When David Hartmann met Dr. Xiaofan Luo in Shanghai 10 years ago, something clicked: the two shared a vision to dramatically improve the simulation and optimization process for additive manufacturing (AM).
David Hartmann left his leadership position at Covestro about four years ago to found Helio Additive. Image courtesy of Helio Additive.
“Look,” Luo says, “I don’t think the fundamental problem is the hardware or the materials. The fundamental problem is the physics behind the process and the materials that are used in the process. Nobody understands this, nobody can predict this, and that’s why we can’t get the reliability that we want.”
Dr. Xiaofan Luo co-founded Polymaker in Shanghai in 2013 and continues to work closely with Helio Additive to develop the Dragon software. Photo of Polymaker.
Hartmann, long fascinated by digital manufacturing, agreed. But the New Zealand native was busy at the time with German materials giant Covestro AG in a leadership role in China. Five years ago, the two reunited in Germany and lamented the relative lack of technological advances in the AM industry. And sparks flared again.
Sparks turn into action
Luo, who earned his master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio and his doctorate in biomedical and chemical engineering from Syracuse University, ran a 3D materials company. PolymakerHe co-founded the company in Shanghai in 2013, with the company’s stated mission to simplify the creative process and “make 3D printing more accessible, accessible and efficient by providing high-quality materials and hardware.”
Hartman looked back on those early days and recounted his conversations with Luo during a recent phone interview from his home in New Zealand. Luo, a materials engineer and scientist, said he had some ideas on the subject. He said the 3D printing process could be significantly improved if “we could accurately predict at a very microscopic level the cooling of the part as it’s being printed, and bridge that with layer bonding and stress relief.” These factors, he noted, are the main causes of issues like warping and other performance degradation.
These before and after photos are a case study proving “right-first-time” printing. The “before” photo (left) was taken from the original operator settings, without Dragon. The “after” photo shows how Dragon optimized the part to print defect-free. For this, Helio used an industrial robotic arm-based LFAM printer and chose Polymaker’s Polycore ASA3012, an amorphous thermoplastic filled with 20 percent glass fiber. After optimization, the pyramid’s print speed also increased by 10 percent. Image courtesy of Helio Additive.
Predicting parameters for the “perfect print”
“Once we can do that, we can accurately predict the process parameters needed to get a perfect print. By the way, I expect our printing speeds to be two to five times faster. And we can significantly reduce the amount of scrap,” Luo continues.
The pair then went to Georgia Tech, where they collaborated with a friend and a postdoctoral student there. They secured funding and worked on the concept for about six months. Together, the team came to the conclusion that they’d done something really good.
Reinvigorated, Hartmann left Covestro at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and later Helio AdditiveThe goal: to build a physics-based process optimizer for additive manufacturing. “We thought this could be the catalyst for a whole new wave of growth for 3D printing,” Hartmann says.
Hartman says he started hiring some really smart engineers and figured he’d have it all figured out in six months. “And now, three and a half years later, we’re shipping our first product, which is amazing. We’re exactly where we set out to go, we’re just three years later than I thought we would be,” he says.
Finally, the dragon appears
in Rapid+TCT 2024 At the show in Los Angeles, they will finally unveil the fruit of their collaboration: a new software platform. DragonIn a statement released June 21, Delaware-based Helio called the product a “breakthrough process simulation and optimization software platform aimed at reducing costs and improving productivity in large-scale additive manufacturing.”
Dragon leverages first-principles physics for fast, code-free simulation and optimization, ensuring high-quality prints on the first try.”
While Helio has initially focused on large-format printers, or large-scale additive manufacturing (LSAM), Hartmann believes it will eventually benefit desktop and other types of AM as well. In a simple explanation of how it works, he referred to geometry code, or G-code, a common programming language that originated in the CNC (computer numerical control) machining field and has been adopted by the AM industry.
G-code is typically generated by slicer software. The software takes a 3D model, slices it into layers, and generates G-code commands for each layer. These commands tell the printer where to move, how fast to move, and when to extrude the filament.
Hartman explains that the slicer precisely determines the tool path for the machine, sets the extrusion parameters and outputs a set of instructions for the printer.
Helio Additive’s physically based Dragon software has been in development for over three years. Image courtesy of Helios Additive.
Fine-tuning the printing process
“When you go into the printing process, there are hundreds of thousands of parameters,” he said. These include the speed at which you travel, the amount of material you extrude, the ideal temperature, the tool path, etc. These parameters need to be optimized.
“What we do is take all the parameters we get in the form of a G-code file, optimize it and give us back something that will print reliably the first time. It’s usually a lot faster that way.”
How much faster depends on the original setup, but Helio has consistently seen speed improvements of 20 to 30 percent, he says, adding that mechanical properties (especially tensile strength in the Z direction) are also significantly improved.
Getting a large print right the first time can save a lot of time, money, and scrap. Hartman says he’s seen people print eight- or nine-metre-long hulls over two or three days, “and then all of a sudden on the third day there’s a defect and they have to scrap everything they’ve printed up to that point – that could be 400 or 500 kilos.”
The large-scale additive manufacturing printer is installed at Polymaker’s research and development facility in Changshu, China. It is a standard robotic arm-based machine that can use any type of thermoplastic material. Hartmann says that Dragon’s output is sent directly to the printer (via a G-code file) to print “right the first time,” improving machine performance and often resulting in faster speeds. Image courtesy of Helio Additive.
Eliminate costly waste
This makes Helio and Dragon very cost-effective, he says: “We charge the user per optimized layer of print, so if your current job is 1,000 layers, we charge you 1,000 tokens. … Our prices are very reasonable. So it might cost you $150 to optimize a hull, but you’ve saved $6,000 to $10,000 in wasted labor and scrap. You’re essentially buying this huge insurance on the quality of the part.”
Another powerful thing about Dragon is that it’s extremely fast, Hartman said. Users can run a simulation and get results in a matter of minutes or tens of minutes, depending on the size of the part. “It’s completely code-free.” Unlike other types of software, you don’t need an engineering degree or a ton of training to run it.
“With Dragon, you just enter a few parameters, upload a file, and you’re ready to go. It’s completely cloud-native, so there’s no need for customers to deploy any extensive infrastructure on their side; the cloud handles all the complexity for us.”
He said Helio also acts as a materials library: “Polymer physics and the materials side, materials characterization, is a big part of our core know-how, so we work with materials companies to bring their materials into Dragon.”Those customers pay Helio an annual subscription fee and store their materials in Dragon.
The Helio Additive team (David Hartmann sitting in the center) at their office in Changshu, China, about 60 miles northwest of Shanghai. Most of the team members are based in Changshu or work remotely from Shanghai. Image courtesy of Helio Additive.
Product Launch
To celebrate the highly anticipated product launch, Hartman said his company is offering a free trial of Dragon and free Polymaker materials (conditions apply). “This limited-time offer provides a fantastic opportunity for users to really experience the transformative power of Dragon and Polymaker materials,” Helio said.
Hartman believes LSAM is just the beginning: “We are seeing strong results in consumer and industrial FDM alike. [fused deposition modeling]”That’s why we work closely with some of the biggest companies in the FDM industry. Right now we’re working mainly in the industrial sector, but next year we’ll also be working with them in the consumer sector.”
