Renishaw
Assembly Line
Renishaw’s Tempus: An Algorithm for Faster Metal 3D Printing
LPBF systems have a “recoater”, which is essentially a wide blade. It pushes fine metal powder onto the print area and ensures it is completely flat. Then the laser blasts areas to fuse some of the powder into the desired part. The process repeats, layer by layer until the entire object is built. The sequence of lasering and recoating occurs over and over during a print job, with each sequence contributing to a single layer. The total duration of the print job is the sum of both the laser activity time and the recoating time.
Tempus is a new laser scanning algorithm that’s implemented on the Renishaw’s RenAM 500 series of metal 3D printers. The idea of Tempus is to light up the lasers while the recoating is still ongoing. The result is that a portion of the recoating time is eliminated because the lasers become active earlier on each layer. Renishaw told us that the savings can be as much as nine seconds per layer. They said that while the speed up effect varies depending on the job, the average savings is about 30% for each job.
Tempus can be installed on existing machines with a firmware upgrade, and company representatives explained that it should be available towards the end of Q1 2024.
50 not out: UK manufacturing success story, Renishaw, reaches a half century
Renishaw began its manufacturing journey back in 1973 when now Executive Chairman, Sir David McMurtry, worked as an Assistant Chief of Engine Design for Rolls-Royce. At the time the company was experiencing a dimensional measurement issue in relation to the manufacture of the Olympus engines that powered the supersonic Concorde aircraft. McMurtry had a reputation as a great innovator and troubleshooter and his ingenuity brought about the creation of a prototype touch-trigger probe for co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs).
Although today, a significant amount of Renishaw’s business is still derived from contact and non-contact measurement systems for CMMs and machine tools, the company now supplies a wide range of metrology systems for calibration, position feedback and gauging, plus associated accessories including styli and fixturing. The company has also applied its core expertise in measurement, manufacturing and process control to develop systems for non-destructive testing using Raman spectroscopy, robots and drug delivery systems for brain surgery, and is also a technology leader in the field of metal additive manufacturing (3D printing).
As metrology equipment has been rolled out on the shop floor, and integrated into automation, process control has become increasingly close knit. The data that results can be utilised to keep processes running and for validation. However, it can also provide visualisation into what’s going on in the factory. The company has recently launched Renishaw Central, a data collection system that allows data consolidation from Renishaw and third-party devices. The system provides all the process history of the part as it’s gone through the factory.