GiMax3D, company established in 2013 to develop and to produce low-cost 3D printers featuring anyway high performances, already includes three FDM models in its range that can be suitable for the mould and die sector, too. Besides, others are coming also thanks to a collaboration with Milam Polytechnics.
3D printing is increasingly taking hold in the industry of mould and die makers, which can benefit from the adoption of additive manufacturing techniques in their field. Not only using high-end rapid prototyping and manufacturing technologies but also with 3D “desktop” printers based on the deposition of fused filaments (FDM). Like those, for instance, designed and manufactured by the Tuscan GiMax3D, a project born in September 2013 from a company operating in industrial automation for over 15 years and that three months later churned out its first 3D printer, Standard 1.0. A fully open source machine with heated printing 300x250x250 plan, double extruder, 0.06 millimetre layer and tolerance on the finished part of 0.08 mm. A printer that, together with the other two that today compose the range by GiMax3D and we are going to see more in detail, are suitable for mould and die makers, too. «Among our customers – confirms Gianni Querci, one of the founders of GiMax3D – we already boast companies that produce printers. In their opinion, this technology allows knocking down times and costs while maintaining suitable features for their requirements. The machines that we produce print with FDM/FFF technology, manufacturing thermoplastic material models (from the softest rubber to the most rigid plastic, including polystyrene, PET, ABS and filled PLA), without making any mechanical modification to the extrusion block. The advent of this technology in the mould and die sector at a “low” price has allowed triggering fully different processes of industrial thinking. The other technologies, SLS, SLA, POLYJET, succeed in granting excellent outcome performances».
The range by GiMax3D, besides Standard 1.0, today proposes Standard 2.0 with the same characteristics as 1.0 but with 400x400x400 print area and the small Maty with single extruder and heated 150x150x120 plan. After the optimization of the extruding block, a recent improvement, the three models extrude all thermoplastic filaments, from the softest rubber to the most rigid plastic, including Laywood, Laybrick and Pva. «We received – explains Querci – a sincerely unexpected order explosion. The choice of taking part in the road show of 3D Print Hub has certainly awarded us because the design of our first printer just addressed the professional sector. The first three stages of 3D Print Hub (in Parma inside MecSpe, in Bologna on the occasion of Exposanità and Bari in coincidence with Proenergy+Expoedil) strengthened our initial beliefs, also thanks to the numerous orders, of developing and consolidating our product. We have taken part in 3D Print Hub in Milan in March, from 5th to 7th ».
Sale, research and development network
GiMax3D is organizing a sale network on the Italian territory, relying on resellers that are sector professionals and not improvised companies, as it can often happen in rising markets in times of global crisis. «Besides – adds Querci – development and research are a keystone in our project: our printer will be soon at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta” of Milan Polytechnics, with which we collaborate just for the product research and development. We are going to release on the market a medium-size low-cost printer that will embody the base characteristics of our design philosophy but it will try to satisfy the portfolio of makers, too, since they are demanding for it more and insistently. The buyers of a 3D printer, both a Gimax3D or another, have ideas to propose and to develop and they do not want to hold them closed in the drawer, they have – as I say – “the shining lamp and the burning spark”.