At this year’s RAPID event in Boston, HP Additive Manufacturing Solutions celebrated ten years in the additive manufacturing (AM) market.The company ushered in the milestone with several innovations, including the new entry-level Multi Jet Fusion 1200 system, new materials and powder handling for the Metal Jet platform, High Productivity print mode and Dual Tone technology for the Jet Fusion 5600, and general availability of the Industrial Filament 600 High Temperature (HP IF 600HT) 3D printer in the U.S.and Canada.
Several manufacturing industry journalists, including yours truly, recently had a chance to see a lot of these innovations up close at HP’s Vancouver, Washington site.HP’s Past & Present The 225,000 square foot R&D Center of Excellence has both office and lab space, and is just 15 minutes from the Portland International Airport, with about 25 colleges and universities nearby.Alex Moñino, Senior Vice President and General Manager, HP Additive Manufacturing Solutions, said it’s a “very desirable location” in the Silicon Forest.
HP was founded in 1939 with only $538 in capital.Now, the global technology company operates in over 180 countries and has more than $50 billion in business revenue.As for the 3D printing side of the business, Moñino said the goal was “never just to build a 3D printer, but to change how things are made.” HP’s first AM unit was purchased by Materialise, and its headquarters in Barcelona opened in 2018.
The company shifted its focus to selling applications about three years ago, and that decision has been profitable, with Moñino reporting that HP had 30% year-over-year growth for the second year in a row.A lot of this growth has been in automotive, consumer goods, drones, orthotics & prosthetics (O&P), and robotics.About 60% of HP’s customers are service bureaus, closely followed by development teams.
“We’ve printed over six million parts in the last month,” Moñino said.“We’re constrained more by supply than by demand right now.” The Science of MJF Clara Remacha, Head of Product Management, HP 3D Printing Polymers, explained a little of the science behind HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology.“As we introduce the new 1200, we’re getting into a new customer base, and they don’t quite know about MJF because they’re used to FDM,” she explained.
MJF is a powder bed fusion process: once the top layer is fused with the laser, you add another layer of powder, and then bury the parts.“Once you’ve done the top layer, you lose control, it’s just physics from that point on,” she explained.“But you do have control over the top layer.” HP uses infrared lamps to fuse layers with area-based fusing, “which is what gives us our productivity.” While point-based fusing is dependent on packing density and part geometry, area-based fusing is not, and can achieve predictable results regardless of those factors.
MJF spends more time fusing than other technologies, which equals less reactive materials.Another key characteristic of the technology is that it uses two proprietary agents—a detailing agent and a fusing agent—and the printer adjusts “on the fly” how much of each to use, and where to put it.7% packing density Remacha said that over the last decade, HP has reduced its cost per part by over 50%.
“We’e one of the most competitive technologies for powder,” she said.This statement is reflected in an exciting announcement: last week, U.S.3D printing services provider ADDMAN announced that it plans to add an additional 81 HP Jet Fusion 5620 Pro printers to its existing fleet, bringing its total number of MJF systems to more than 125.
The company says it’s running three shifts of HP printers every day.Customer Panel ADDMAN was actually onsite at the time, and Keith Schneider, General Manager at ADDMAN Polymer, joined Cody Laursen, Founder and CEO of Streamline 3D, for a customer panel, moderated by Katelyn Lennon, HP’s Senior AMS Campaign Manager.Both companies have been using MJF for about five years, and Laursen said the technology “helps us get parts to customers really fast.” “Now, additive is recognized as a legitimate way to make parts at a high scale, much more than 5 years ago,” Laursen said.
Schneider said that ADDMAN is working on scalability and adoption of MJF “as the number of parts for production continues to rise.” L-R: ADDMAN’s Keith Schneider, Streamline 3D’s Cody Laursen, HP’s Katelyn Lennon Lennon asked how they saw business optimized with MJF, and Laursen said that it “will keep getting faster and less expensive as time goes on.” Schneider said it was “having a queue of different parts you can pull from so you can maximize the build.” She also asked what they thought about the new 1200 printer, but both confirmed that their respective companies were not really the intended target customer, though Schneider did say that it was a “great entry point into the technology.” Unlocking Additive’s Full Potential François Minec, Vice President & Global Head of Sales and Business Development for HP AM Solutions, said manufacturing overall is recovering globally, and that additive specifically is back on the growth track.“For years, the 3D printing industry has been promising a lot and making crazy claims,” he said.“HP is taking a stand.
We want to make sure we’re trusted, so we’re under-promising and over-delivering.” François Minec, VP & Global Head of Sales & BD for HP AM Solutions So where does HP want to go? Minec said they want to enable more applications at scale by accelerating adoption, maintaining leadership, opening new markets, and reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by 50% in three years.Some upcoming products could help HP reach its goals.Dual Tone mode, enabling two-tone white and grey parts with integrated surface features, is coming in early 2027 as a free upgrade to the 5600.
By printing markings directly on parts, HP can simplify post-processing, and improve O&P patient experiences with custom devices.HP is also developing some new polymer materials, such as PA12 W (true white), PA12 S (better surface smoothness, enabled by Arkema), and PA12 FR (flame retardant, enabled by Evonik), as well as partnering with companies like GKN Additive (copper) and Continuum and INDO-MIM (nickel superalloys) to work on metals.HP’s Industrial Filament Speaking of materials, Ferran Vilanova, Director of 3D Business, said there’s a “very relevant” market space for high-temperature materials like PEEK and ULTEM 9085, but they’re expensive, and for good reason.
“But we’re missing out on a big chunk of the market if we’re not working with this,” he stated.That’s why earlier this year, they released the HP IF 600HT, an open materials platform that comes with three print modules covering different temperatures, and a complementary Material Management System (MMS).It’s the same HP filament technology, but with some extra features that make it attractive to industrial, high-performance environments, such as aerospace and defense, railway, and motorsports.
The MJF 1200 Product Manager Marc Garcia discussed the unofficial star of the show: the new HP 1200, available in 2027.“We kept hearing one thing—how can we bring this technology to everyone?” Garcia said.Customers couldn’t fit the original MJF systems in their office space, and the cost was prohibitive to those wanting a more entry-level but still professional solution.
So the team had a hackathon a few years ago to determine how to make MJF more compact and accessible, and the 1200 was born.Product Manager Marc Garcia with the HP 1200 It’s simpler, with everything integrated in one carriage and usable with standard electric outlets, and features a smaller build volume of 12 liters, enabling gravity-feed and manual bucket management as opposed to pneumatic transport.But it inherited some of HP’s proven assets, like a split workflow, electronics from the 2D side of the business, automated unpacking (integrated into the MMS), and an integrated camera.
It’s roughly $60,000 for the printer, Magics build prep software, and the unpacking station, and about $48,000 for the printer itself.The 1200 is launching with PA12, and more materials will come later.While Garcia said he can’t share how many orders they’ve received so far, he did say the number was a pleasant surprise, and that they may be entering allocation mode early.
He also said that the segment most interested in the new 1200 is small- to medium-sized companies, “which we weren’t reaching before.” They told us the new 1200 is about strong, easy, and fast: Strong: the parts have been tested in challenging environments, like underwater and in vehicles.There’s also a strong ecosystem, including MJF, Materialise Magics, and part cleaning, powered by an as yet unnamed party.Easy: it has 56% less operator time than market alternatives, thanks to automatic loading and unpacking and predictable print times.
It’s also easy to adopt, as it physically fits in most workspace, and the fact that there are 200+ service bureaus in the HP AM Network.Fast: the cycle time is 60% faster than market alternatives.Fast also means a smarter build shape, with more liters and horizontal printing.
HP Multi Jet Fusion 1200 3D Material Management System Garcia said that the real innovation is actually the Material Management System (MMS), because customers care less about the actual 3D printing and more about how much of the unpacking and depowdering can be automated.Thanks to the system’s quiet vibrations, about 95% of printed powder can be recovered and later reused.MJF Applications While at the Vancouver site, we also got to see a large sampling of the many applications enabled by MJF, such as O&P, which Brian Ingold, Global Head of Business Development & Applications Solutions, said has “crossed the chasm.” “We estimate that about 7% of O&P printing is with MJF,” he said.
“It’s a great success story.We consider ourself part of the O&P industry.” Brian Ingold, Global Head of Business Development & Applications Solutions Pierre Kaiser, Head of 3D Design at HP, said a 3D printed neck brace can be “medically designed for every patient in a unique way.” He showed us one with a specific mechanism on it that enables patients to leave the brace on when they eat.He also shared that a major HP partner is Veterans Affairs (VA), “probably the largest O&P provider in the world.” HP’s new Dual Tone technology is being used for a lot of O&P prints, because it can easily customize the medical devices.
Pierre Kaiser, Head of 3D Design Ingold, whom I spoke with at IMTS about drones, showed us a 3D printed version of a foam-light drone that is very lightweight, but difficult to assemble.He said they asked ChatGPT to “read” the assembly manual, and, using Dual Tone, add each step to each part; I thought this was an awesome idea! Continuing the drone discussion, Ingold showed us a packed block filled with quadcopter parts.Each quadcopter has six parts, and HP can print about 130 parts at once.
He also said that HP has even been working on 3D printing underwater drones, or UUVs.Principal Applications Engineer Matthew Smith showed us some parts made with HP’s Metal Jet technology.He said that they’re seeing more metal AM used in applications with “more complexity in smaller spaces,” like manifolds and piping.
Matthew Smith, Principal Applications Engineer I also had the chance to have a one-on-one chat with Moñino, who said that they’re seeing a lot of momentum in the U.S., again reflected in the recent ADDMAN investment.“We have a strong funnel across the world and in particular the U.S.,’ he said.“My biggest worry is to enable the supply.
That’s my biggest job right now as a general manager is to make sure we have enough supply to fulfill the demand that we’re seeing on the market, which is a fantastic problem to have, but still a challenge.” I asked where HP is heading in the next few years, and he said the biggest thing they’re working on is “enabling demand of parts.” To do this, he said you have to start “application by application, segment by segment.” But it’s also about enabling the engineering teams to do it.“So we’ve been leveraging, for instance, digital platforms like Xometry, in order to make MJF kind of the preferred [choice], and it’s really been working, and it’s part of the growth.” Moñino also told me about the #HPMadewithMJF campaign that they “want to get out there, and create more awareness of that standard to people and engineers who just don’t know.” Check out some more of my pictures below: High-fiving the bionic humanoid robot hand! Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.Print Services Upload your 3D Models and get them printed quickly and efficiently.
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