For over eighty years, the privately owned Rösler Oberflächentechnik has been actively engaged in the field of surface preparation and surface finishing. Under the brand name AM Solutions, the company offers numerous equipment solutions and services in the area of additive manufacturing / 3D printing. In the wake of the Formnext fair in Frankfurt, new cooperations have been sealed.

EOS and AM Solutions have joined forces to focus on advancing the entire additive manufacturing process chain. In order to make the leap to mass production, the individual steps leading to the finished product must become increasingly automated and significantly more economical. There is a lot of potential in the interfaces.

“In order to truly scale AM production, all steps within the value chain – including post-processing – must work in concert, providing a complete solution for our customers. With AM Solutions, we have found a partner with the capabilities to reach the next level in automating the AM process chain,” says Virginia Palacios, chief business officer polymer at EOS. “We share the same goal and enrich each other with our different competencies and decades of experience on both sides.”

Both companies are owner-managed, develop and produce their machines in Germany and embody the values of successful, medium-sized German companies. EOS and AM Solutions are working to take selective laser sintering (SLS) to the next level on an industrial scale. The higher the output, the more reliable, faster and more efficient the subsequent steps, such as depowdering, have to be. The key to this lies in automated, economical and highly efficient post-processing. In this way, quantities can be scaled up as required - without compromising quality and reproducibility. Increased automation is also an important factor in addressing the growing shortage of skilled labor.

FKM Additive Manufacturing, headquartered in Biedenkopf, Germany, provides high-quality 3D printed products on an industrial scale to customers around the world and is a technology leader in industrial powder bed laser melting. Recently, FKM became one of the first German additive manufacturing companies to meet the stringent requirements of IATF 16949, qualifying it as a supplier of production parts to the international automotive industry.

FKM’s purchase of an S2 system from AM Solutions marks the beginning of the partnership. It will be used to fully automate the post-processing of powder-bed plastic parts in a continuous process with reproducible results at the highest quality level. In addition to investing in an S2, FKM will also become a beta partner for the new C2 system.

The C2, which AM Solutions showcased at Formnext, combines chemical smoothing and coloring of polymers in a single operation and is more environmentally friendly than comparable systems thanks to newly developed process media.

On Thursday at Formnext, AM Solutions signed an agreement with leading digital manufacturing and 3D printing expert Shapeways Inc, which will also join its beta partner programme for the C2. This represents a further strengthening of the relationship with Shapeways which invested in AM Solutions S1 and S2 technologies earlier this year after taking part in the beta programme for the S2 post processing solution.

Jules Witte, plant manager at Shapeways’ Eindhoven-based facility says, “Our interest in the C2 from AM Solutions is because it provides AM part post processing results that are increasingly demanded by both our B2B and B2C customers. As a company, we are known for our commitment to quality and reliability, placing customer requirements at the core of our operations, and continuously pursuing top-notch solutions to meet their demands.”