Meticulous sawing of additively-manufactured components

Formnext is the international trade fair for additive manufacturing technologies and their upstream and downstream processes. This year the event will be held from 19 to 22 November in Frankfurt am Main – and the KASTO Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG will be there showcasing an innovative sawing concept. The company now has a high-performance automatic band saw especially designed to handle individual cuts of additively-produced components – the KASTOwin amc. An integrated 180° turning device ensures an efficient, precise and careful sawing process.

The KASTOwin amc is specially designed for separating additively-manufactured components from their base plates. The machinability of the materials can vary from easy to difficult. The band saw is equipped with a turning device that can rotate workpieces by 180°. The parts are machined upside down – and this is a much safer process, because they cannot overturn or buckle after cutting; the parts simply fall into the intended container without being damaged. The base plate can be easily placed on the device with a crane or handling device and screwed on manually. An optional quick-clamping system is also available.

The KASTOwin amc is fully enclosed to prevent the ambient air from becoming contaminated with tiny particles, which are detrimental to health and may arise during the machining of additively manufactured components. The machine is prepared for the connection of an extraction system and it also provides easy access for material supply and removal. The safety doors can be opened for loading and unloading of the base plate. The user enters the thickness of the baseplate via the standard SmartControl controller and the saw then automatically saws the parts to the corresponding dimensions. The cutting range of the KASTOwin amc is standard at 400 x 400 millimetres, but an optional version with a cutting range of 500 x 400 millimetres is also available. The KASTOwin amc can be monitored by remote control for easy troubleshooting and the optimisation of processes.

With its innovative sawing concept, KASTO is also part of the NextGenAM project, which is aimed at automating additive manufacturing in industrial environments. The initiators are the aerospace supplier Premium AEROTEC, the vehicle manufacturer Daimler and the technology provider EOS. The project is aimed at the development of a complete system to produce aluminium components for the automotive and aerospace industries. Within the framework of this project, the KASTOwin amc is used in the Technology Centre in Varel (TZV), where the first automated pilot plant for industrial 3D printing and post-processing has been commissioned.

Source and photo: Kasto