Eden Prairie-based Stratasys Ltd has spun off its small, powder-based 3-D printing operation into a new independent company called Vulcan Labs Inc., officials announced Tuesday.
Stratasys, which manufacturers large commercial 3-D printers and performs contract manufacturing for customers, said it will retain an ownership stake in Vulcan Labs.
The new entity will be based in Belton, Texas. It came to be after Stratasys bought a production-oriented service bureau in 2014 called Harvest Technologies. Now the entity is being spun off.
Going forward, Vulcan Labs will focus on improving its "powder bed fusion technology," which uses one or more moving thermal lasers to fuse together nylon powder particles that lie in a tray.
The goal is for the technology to improve so it's faster and can consistently repeat production specifications for quality, finishes and other features.
The powder-bed technology has been developing for several years. It is preferred by select customers because the end product has a consistent structure and smoother finish than some other 3-D printing techniques. Industry experts said the powder bed printers have been welcome by factories that need to make up to 1,000 finished parts quickly and not just a single prototype.
Powder-bed fusion printing is an alternative to traditional 3-D printers, which typically deposit and stack thousands of lines of molten plastic in different configurations until a specific shape or product emerges.
3-D printing technology has grown from a novice industry a decade ago into a multi-billion dollar industry that is omnipresent in factories around the globe.
The technology now offers lots of options and is liked by manufacturers because it cuts the time and cost to make prototypes and small batch parts. 3-D printing is widely used to manufacture airplane and auto parts, patient anatomy models, medical school training tools and industrial product prototypes.
