November 30, 2020January 13, 2021 | The Essentium Team Injection Molding vs 3D Printing: Complementary, Not Competing Technologies Much has been written about how additive manufacturing can be a replacement for injection molding technology to mass produce end-use parts at scale. While it is true that advances in 3D printing have moved the quantity needle farther to the right, especially when using high speed extrusion technology on a fleet of 3D printers operating […] Read More
November 24, 2020January 14, 2021 | The Essentium Team Optimizing Part Design for Speed and Material Savings With High Speed Additive Manufacturing—Part 2 In Part 1 we presented several basic best practices to optimize part design for high speed extrusion to maximize 3d printer extrusion rate. We learned that by avoiding sharp corners and merging linkable bodies where possible, we can maximize print speed, and just as importantly, maintain a consistent material temperature and flow to print the […] Read More
November 18, 2020January 14, 2021 | The Essentium Team Optimizing Part Design for Speed and Material Savings With High Speed Additive Manufacturing—Part 1 Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) can unlock the potential for additive manufacturing in many different applications including jigs and fixtures, casting, and end-use part production. Read More
November 2, 2020November 2, 2020 | Blake Teipel Investing in the Future Part 3 of 3: What’s Next for Venture Capital in Additive Manufacturing? In this final chapter of my story about raising venture capital for a hardware startup, I discuss the future of Additive Manufacturing, where the industry is headed, and where I believe the investment dollars will flow to in the years ahead. My hope is that you can use my experiences and foresight to better position […] Read More
October 27, 2020October 29, 2020 | Blake Teipel Investing in the Future Part 2 of 3: 5 Tips for Hardware Manufacturers to Overcome Challenges to Raising Capital In my last post, I talked about the challenges of raising capital for a hardware startup and WHY you need courageous investors. This time, I dig a little deeper to tell you about HOW I found them, along with some tips on emulating Essentium’s success in your next venture. Read More
October 22, 2020January 13, 2021 | Blake Teipel Investing in the Future Part 1 of 3: Seeking Courageous Investors Raising capital for a hardware-based startup can be a real challenge. It’s not just about securing financing, but seeking the right kind of money from the right type of investor. I learned that finding a courageous investor who shares your vision for the future can make all the difference. Here’s my story of how we […] Read More
September 14, 2020December 1, 2020 | Blake Teipel Transforming the Factory Floor AND Your Perceptions of 3D Printing Historically, 3D printing has been viewed as a prototyping technology — toys for engineers and inventors to experiment with different designs and materials on a small scale. When a product is ready for mass production, that’s when proven subtractive manufacturing processes usually take over to make the molds and affordably produce large quantities at scale […] Read More
August 25, 2020November 30, 2020 | The Essentium Team Essentium Takes PEEK to the Next Level PEEK is a high-performance, semi-crystalline thermoplastic polymer used extensively in the aerospace, oil and gas, medical device, and chemical process industries. It has excellent mechanical and chemical resistance properties that are retained at elevated temperatures, with some grades having a continuous-use operating temperature of up to 500° F (260° C). PEEK is highly resistant to […] Read More
August 12, 2020November 30, 2020 | The Essentium Team Essentium Makes Additive Manufacturing-Powered Supply Chains a Reality Digital transformation is affecting every aspect of business operations, from resource procurement to end-user delivery. New technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, robotics, and autonomous vehicles are reshaping every link in the supply chain, automating and modernizing entire workflows. Read More
August 5, 2020November 30, 2020 | The Essentium Team 3D Printing’s Impact on Sustainability No matter how you slice it, when you make something using traditional subtractive manufacturing processes, you create waste through cutting, grinding, drilling or otherwise machining away sections from a solid block of raw material to create a desired form — material that you paid for. Read More