levels need separate examination.
To discuss these choices, 3D ADEPT Media spoke with Dyndrite and Open Additive, two companies advocating more open additive manufacturing tools.
Founded in 2016, Dyndrite develops a geometry kernel and software tools for digital manufacturing. This feature also examines its Developer Council, which brings together participants in its ecosystem.
Open Additive, meanwhile, presents configurable metal AM systems for users seeking to modify or integrate process and monitoring functions.
Harshil Goel, founder and CEO of Dyndrite™ and Ty Pollak, President and CEO of Open Additive share key insights into this topic.
How should we recognize an “open” additive manufacturing platform?
Here, “open” covers several possibilities: selecting third-party materials, changing parameters or accessing data and interfaces. Origin, Arburg and Freemelt illustrate different approaches that should not be conflated.
For polymers, Origin uses photopolymer resins in its P3 process, while Arburg’s freeformer processes thermoplastic granulates. Openness to material suppliers does not make feedstocks or processes interchangeable.
For metals, Freemelt describes its ONE system as an open-source software platform for developing materials and electron-beam scanning strategies. Access to code, data and parameters should be assessed against the relevant licences and documentation.
Metal processes can use wire or powder; these feedstocks are not equivalent. Weldability or castability alone does not qualify an alloy for AM. The feature also describes a development cycle: “the more designers design products, the more applications we will have. The more applications there are, the more materials will be developed, and the more printers will evolve or be introduced to the market.”
While looking at the development of metal AM systems, part of these challenges shows that materials cannot be the only factor that should be taken into account to qualify an open additive manufacturing system.
Other key characteristics of an open additive manufacturing platform
In addition to “open materials”, other elements should be kept in mind while looking for an open AM platform, elements that have strong counterarguments raised by manufacturers of well-established Industrial 3D printers.
Open Architecture VS Closed Architecture.
A closed architecture can limit changes to hardware, software or materials. An open architecture can offer more control, but the extent of access varies between suppliers and contracts.
Understandably, companies that have been at the forefront of AM technology are protecting the intellectual property they’ve developed over the past years. They are also uniquely positioned to capitalize on this market.
Intellectual property and industrial support are concerns for suppliers. Stability, repeatability and traceability do not, however, follow automatically from a proprietary architecture: they must be demonstrated for any system.
The argument of companies that develop an open architecture system is to provide “a tool for more than just making parts, but also for making advances in the industry.”
This argument might certainly be more appealing not only for manufacturers but also for researchers, as such system enables more flexibility. Operators that use these systems have more freedom to modify, develop, and/or integrate hardware or software components.
“Ideally, the platform should be designed with openness in mind from the outset, with adequate physical space, available information about the configuration, and ability to access system data”, Open Additive explains. Furthermore, truly open additive manufacturing systems enable users to integrate their own proprietary technology, which has nothing to do with “open materials or parameters”.
Open configuration vs Closed configuration?
Let’s focus on powder-bed systems for example. Depending on the project that is being achieved, operators might need to achieve a certain performance with the laser(s), optics, build plate, powder deposition or sensors.
Some characteristics are configured before sale and cannot be freely changed. Simulation can help prepare settings, but changes need testing and validation for the machine and material concerned.
In both open and closed systems, many variables influence part quality. They need definition, monitoring and control; openness alone does not guarantee a successful print.
However, one thing that anyone should appreciate in open AM systems is flexibility. Indeed, one cannot predict all the types of project that could be performed with a machine and the ability to adapt the machine before or after sale is definitely valuable.
This list of pros and cons is certainly not exhaustive as the debate is just emerging. However, the key stakeholder that is driving the conversation is the customer.
What does the customer want?
An Essentium survey of 162 managers and executives at large manufacturers, with results communicated in January 2020, illustrates these expectations. The percentages below concern respondents to this vendor-sponsored survey, not all manufacturers.
The obstacles cited in the feature are material costs (51%), equipment costs (38%) and difficulties scaling production (31%).
Among respondents, 50% cite a need for quality materials at an affordable cost, 85% see potential for increased revenue from industrial AM, and 22% report that vendor lock-in limits their flexibility.
Harshil Goel and Ty Pollak could not agree more as they strongly believe this is the time to accelerate the shift towards “Open” Metal Additive Systems.
Contribution by Harshil Goel and Ty Pollak: their view of open systems
Editor’s note: the following contribution presents the speakers’ position in 2020. Machine and council-member counts describe that period. Interface standards within a software ecosystem should not automatically be equated with formally adopted industry standards.
While legacy business models have driven the growth of the industry to its current state, they are not suitable to propel and sustain the industry in today’s environment, in which dozens of vendors now compete, offering hundreds of hardware and software options to be optimized for a dizzying array of applications by a much more sophisticated user base. In this new climate, the model of closed, highly proprietary metal AM solutions limits the ultimate promise of AM to its end users—greater design freedom, lower costs, and better part quality. Thus, more open hardware and software solutions are key to the future growth of the industry.
The Primacy of Toolpath
At its most basic level, 3D printing comes down to tracing a path (e.g., a line or area) with an active tool (e.g., print head, laser, etc.) to join bits of matter into a solid piece. Today, the metal AM industry currently has more than 300 metal systems available, and most are closed and proprietary systems, with their own unique toolpath strategies which are generally difficult to understand, let alone control. This means that even if you can run the same process parameters across different vendors’ machines, it will too often produce markedly different parts from both a metallurgical and geometric standpoint, making standards and process control difficult and costly. Compare that to traditional machining tools that can run the same toolpath on different machines, resulting in similar parts. More open hardware/software systems which allow understanding and control of toolpath are thus critical to the acceleration of AM to improve quality and reduce costs.
Metal Additive Parts are way beyond “Lawn Mower Brackets”
We are stuck in a catch-22 situation: Machine systems vendors are developing new materials, and process parameters on a yearly basis while tying this development to their core intellectual property strategy. Machine systems manufacturers and their software/engineering teams are being pushed to the limit for developing these parameters. But they are using generic/representative parts to test and validate. However, end users are pushing the limits of these printers by producing ever more complex and sophisticated geometry harnessing the true mandate of 3D printing:- with geometry significantly more exotic than generic parts. End users view these new advanced parts as a core part of their intellectual property strategy, and thus are unwilling to share this geometry with anyone. So
now, the metal additive industry is stuck in a scenario where the intentions of the system vendors and their customers are at odds. Quite frankly, something has to give. The systems manufacturer needs better tools to develop better machines. The end user needs solutions that meet their evolving needs. An open-architecture is one of the key ways to get out of this predicament
Reducing Risk of Obsolescence
While open systems have been mostly beneficial to the R&D community thus far, they also enable producers, from major suppliers to the small machine shop, the opportunity to modify their system configuration as needs and technology evolve. As a result, risk of obsolescence decreases, and a wider range of future applications may be supported. This may spur organizations to commit to getting in the game sooner, knowing they can get started on developing expertise and use cases, but not get locked into existing capabilities. Thus, open-architecture systems can reduce one of the key barriers to entry in metal AM—the fear of making a major capital investment which locks down future capabilities in an industry that is rapidly evolving.
Towards Smarter Systems
A key element in the development of AM standards and improved process control strategies is the integration of various sensors and analytics to monitor, and even modify, the build process. To develop and make the most use of such capabilities, users must be able to access the raw and processed sensor data, understand any available analytics or create their own. This delivers the capability to inform the operator and control the machine to take actions based on this resulting information. Closed architectures place barriers to each of these steps, resulting in the dearth of useful process information available on today’s metal AM machines. On the contrary, open hardware and software systems are key to realizing the future state of the industry, in which metal AM platforms become smarter production tools.
Connecting the Digital Ecosystem
Today, metal AM machines are increasingly part of a digital ecosystem, which will only become ever more connected. While the machine’s software controls everything about the build process – parameters, process controls, resolution, speed, feeds, etc. – it needs to be integrated with other tools that allow pre-build setup and optimization, efficient utilization of available assets, collection and analysis of real-time and post-build data, etc. The machine thus needs to be able to accept and output a variety of format standards, compatible with different software tools used across this digital landscape. Software frameworks are thus needed which accept both open standards in addition to proprietary standards, and deliver greater flexibility for the user to control the machine through custom software plug-ins and APIs as needed. Open software frameworks with APIs that are accessible to people beyond in-house software developers are key to future growth.
Building Bridges Through Standards and new geometry kernels
“We can’t possibly have 30, 40 or 100 separate printer companies all with different competing standards.” Harshil Goel, at the Dyndrite Developer Council 2020 event in April.
All the participants agreed. Standards are a topic central to the future growth of the metal AM industry. Without standards working across the industry, the industry’s collective growth is held back, affecting each OEM individually. Dyndrite is working to address the issue of standards through the development of the core geometry kernel aimed to power the AM industry forward and develop critical integrated ecosystems that power digital manufacturing. In addition, it has also launched the Dyndrite Developer Council to work with industry vendors to develop standards that all can work to and help develop the Dyndrite kernel to meet collective needs.
A key, critical task being handled by the Developer Council right now is the development of a standard toolpathing API to help solve the toolpathing issues described earlier. Members span the industry, from established companies such as 3D Systems, EOS, SLM, Renishaw and ANSYS, to newer players on the market including Open Additive, Aconity3D, and Impossible Objects. Interest in having more open systems is growing throughout the council, including SLM and EOS.
The Council is now up to 20 members and still growing as vendors take notice of the need for collaboration even while in competition. Alongside Dyndrite, Open Additive is a champion for accelerating innovation through more open solutions, and seeks to expand the development and application of AM standards to its metal AM machine control strategies as well as its multi-sensor data collection and analytics tools.
Concluding thoughts
Platform choice depends on the control actually needed: materials, parameters, data, software integration and maintenance. Openness can coexist with protected intellectual property. Before purchase, examine access and modification rights, available support, traceability and how changes affect qualification.
This feature was first published in the September–October 2020 issue of 3D ADEPT MAG.
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