The German sawing-machine manufacturer Kasto (www.kasto.com), which has a UK subsidiary in Milton Keynes (www.kasto.com), is supporting the NextGenAM project — the automation of industrial 3-D printing to optimise work-flow and cut costs for large-scale production.

The project was initiated in 2017 by the aerospace supplier Premium Aerotec, the automotive manufacturer Daimler and EOS, a provider of industrial 3-D printing systems.

The focus is on introducing a high degree of automation upstream and downstream of the actual construction/printing process, which accounts for only about 30% of the manufacturing cost.

The aim of the project is to develop a complete system for the production of aluminium components for the automotive and aerospace industries.

A KastoWin AMC saw was selected by the project partners for its ability to perform component separation reliably and efficiently.

This automatic machine is designed specifically for separating additively manufactured components from their build platform by inverting them and sawing horizontally, so that they fall into a container.

The ‘cutting range’ of the saw is 400 x 400mm and the electromechanical servo-motor blade feed is steplessly adjustable (a frequency-controlled spur-gear drive enables blade speeds between 12 and 150m/min to be selected).

Furthermore, the heavy torsion-resistant welded construction with optimised ribbing ensures smooth running and minimal vibration; and because the machine is fully enclosed, the ambient air is kept free of the tiny particles produced by cutting additively manufactured components. An extraction system can be specified.

The KastoWin AMC is being used in the Technology Centre in Varel, Germany, where the first NextGenAM automated pilot plant for industrial 3-D printing, post-processing and quality assurance was recently commissioned.