Zero-point clamping technology in additive production

The exclusive production of prototypes in additive production with metal powder is a thing of the past. Even pre-finished standard parts of the highest quality have long since been manufactured by means of the additive method. Car manufacturers and their suppliers as well as toolmakers and mould makers and other sectors, such as medical technology, rely with increasing success on the production of pre-finished standard parts by means of tool-free manufacturing in 3D print. The fact that machine manufacturers are also becoming aware of this is evident in that entire machine series are already fitted with the zero-point system from AMF at the factory. This means that users immediately achieve high productivity.

Set-up times can be reduced by 90 percent or more

However, 3D printing alone is not enough. Subsequently, further processes such as cleaning and measurement procedures as well as milling, drilling or sawing tasks mostly follow. Since the workpiece together with the base plate must then be clamped on another machine each time, it starts to become difficult. Now zero-point clamping technology can make fully use of its benefits. At a very early stage, the experts at AMF already realised the benefits that zero-point clamping systems have to offer. If this AMF zero-point interface is deployed on 3D printers and implemented on all subsequent processes, set-up times can be reduced by more than 90 percent throughout the entire production process. Instead of having to reconfigure the base plate with the component for each follow-up process, zero is "reset" only once and the zero point is then simply "taken along".

This uniform interface creates a standard that streamlines additive manufacturing considerably. Since all processes work with the same reference value, workpieces and tools do not have to be re-calibrated on each machine. This not only saves an incredible amount of time, but it also prevents errors during clamping. This provides reassurance that the required levels of accuracy are complied with during manual operation as well as with automated installations. Speaking of automation: Thanks to the standard interface, AMF zero-point clamping technology achieves the conditions required in the first place for automated production processes. Such a standardised process chain is actually the basis for automated population by robots. For only in this way is it possible for a robot to remove the workpieces fully automatically from one machine and to position them in the next one.