Holo has unveiled its PureForm metals 3D printer platform, to drive further adoption of its metal 3D printing technology – which, on the quiet, has seen the service manufacturing side of Holo become one of the world’s largest additive metals parts producers.
Holo is producing ‘high-performance pure copper parts’ directly for customers using its proprietary high-resolution technology, ramping up to manufacture thousands of parts per month from its newly opened 20,000sq/ft production facility in California’s Bay Area.
Capable of producing 150-200 micron features, Holo’s PureForm technology is able to produce intricate channels with high surface quality and fine features that can optimise the performance of products.
Holo PureForm produces green parts from a metal slurry using a SLA-type method, before the proven Metal Injection Molding (MIM) backend processes sinters the fully dense part.
Holo states that the scalable technology is designed for high volume manufacturing, with the patented polymer binder platform is compatible with a wide variety of materials including metals, ceramics and others.
At over $170B, copper is the third largest materials market in the world – a material widely used for its electrical and thermal conductivity properties. Although a challenge for other metal additive manufacturing technologies, Holo has developed a 3D printable 99.9% pure copper material that retains the bulk conductivity properties of copper.
“Most companies developing additive technology are focused on selling their printers,” said Holo CEO Hal Zarem. “We are lowering the barriers to adoption by offering additively manufactured parts to our customers and addressing the largest sector of the AM market with finished parts”
“The challenge today with metal 3D printing, is that the technologies are either too expensive and unable to scale for production, or low resolution, which limit applications,” said Arian Aghababaie, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Holo. “Holo’s PureForm technology enables us to produce high-resolution components directly for our customers, at a fraction of the cost of existing AM technologies and in production volumes.”
To date the company has been able to focus on developing cooling solutions for the rapidly growing high-performance computer market, electric vehicles (inverters and e-motors), complex 3D electrical interconnects, RF antennas and heat exchangers.
Holo is also now sampling stainless steel to customers, opening up applications across a wide span of industries from aerospace to medical.
