Markforged today unveiled its newest industrial 3D printer, the FX10, which the company said will help reduce costs and cut lead times from months to days compared to traditional manufacturing methods.
“We engineered the FX10 to be the best tool for the manufacturing floor,” said Shai Terem, CEO of Markforged. “The FX10 allows manufacturers to slash original part replacement costs when compared to traditional methods and keep production lines running without worrying about supply chain issues or spare parts inventory. The FX10 can accelerate the digitization of the manufacturing floor by increasing the adoption of digital inventory to build supply chain resiliency. Our customers now have the potential to save even more capital by reducing physical inventory and boosting production yields while decreasing operating costs.”
The printer's modular systems are engineered to be expanded and upgraded with additional capabilities. For example, the FX10 has been designed to incorporate a printhead integrated vision module to capture detailed part images and data to further ensure part quality and optimize printer performance. The 5th Generation Continuous Fiber Reinforcement (CFR) print system delivers high print quality in a heated print chamber allowing for print speeds that are nearly twice as fast and print sizes that are up to twice as large as previous Markforged industrial series printers, enabling the replacement of metal parts with advanced composites.
The FX10 was designed to ensure easy adoption on the manufacturing floor starting with the first line operator. A simple touchscreen interface combined with new automation and quality assurance technologies enable users to get more parts out of the FX10 with fewer interactions needed by the operator before and during a print than with previous Markforged printers.
The printhead-mounted optical sensors automatically verify the dimensional accuracy of parts during the print to ensure consistency and reliability, while also assessing machine health and performance. The laser micrometer in the FX10 scans parts during printing and assists with the machine’s automatic calibration. Inspection software interprets the data from the sensors for dimensional verification, providing users with quality assurance as soon as a print finishes.
The material drawer of the FX10 contains built-in, individually sealed storage bays for up to four 800cc spools. FX10 is able to automatically execute spool changeovers between filament storage bays during a print, and users can reload empty spool bays without disrupting a print.
The Digital Forge is the additive manufacturing platform for modern manufacturers that enables every aspect of the FX10. A complete additive manufacturing platform consisting of printers, cloud-enabled software with process improvement tools and a wide range of industrial materials, The Digital Forge is purpose-built to integrate into existing manufacturing ecosystems. With the Digital Forge, users can share parts across their organization, and monitor fleet performance from a central location.
