Change Your Mindset: How Automating Metal Support Generation Reduces Material Consumption and Makes 3D Printing More Economically Viable for Manufacturers

In our previous two articles of our Changing Your Mindset series, we covered how inefficient workflows and employee skill gaps are often caused by resistance to change. Usually, people are reluctant to upend production processes established through blood, sweat, and tears. And this method worked well enough in the past. However, innovations like Materialise e-Stage for Metal+ are game-changing, automating support generation to increase efficiency, repeatability, and reliability in metal 3D printing. Plus, it also allows companies to be more economical and sustainable.

In this final article of our three-part series, we’ll explore how changing your attitude toward support generation and embracing automation software can reduce material consumption and create more accurate builds.

Explore the other articles in the series:

1. How Automating Metal Support Generation Can Help You Avoid the Most Destructive Phrase in AM

2. How Automating Metal Support Generation Benefits Your Workforce and Production Methods

With traditional block support, a typical machine operator will generally think of how much support they’ll require and how hard it will be to remove. Such thinking often leads to a strategy where too much material is used for supports. This is without properly considering other areas like a part's accuracy or surface quality, for example. Automated support generation software takes that dilemma away, providing the right amount of support where needed, to provide repeatable parts at scale. Additionally, automation software can help you during the important post-processing stage, particularly in areas such as powder, part, or support removal, and plate re-surfacing.

e-Stage for Metal+’s open structure allows the powder to flow straight out of the structure into the machine, allowing you to recapture and recycle more powder. Plus, more porous structures are helpful in terms of health and safety. Employees won’t have to use unconventional methods to remove excess material (such as using small hand tools to dislodge powder) or carry heavy platforms full of surplus powder across a workshop. Additionally, if electric discharge machining (EDM) is required, un-sintered powder is occasionally trapped in the support, leading to EDM shorting and rethreading, an issue avoided with e-Stage for Metal+.

“The software not only makes things easier, but it’s also a risk reduction method,” says Chris Jastrzembski, Regional Account Manager at Materialise Software North America. “It’s tough getting your hard-earned parts out of a machine, only to see them damaged later on. You don’t want to go through all that work to then scrap a part near the end of the process; it’s demoralizing. e-Stage de-risks human error,” he says.

De-risking human error is pivotal, along with minimizing unnecessary supports. Both factors can greatly affect the cost of support removal during the post-processing phase.

“For years, operators added more and more support, leading to over-supporting their part. And while they achieved successful prints, they incurred huge costs regarding excess material usage and increased risk of damaging the part,” continues Ian O'Loughlin, Metal Technology Practice Lead at Materialise Software. “But with e-Stage’s extremely fine structures, it’s now easier to remove them, even with basic hand tools. This minimizes outsourcing and decreases material consumption — good for the environment and your wallet.”

Thin support structures speed up post-processing times, providing advantages to your plate re-surfing capabilities, employee morale, and overall part quality. “They’re a breeze to remove, meaning your team spends less time waiting around and more time getting things done. It enables a smoother operation, shorter timelines, and even savings of up to a third of surfacing costs!” says Chris. “There’s quite a difference between e-Stage and e-Stage+: we’ve leveled up the software, making great software solution even better. The latter always wins in terms of iterations, and sometimes by quite a margin. And compared to traditional methods, it’s huge. You can reduce iterations from five times down to one. Furthermore, e-Stage+ has minimal impact on the surface quality, as supports have low, point surface contact per needle, making excessive grinding redundant,” adds Ian.

As demonstrated throughout this article series, inefficient workflows, employee skill gaps, and excess material consumption can derail your laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) production. However, going against the grain and adopting a different mindset is the first step in making metal 3D printing a little easier. The second is embracing new technology like e-Stage for Metal+.  
It’s the ideal solution for companies wanting to mitigate these factors, and it may also help increase the adoption rate in the manufacturing industry.

“This advanced tool makes metal 3D printing more accessible — and in a knowledge-short market with a material that requires a huge learning curve, that’s only a good thing,” says Stephen Howard, Account Manager at Materialise Software.

“Also, a good part is something that can be printed repeatedly, accurately, and within budget,” states Ian. “There’s no point printing a part if it’s not economically viable to do so. We need to work with better tools and take the guesswork out of the metal 3D printing process — e-Stage+ is that tool.”

As better tools become more available in the market, the price per part will decrease, dramatically increasing the adoption rate. This will help companies use metal 3D printing to its full potential and push it into mainstream manufacturing. So, it’s time you take on a new mindset. Don’t be left behind. Why not maximize AM’s potential and take the guesswork out of your LPBF production with automatic support generation software?