The Magic of AMUG as Reported by a First-Time Attendee – 3DPrint.com

There’s a particular type of magic about AMUG. I’ve heard about it for years, however by no means skilled it myself till final week. It’s totally different than what you see at a few of the different trade occasions. Commerce reveals like RAPID are for promoting stuff, whereas AMUG is extra about problem-solving. Each are centered on making connections, however from the particular theme night and “fishbowl” lunches to On line casino Evening, the networking alternatives at AMUG have been completely next-level. I’ve heard the Additive Manufacturing Customers Group title and the tagline 1,000,000 occasions—for customers, by customers. I didn’t really perceive till I got here to Reno for the 2026 convention.

The sense of camaraderie is robust with this one, of us. Everybody was so good and welcoming, and actually centered on serving to one another resolve their AM issues. I went to a roundtable about post-processing for polymer powder mattress fusion, and it was fascinating to hearken to the people who find themselves really getting their palms soiled and utilizing the know-how day-after-day. Along with some reasonably explosive tales of life on the manufacturing unit ground, they have been sharing suggestions and tips. As an example, one attendee jokingly (?) cautioned the others to by no means present clients a vapor smoothing machine, as a result of they’ll count on these outcomes each time, even for jobs that don’t require it.

One other famous that clients wanting into AM are sometimes reluctant to change as a result of they need what they’ve at all times used, like injection molding.

“Individuals will say, ‘It’s not attainable,’ and that’s not true, it’s simply not what you’re used to!” one other consumer mentioned.

I’ll share some extra of what I noticed within the keynote shows, breakout classes, expo ground chats, and extra.

This particular AMUG poker chip was included in our AMUG backpacks

Due to a blizzard within the Midwest and the partial authorities shutdown affecting TSA brokers throughout the nation, I had some main journey delays whereas touring to AMUG. So I sadly missed the Tuesday morning keynote by Steve Fournier, Senior Supervisor – Additive Manufacturing at Basic Atomics Aeronautical Methods, and Scott Sawyer, Director of Packages – Aerospace and Protection, at Divergent, titled “From Hypercars to Protection Drones: How Two Main Trade Innovators Began their Partnership Journey at AMUG.”

Nonetheless, I used to be in a position to sit down with the 2 of them after the very fact; shout-out to AMUG President Shannon VanDeren for connecting us so rapidly! You possibly can examine our dialog in one other article.

Innovators Showcase & Award

Yearly, AMUG chooses one particular person who’s had a major influence on the AM trade over a protracted time period to obtain its esteemed Innovators Award. This yr, it was Max Lobovsky, Co-Founder and CEO of Formlabs; we have been fortunate sufficient to have him onstage at our Additive Manufacturing Methods (AMS) occasion final month.

“The AMUG Board of Administrators admires his story,” VanDeren mentioned when the information was introduced. “Max was an apparent choice for the Innovators Award, and we have been unanimous in our resolution.”

AMUG President Shannon VanDeren presenting Formlabs CEO Max Lobovsky with the Innovators Award

Along with profitable the bodily award itself, the winner can be the featured visitor of the Innovators Showcase at AMUG, and interviewed by AM trade veteran Todd Grimm. One piece of recommendation Lobovsky shared was to “concentrate on the issue, not the answer.”

“I do know it sounds unusual as a result of folks say try to be solution-oriented, however usually you may remove one thing pointless in case you’re focusing totally on the issue.”

Todd Grim and Max Lobovsky through the AMUG Innovators Showcase

Lobovsky additionally shared about his journey to Ukraine final yr, explaining that whereas each of his mother and father grew up there, he’d by no means been. However when the struggle with Russia ramped up, he wished to do one thing to contribute. After he discovered that individuals in Ukraine have been shopping for loads of Formlabs printers, and that it was attainable to “fairly and safely journey there,” he determined to go over along with his father to go to his hometown, meet and perceive Formlabs clients within the nation, and work on giving again.

“It was a tremendous, emotional, inspiring expertise,” he mentioned. “It’s superb how a lot constructive power there’s in a spot that’s experiencing a lot trauma. A lot of that power is at present centered on defending their nation, however I’m hopeful that when the struggle ends, that power will go in direction of one thing else.”

LEGO Group 3D Printing at Scale

On the final day of AMUG, Ronen Hadar, Senior Director and Head of Additive Design and Manufacturing at LEGO, offered a keynote titled “AM at Scale in Client Items – The Case of The Lego Group.”

Ronen Hadar, Senior Director and Head of Additive Design and Manufacturing at LEGO, onstage at AMUG 2026

He defined that when LEGO is deciding to combine new know-how, it appears to be like at high quality, price, and quantity, in that order. The corporate makes use of metallic AM for merchandise like jigs, fixtures, grippers, and mould elements, and polymer AM for client items.

When it comes to 3D printing LEGO bricks, the corporate was aiming to realize +/- 20-30 microns. Hadar mentioned this “was exhausting to do with out photoreactive supplies, which we won’t use to make toys that your youngsters will put of their mouths!”

“We had a tough time getting dimensional accuracy to this degree. However we did it. We’re fanatics about these tolerances, and that’s what separates us from a few of our opponents.”

Hadar mentioned that LEGO produces hardly any waste powder in its AM course of, as a result of materials growth, recyclability, and sustainability are additionally enterprise components.

He concluded by itemizing three issues that should occur for AM to be extra adopted within the client items trade, with the primary one being unit price discount. The methods to realize this are extra automation, course of acceleration, machine and supplies decoupling, and lowering the overall price of possession (TCO).

“OEMs really want to internalize that machines can not price $800,000 or 1,000,000 {dollars}!” he mentioned emphatically.

The second is scaling manufacturing, which requires steady manufacturing platforms, in addition to digital workflow and workforce productiveness. The final is high quality, enabled by a data-driven feel and look to make sure repeatability and accuracy, floor roughness enhancements, colour growth and scaling, and powder high quality and reliability.

There have been virtually too many afternoon breakout classes at AMUG! I had a really exhausting time selecting. Nonetheless, I’m at all times fascinated about medical AM functions, so loads of the classes I attended after lunch every day have been centered on this sector. The primary was about “In-Home Metallic 3D Printing in Hospitals: Alternatives and Challenges for Medical Merchandise.”

Metallic AM in Hospitals

Utilizing an actual use case from Lerdsin Hospital in Bangkok, AppliCAD Software Engineer Napakarn Thussakorn, alongside Michael Staiger, One Click on Metallic, shared the AM manufacturing workflow for patient-specific orthopaedic implants.

It begins with a affected person session to evaluate the necessity for a 3D printed implant, after which CT or MRI imaging. Utilizing Materialise Mimics, these pictures are then transformed to a segmented 3D mannequin of the related anatomy.

“We have to go into every slide and every slice,” Thussakorn defined. “We’d like clean surfaces and no holes.”

As soon as the customized implant is designed, it’s printed out of biocompatible Ti64 utilizing LPBF know-how onsite on the hospital, utilizing a One Click on Metallic MPRINT system. Then comes post-processing, like assist removing, sand blasting, and sterilizing for surgical use. The implants are “designed to completely match affected person anatomy,” which provides extra design freedom, improves the match and alignment accuracy, will increase surgical confidence, reduces the necessity for intraoperative contouring, and lowers surgical procedure time.

A number of examples have been shared, together with implants for the wrist, ankle, and brow, in addition to surgical instruments like an acetabular chisel. Thussakorn mentioned all of them “assist enhance high quality of life.”

Mayo Clinic Microscale 3D Printing

Seth Hara, PhD, Principal Engineer on the Mayo Clinic, had nearly as tough a time attending to Reno as I did. So his presentation, “Past the Seen: Microscale 3D Printing at Mayo Clinic,” received pushed till the final day of the convention. This was fortunate for me, as I might have missed the unique time resulting from my very own journey delays.

Hara is the supervisor of Mayo’s Microfabrication Laboratory throughout the 70-member Division of Engineering. The complete Mayo Clinic enterprise is about 82,000 staff, and any of them can come to the group for assist with engineering consultations, design, and growth companies.

Hara defined that microscale AM has many implications for healthcare, as “many various medical challenges require a degree of complexity that may be exhausting to realize with standard manufacturing.” The know-how provides freedom of design, which is useful for fabricating issues like lattice scaffold buildings. Microscale AM can be used to duplicate anatomy so clinicians can get a greater understanding of various tissues, organs, and cells on the correct in-vivo scale.

The most important issues for utilizing AM in medical machine functions embody biocompatibility, cleansing and sterilization, and post-processing. The particular functions for microscale AM at Mayo Clinic embody microfluidics, tissue engineering, ultrasound markers, microneedles and microneedle arrays, and anatomic fashions. Nonetheless, these fashions aren’t for coaching functions, however for learning how the atmosphere impacts the biology by replicating the microenvironment.

“That is all about enabling options for the clinicians’ issues that may’t be solved every other approach,” Hara defined.

3D Printed Golf Driver

I didn’t solely concentrate on medical classes at AMUG. As an example, aerospace R&D firm Hyphen Improvements, which is predicated in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, shared about their work to develop a metallic 3D printed golf driver. Lead Analysis Engineer Troy Krizak, PhD, offered “Utilizing the i-DAMP Design Software program to Develop Subsequent Technology Golf Drivers.”

The corporate’s i-DAMP resolution is a design technique for 3D printed components which are vibration- and damage-resistant. Principally, they design voids inside these components to behave as particle dampers and suppress the power in a system whereas it’s vibrating. The software program that Hyphen CEO Dr. Onome Scott-Emuakpor developed helps to attenuate stress concentrations and fatigue, in addition to the quantity of unused powder throughout the construction.

“What we’re making an attempt to do with i-DAMP is scale back the impact of fatigue, which is influenced by materials, porosity, microstructure, floor end, and residual stress,” defined Krizak.” Not understanding the fabric or manufacturing course of can result in dangerous outcomes.”

The corporate validated i-DAMP for aerospace functions, after which questioned if the answer may be used to lower the high-frequency vibration that brought about pinging in a golf ball. Drivers are usually made out of carbon fiber, with a metallic face plate glued on. Hyphen’s 4 most important targets for this venture have been to make the motive force extra light-weight; extra forgiving; extra sturdy; and cheaper.

“If we will use additive to make the faceplate even a bit of lighter, there will likely be effectivity positive factors,” Krizak mentioned.

The group reverse engineered an trade driver, and used their software program to search out probably the most optimum place to place the voids within the driver to scale back damping. The preliminary print was aluminum, which was too mild for the trade normal, and so they ended up utilizing Nickel 718, which is what was out there on the time. Sadly, this resulted within the reverse drawback: the 3D printed golf membership head was far too heavy to really be efficient. However, Krizak mentioned they achieved 4x damping enhance, which proves that i-DAMP is efficient for damping.

Sooner or later, Hyphen needs to attempt a lighter materials, like strengthened excessive power aluminum, to allow them to really connect the 3D printed driver to a golf membership. Additionally they need to concentrate on optimizing the texture, and attaining a wider “candy spot” for the place the motive force connects with the ball.

3D Printed Ski Boot

In one other 3D printed sporting items use case, GoEngineer AM Functions Engineers Peter Moe-Lange and Lukas Brokamp offered “Scan, Mannequin, Shred: Classes Discovered Designing and Printing a Ski Boot.” They scanned an current boot with a Creaform blue mild scanner and reverse engineered it utilizing SOLIDWORKS.

The corporate has entry to many various 3D printing options, so that they had a lot to select from to find the very best one for this specific software. As Moe-Lange defined, ski boots want “excessive flex and chilly climate influence resistance.”

They dominated out FDM as a result of it’s such an anisotropical course of, they have been nervous they’d find yourself with shearing. PolyJet normal supplies are too brittle for high-stress influence functions, in order that they have been left with resin and powder. GoEngineer went with the latter, particularly Selective Absorption Fusion (SAF) by Stratasys. Whereas not fairly as low cost as FDM, powder components are positively cheaper than resin, received’t degrade in daylight, and have thermal resilience and superior toughness.

Utilizing the SAF-driven H350, they printed 4 complete components for the ski boots utilizing Nylon PA11, which is similar materials GoEngineer used to print its Plinko chips for the AMUGexpo earlier within the week.

They launched into an “archaeological expedition to search out the components” in all of the powder, and used a PowerShot system from DyeMansion to blast the remaining off. To make sure higher security margins, the boots have been additionally vapor handled. Then, as soon as the mandatory {hardware} was added, it was time for Moe-Lange to subject take a look at the boots.

He defined that typical ski boots use loads of closely engineered specialised thermoplastics, like rubber tougheners, influence modifiers, and plasticizers. There simply isn’t a lot publicly out there analysis into how powder supplies deal with chilly temperatures, and as Moe-Lange discovered, the reply will not be too properly. Because the temperature dropped and the plastic received colder, the 3D printed boots grew to become “extra inflexible and tough to flex.”

The 3D printed ski boots are on the left, subsequent to the boot they scanned and reverse engineered.

Whereas they’re restricted by this diminished flexibility in chilly temperatures, 3D printed ski boots appear to be an actual risk. Moe-Lange mentioned that the know-how “aligns properly with the economics of ski boot manufacturing.” Nonetheless, powder-based know-how must advance for there to be true viability.

Expo Flooring Chats

Due to my journey delays, I solely had one evening on the AMUGexpo ground, so I made probably the most of it and visited loads of cubicles!

Earlier within the day, I’d spoken to Ali Tamijani, the CEO and Co-Founding father of generative design software program agency Novineer. He defined that the corporate’s NoviPath is about simulation particularly for FFF and FDM 3D printing. However at AMUG, Novineer was presenting NoviVision, which lets you add photos of a component to in a short time create 3D fashions. So I ended on the sales space to get a more in-depth look.

Tamijani mentioned it takes two minutes to create the STL, and two minutes to generate the STEP, so that you get the mannequin in below 5 minutes.

“The idea could be very easy. You’re taking a few photos of a component, after which it creates the digital mannequin.”

It may be imported in any CAD software program, and can be utilized for all the things from aerospace and protection to railway and automotive. Tamijani mentioned that greater than 600 components have been created with NoviVision. The answer doesn’t use photogrammetry, however is AI-based.

“We’re not making an attempt to reconstruct the half based mostly on all the pictures,” he defined. “It’s wanting on the pictures and the information to provide you with the half.”

You apparently don’t even want tremendous prime quality pictures for NoviVision to work. They’ll’t be blurry, however Tamijani mentioned it really works even when there are different issues within the background.

I additionally met with Skuld at AMUG. This Ohio-based firm developed an additive-enabled evaporative casting (AMEC) course of.

“There’s the explanation why that’s what we wish to work with versus different choices, and a part of it’s based mostly on affordability,” Skuld Founder and CEO Sarah Jordan advised me. “We use desktop printers to make metallic components, in order that critically drives down the fee.”

The corporate makes use of plenty of in style desktop materials extrusion printers, like Bambu methods.

“We primarily developed this course of for our personal functions, as a result of tooling and misplaced foam can get actually costly. So the objective is, what in case you don’t want tooling?”

Skuld sales space at AMUG

They do nonetheless make tooling if the volumes are excessive, and relying on the geometry of a component as properly. As Jordan jogged my memory, legacy castings are fairly blocky, so “not optimum print geometries.” So typically Skuld will print one thing, or they’ll machine it, or they’ll do each.

The corporate has some thrilling targets it’s working in direction of sooner or later. I mentioned it gave the impression of they have been up and operating, and Jordan mentioned it was extra “up and strolling.” They count on the entire manufacturing line at their Dayton-area facility to be prepared throughout the subsequent 5 weeks or so.

AMUG is all about constructing connections, each via studying and having enjoyable! Along with the each day sit-down lunches, the place you break bread with customers from all areas of the AM sector, the mid-week Theme Evening is a celebration I received’t quickly overlook. Our theme this yr was “Recreation On,” which I interpreted via an Oregon Path sport t-shirt. Along with internet hosting the AMUGderby, the entire arcade space of the Grand Sierra Resort was opened to us for 4 hours of VR video games, laser tag, old-school and newer arcade video games, and my private favourite, bumper vehicles.

The ultimate expertise of AMUG was the Household Closing Dinner and On line casino Evening. I’ve heard this occurs yearly, however I discovered it notably entertaining as a result of we have been already in a on line casino. However I have to say, it’s rather more enjoyable to gamble whenever you’re not enjoying with actual cash.

I hope to see everybody subsequent March in Atlantic Metropolis for AMUG 2027!

Photographs courtesy of Sarah Saunders for 3DPrint.com

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