EOS of North America Inc., a division of EOS GmbH, the leading manufacturer of laser-sintering systems, announced today that Vaupell Rapid Solutions has selected the EOSINT M 270 Direct Metal Laser-Sintering (DMLS) system for the production of tooling inserts, prototype parts, and end products directly in metal. Vaupell is a division of Vaupell Molding and Tooling, Inc., and a leading American rapid prototyping and manufacturing service bureau.

Vaupell collaborates with clients to meet their rapid prototyping, product design, tooling, and manufacturing challenges. “The M 270 will allow many of our customers to more quickly evaluate functional prototypes in actual or close-to-actual end materials, and in design configurations and time frames not possible with any other established process,” says General Manager Steve Ettelson.

The EOSINT M 270 DMLS system produces metal parts from a variety of materials including bronze-based alloys, a cobalt-chrome super alloy, titanium Ti64, and maraging and stainless steels. Typical applications are tooling, engineered products and medical implants, among others. The system uses a focused, 200W ytterbium-fiber laser to melt metal powder, which fuses into a solid part. It builds parts layer by layer, often with less post processing than traditional CNC machining, and it operates fully automatically and completely unattended.

Metal parts made with the M 270 offer high accuracy and detail resolution, good surface quality, and excellent mechanical properties. “We put the M 270 in our machining department instead of our rapid prototyping department,” says Ettelson, “because we view DMLS as very complementary to machining.”

The M 270 can also produce complex mold geometries, such as integrated conformal cooling channels, that are not possible in traditional tool making processes. “We know the needs of our customer base and are very confident that the M 270 will provide breakthrough capabilities in several areas,” says Ettelson. “For example, being a world leader in molding high-temperature thermoplastics, we expect to significantly reduce our manufacturing cycle times with the conformal cooling possibilities offered by DMLS.”

“We are delighted that Vaupell Rapid Solutions selected our DMLS system to be a key component of their next-generation product design and fabrication services,” says Jim Fendrick, EOS vice president for North America. “The M 270 empowers innovative companies like Vaupell Rapid Solutions to create completely new products for their clients.”

About EOS of North America Inc.

EOS of North America Inc. sells, services, supports, and markets the entire EOS line of rapid prototyping, rapid tooling, and rapid manufacturing systems. This includes solutions for plastic laser-sintering as well as Direct Metal Laser-Sintering (DMLS). Founded in 1989, EOS GmbH is a world leader in the manufacture of laser-sintering systems. Laser-sintering is the key technology for e‑Manufacturing: the fast, flexible and cost-effective production directly from CAD data. The technology accelerates product development and optimizes production processes. EOS has completed its business year 2006/2007 with revenues in laser-sintering of €59.7 million (approximately $88 million), which is an increase of 14 percent compared to the previous year. EOS GmbH is headquartered in Krailling/Munich, Germany.
 




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