"Hybrid technology is exciting because it offers a new way to adopt additive manufacturing – as an upgrade to a CNC machine tool. Adding tool-changeable deposition heads to an existing CNC machine enables 3D printing of metal, without the need to buy a separate machine," says Dr Jason Jones, co-founder and CEO of Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies, based in Moira, Leicestershire and Plano, Texas. "This significantly reduces costs and provides an intuitive adoption path for CNC operators. The combination of additive [manufacturing] with machining offers new capabilities, including in-process finishing, that cannot be delivered by either technology independently."
Hybrid was presented with the inaugural International Additive Manufacturing Award (IAMA) during a reception at The Manufacturing for Growth Meeting in Orlando, Florida on 6 March. The IAMA is the result of a partnership between The Association for Manufacturing Technology and the German Machine Tool Builders' Association, and sponsored by the European Machine Tool Association CECIMO.
The company was founded in 2012 by Jones and Peter Coates as a spin-off from a De Montford University collaborative research and development project.
Jones will make a presentation about the technology at the Additive Manufacturing European Conference to be held Tuesday 6 October 2015 during EMO Milan 2015, 5-10 October.
The company says that although the technology is now for sale, it is targeted at early adopters. Machine guarding must be upgraded to be light-tight for laser safety purposes. The heads are controlled by the machine using G and M codes. Heads can be retrofitted or included as an option on a new machine.
The current system supports a range of processing heads with different geometries, laser profiles, powder delivery configurations and de-focused energy beams to support tasks including 3D deposition, cladding, marking, cutting, drilling, pre-heating, annealing/stress relieving, surface re-melting and cleaning.
