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Text: James Woodcock
DAIHEN, a Japanese heavy-electrical manufacturer founded in 1919, has entered metal Additive Manufacturing with the ArcBuilder 3D, its first AM product. The system is a wire arc DED system, built around DAIHEN's proprietary AC Synchro-Feed welding. That process synchronizes high-speed forward and backward wire feeding with the welding current, which cuts spatter by more than 98 percent according to the company. Applied to printing, it reportedly enables high-speed, lower-temperature builds without giving up deposition volume, and DAIHEN reports a 24 percent gain in build efficiency over conventional welding.
The machine switches welding waveforms to suit steel, stainless steel and aluminum alloys, and ships with software that generates toolpaths for complex CAD geometry and handles robot programming. The systems process and management should reportedly allow for smoother surfaces and less pronounced layer lines than typical WAAM output, which DAIHEN attributes to developing both the power source and the robot in-house. System cost is expected to be around $450,000-500,000.
