Cincinnati (the company, not the city) has acquired NVBOTS.
Cincinnati Inc is a manufacturer of fabrication equipment that’s been in operation for over 100 years, being founded in the 1890’s. They are located, ironically, some 40km OUTSIDE of Cincinnati itself.
In recent years the company has unsurprisingly ventured into 3D printing, as it has become a new style of fabrication that their customers may find welcome. They’ve developed a large scale 3D printing process they call “BAAM”, which can be used to print items such as this vehicle.
They’ve also marketed a corresponding “SAAM” system that can produce smaller items.
SAAM was actually a rebranded NVBOTS’ NVPro 3D printer, with some additions to provide additional production automation. The printer also includes a cloud system that permits group use of the machine.
So it seems that Cincinnati Inc. Has had a prior relationship with NVBOTs.
But who are NVBOTS? NVBOTS, short for New Valence Robotics Corporation, which was a Boston-based startup founded by some smart folks from MIT in 2014.
Their flagship product was (and is, I suppose) is the NVPro professional desktop 3D printer. The NVPro has a generous build volume of 188 x 200 x 239mm, but its hot end can hit a startling 500C! The print surface can also be heated to a ridiculous 250C, far above anything else I’ve seen.
These high temperatures make the NVPro a very capable machine in these days of professional desktop 3D printing, where the game is the ability to 3D print in as many engineering materials as possible. And with those temperature ranges, the NVPro will certainly be able to do that.
But that’s not all. The NVPro also includes a part ejection system of a sort. There is an arm that sweeps the plate clear of parts when prints complete. They’ll be collected in a bucket afterwards. This makes the NVPro a type of mini factory that could potentially be used to manufacture quantities of customized parts on a continuous basis.
That’s all great stuff, but why is Cincinnati Inc. buying them? They say:
“Cincinnati Incorporated’s participation in additive manufacturing has been within the large scale arena with BAAM. NVBOTS naturally compliments CI’s capabilities with smaller scale additive manufacturing systems, the growing ability to print in a wide array of materials, and automated solutions including cloud based management software,” said Carey Chen, CI president, CEO, and vice chairman.
“This partnership represents an exciting opportunity to extend NVBOTS’ core mission to make 3D printing as easy as printing on paper, and to fulfill our long-term vision where anyone can 3D print any part, in any material, anytime, anywhere,” said AJ Perez, NVBOTS chairman and co-founder.
Ok. But to me this says that Cincinnati Inc., a company that is dedicated to selling fabrication equipment to buyers, knows something about this market. They know that the market for professional desktop 3D printing equipment is growing and they want a piece of that action, more than their previous resales arrangement could provide.
Meanwhile, NVBOTS themselves should get a boost from this. They are a small startup, while Cincinnati Inc. is a well-established company with an incredibly wide network of potential clients for the NVPro. It’s possible they may sell a great deal of these to industry.
Via Cincinnati Inc
