The complete 3D printing workflow was on show in Boston at RAPID+TCT final week, from design software program and 3D printing {hardware} all the way in which to post-processing and ending options. For years, the latter has been brushed apart, not talked about, hidden away because the trade’s “soiled little secret.”
PostProcess Applied sciences
As Jeff Mize, CEO of PostProcess Applied sciences, as soon as instructed us, the corporate is working to vary this narrative with its automated options.
PostProcess Applied sciences sales space at RAPID+TCT 2026.
Stratasys & Unified Workflows
PostProcess is most aligned with Stratasys, which Mize calls the corporate’s “main associate.” Its options work “with 4 of the 5 core applied sciences” that Stratasys gives, together with FDM, SLA, PolyJet, and P3. One in every of its newer techniques is the DEMI X 5000, a large-format resin elimination machine that works with the Stratasys Neo800+.
“So the DEMI 4100 was the primary era for large-format resin elimination, pairing with the Neo800+ and different large-format printers. For the DEMI X 5000, we’ve discovered rather a lot from having the DEMI 4100 put in for plenty of years, and for plenty of difficult purposes, together with at Method 1 groups.”
PostProcess used suggestions from the Method 1 groups to tell its enhancements to the DEMI 5000, like “higher agitation to have the ability to work with convex and concave components.”
Whereas PostProcess works with many 3D printer OEMs, like 3D Programs and 3DCERAM, Stratasys is unquestionably its primary. Their just lately introduced partnership, which Mize calls “a serious milestone,” partially happened as a result of the DEMI 4100 was put in at Stratasys Direct Manufacturing (SDM) in Tucson, Arizona and used “day in and time out.” Then, the BASE system for automated FDM assist elimination was dropped at SDM.
“So there was nice success at Stratasys Direct, together with their Buyer Expertise Facilities in Minnesota and Germany,” Mize stated. “They’d firsthand expertise with our options, and as importantly, they heard from lots of of our joint clients, that this post-processing resolution drives a big improve in consistency, way more throughput, and offers a decrease price per half.”
Extra importantly, many of those clients simply need a unified workflow.
“I assumed we would want to get into manufacturing purposes to essentially have the ability to scale the enterprise, however we’re seeing the necessity even in prototyping purposes,” Mize instructed me. “We do see manufacturing purposes on the near-term horizon. And there, automated post-printing isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential.”
PostProcess Applied sciences sales space at RAPID+TCT 2026.
Partnerships just like the one PostProcess has with Stratasys are additionally useful as a result of it’s less complicated to have the 3D printer and post-print resolution come collectively on one quote. Mize stated that Dallas Martin, Additive Manufacturing Engineer at Toyota North America, was one of many greatest proponents for simplifying issues on this method.
“From a expertise perspective, having a unified resolution is important, but in addition from a industrial perspective,” Mize stated. “It’s simpler to put one PO as a substitute of getting to work with two completely different firms.”
Security in Publish-Printing
We then moved on to security, which Mize stated “is driving in all probability 50% of our conversations right this moment.”
Whereas he wasn’t capable of title names as a consequence of NDAs, Mize did word that PostProcess is working with high firms in a few of the major sectors, like aerospace, automotive, medical, and client items. Actually, the corporate’s largest buyer, a number one client items firm, simply bought its twenty fifth and twenty sixth techniques from PostProcess this quarter.
Working with such huge names, security is “a important a part of the dialogue.” Mize really stated he heard from the pinnacle of security at one of many firm’s main aerospace clients that as a result of “the subsequent era actually cares about protected work environments,” security is now getting used as a recruiting instrument.
A few of its aerospace and automotive clients have banned using open chemical dunk tanks for resin elimination, as Mize stated they’ve resulted in accidents at some firms. He additionally stated that medical firms are even beginning to ban isopropyl alcohol (IPA).
“As a result of our options are safer, from the design of the machines and the way the software program works, after which in all probability most significantly the chemistry, general we’re offering a safer work setting, which is important for everybody. However particularly, aerospace and automotive and medical are driving this.”
PostProcess developed an alternative choice to IPA for resin elimination referred to as PLM-403, in addition to a rinse agent referred to as AUX-400. So the corporate now gives a very IPA-free workflow.
Resolution Utilization
The third level Mize touched on throughout our dialogue was how clients are utilizing PostProcess Applied sciences’ options.
“Our recurring consumable enterprise is rising very quickly, and is definitely forward of plan,” he stated. “Clients which have our options are utilizing them on a really common foundation. So we’re seeing print volumes growing and the post-print utilization growing.”
Earlier this yr, the corporate printed its 2026 Additive Publish-Processing Survey Traits Report, which outlines buyer issues, and the post-processing bottleneck was excessive on the checklist. Mize stated that over time, the survey constantly exhibits that “clients now not need to piecemeal the options collectively half by half.”
“It was strengthened by our survey that clients need these unified options,” Mize defined. “They need a safer setting, they want extra constant components, larger throughput at a decrease whole price of possession. After which one different caveat is don’t have an effect on the fabric properties.”
To this finish, Mize shortly defined that one other perk of the corporate’s partnership with Stratasys is working extra carefully with their materials science groups, “in order that as we’re growing subsequent era chemistries, we perceive at a molecular degree what the print supplies are manufactured from.”
DEMI X 520 at RAPID+TCT 2026.
By way of particular buyer purposes, Mize talked about that PostProcess Applied sciences has had success with a number of dental firms, together with the Ninety! Dental Manufacturing Middle in France, which is a buyer of each Stratasys and PostProcess.
“The senior management at Ninety! stated, we need to have a unified workflow as a result of our volumes are growing,” Mize stated. “So we’ll work carefully with Stratasys on their next-generation dental options. It’s not only a printer providing, it’s a unified workflow providing.”
Mass Ending, Inc. (MFI)
Talking of dental 3D printing, I seen that that is additionally a selected utility for the brand new HZ-6 centrifugal barrel ending machine, which Mass Ending, Inc. (MFI) debuted at RAPID. However it’s by no means just like PostProcessing Applied sciences’ resin elimination options.
MFI’s new HZ-6 at RAPID+TCT 2026.
Centrifugal Barrel Finishers
MFI manufactures floor ending gear and provides, specializing in high-energy centrifugal barrel tumblers, just like the compact HZ-6, that may shortly deburr and polish 3D printed metals, plastics, and different supplies.
As MFI’s Exterior Gross sales Consultant Mike Marketon defined, “Principally, we are able to take components from a very tough state, and polish them and clear up.”
One of these ending makes use of centrifugal drive (outward drive on a mass when it’s rotated) to, as MFI’s brochure defined, “topic components and media to pressures higher than the drive of gravity.” The barrels on these machines are loaded with a mixture of water, components, media, and compound. Because the machine rotates, the barrels spin on their very own axis, and a sliding drive is created contained in the barrels, which causes every part inside to hit one another in random instructions.
MFI sales space at RAPID+TCT 2026.
There are numerous variations of those sorts of machines, from smaller vibratory bowls and tubs that rotate in only one route to centrifugal barrel tumblers with 4 barrels. The HZ-6 is MFI’s most compact system but, with a footprint of lower than six sq. toes and solely two barrels, which may accommodate components as much as 8″ lengthy and 4.5″ in diameter. For comparability, Marketon stated the corporate’s HZ-330 machine “would take up this complete sales space after which some.”
MFI’s centrifugal barrel tumblers can attain as much as 12 Gs of drive inside, and a urethane liner within the barrels retains the components from getting too beat up.
“The turret itself goes one route, and the barrels really go the opposite route,” Marketon defined. “So it’s doubling that drive after they’re rotating completely different instructions like that. In order that’s mainly what it does to generate energy to go from tough surfaces to a cultured floor.”
A few of MFI’s several types of media at RAPID+TCT 2026.
I requested concerning the degree of automation for MFI’s centrifugal barrel tumblers, and Marketon stated that whereas loading and unloading is guide, the remainder of the method is fairly hands-off. The corporate develops the particular recipe for buyer components, and as soon as these have been added, you “mainly plug it in, push the button, and stroll away.” You will want to unload and reload the components whenever you change media supplies, like going from a pre-polish media to 1 for mirror-finish sharpening, however it’s higher than the choice.
“It’s rather a lot much less time-consuming than individuals who must hand-polish,” Marketon stated. “Anyone’s standing there with a buffing wheel or one thing like that, it takes hours upon hours to get one half completed. We will normally carry that all the way down to a 3rd or much less.”
Inside MFI’s HZ-6 at RAPID+TCT 2026.
Compact HZ-6
Trying extra carefully on the new HZ-6, MFI states that it’s “the smallest industrial high-energy tumbler in the marketplace.” Its caster wheels make the machine straightforward to move, and I can personally attest that it’s additionally very quiet, working across the similar degree as a dishwasher would. Marketon stated it could be “a straightforward unit to have in a facility, dental lab, or medical lab.”
Standing at simply over three toes tall, it has two barrel positions, every of which may maintain both two half-sized barrels or one full-sized barrel. The half-sized barrels are good for heavy hundreds, high-mix manufacturing, and bigger components, whereas the full-sized barrels are for lengthy manufacturing runs, one high-volume half, or a number of small, light-weight components.
MFI sales space at RAPID+TCT 2026.
Publish-processing and ending options, like those supplied by PostProcess Applied sciences and MFI, ought to be on the forefront in all of our minds. What occurs to 3D printed components as soon as they arrive off the printer is simply as vital as designing them for the printer, and the precise printing course of itself.
Photographs courtesy of Sarah Saunders for 3DPrint.com
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