3DPOD: Insight from 3D Printing Pros

Arun Jeldi has a manufacturing firm that caters to the defense community. When Velo3D was in trouble, he swooped in to save the LPBF firm. He is now reorganizing the firm and powering into new deals, relationships, and a new strategy. Velo3D has a precise, scalable technology. Can Arun keep it alive and perhaps grow Velo to new heights? Arun is all in on Velo, has big plans for the firm and a visi...

AJ Strandquist is the CEO of the Würth Additive Group . From that pedestal he’s helping a $20 billion revenue 87,000 employee distribution company make its way in Additive. Würth’s 3D printing endeavors center around MRO, just-in-time production, selling parts, selling machines, being a platform and connecting companies. We talk about the 3D printing market, digital inventories, outsou...

Austin Schmidt was inspired to start Additive Engineering Solutions after seeing the BAAM 3D printers. His company is now the largest service provider in large-format material extrusion systems. We talk about how he started the business, how the team has grown it, and how it now stands. We also look into some very innovative large-format applications. Austin tells us what is working and why compan...

Andrew Goldman had deep engineering and engineering management experience before he joined Formlabs . We talk about his role as the firm´s Head of Hardware Engineering. We mention culture, building teams, different personalities, and different ways of working. How, actually, do you innovate and develop a product? How do you work on very complex hardware solutions? What we get is a very open discus...

Scott De Felice has been on a 25 year journey with Oxford Performance Materials . His company is a pioneer in PEKK, a very high-performance polymer with many properties that make it a powerful solution in engineering and medical applications. We talk about PEKK and its rival PEEK in this episode. But, we also talk about growing a business for the long term, and making tough strategic decisions. Me...

Naiara Zubizarreta heads up ADDIMAT , Spain’s 3D printing industry association. Representing Spanish Additive Manufacturing users, OEMs, materials firms, and research institutes, she’s come to tell us about 3D printing in Spain. We learn about the Spanish market, including where Spanish firms are focused, what the market is like here, and the concerns of its members. We learn more abou...

Alexander Oster has done an episode with us before , five years ago. There, we learned about his early start in 3D printing and his work thus far. Now we talk to Alex about his passion for open source machine control software. To make a more manufacturing-oriented, connected Additive Manufacturing landscape, Alex wants to offer an open-source framework. The idea is that this framework will acceler...

Holger Schlüter is one of the people behind SCANLAB , a pivotal company in additive manufacturing. SCANLAB makes the light engines that power a lot of the 3D printing market’s machines. He gives us a look into the state-of-the-art and what is possible. Holger’s vision on additive and his technical perspective are a new way of looking at progress in 3D printing. This is sadly a criminal...

Kevin Kassekert has deep experience building factories for Tesla and has worked in the semiconductor industry. He now helms VulcanForms and is looking to scale their high-yield Laser Powder Bed Fusion ( LPBF) process. Kevin, of course, wants to build more factories . Kevin also tells us a lot more about his strategy, his goals, and how the firm aims to grow. We talk about verticals, cost(s) of qua...

Dr. Jonathan Morris is the Executive Medical Director of Immersive and Experiential Learning at the Mayo Clinic . He is also the Medical Director of Biomedical and Scientific Visualization and helped set up their Anatomic Modeling Unit nearly 19 years ago. With over 23 years at the Mayo Clinic, much of it working with 3D printing, Dr. Morris has a lot of experience with the technology. He’s...

Hamid Zarringhalam rose through the ranks of Nikon ‘s precision manufacturing unit. He’s now a Corporate Vice President at Nikon and the CEO of Nikon Advanced Manufacturing and Nikon Ventures . We’re of course going to discuss LPBF and SLM Solutions in this episode. We talk about the market for large machines, applications, costs, directions, and future scenarios. We even squeeze...

Peter Rogers is Australian but has worked in Japan since 2009. He has held roles at a Japanese 3D Printing firm, at Velo3D , and at Autodesk . Today, he consults for Japanese 3D Printing firms looking to expand overseas, as well as foreign firms that want to expand into APAC. He also gives marketing and strategic advice to companies worldwide. In this conversation, we get Peter’s insight on...

Kory Drake grew up surrounded by the fumes of motor oil and gasoline. With a family steeped in racing and race engineering, he naturally ended up working for racing teams. Now at Arrow McLaren´s IndyCar team. He talks about 3D printing race cars, jigs, 3D printing at races, and much more in this episode. Kory is super down-to-earth and direct about where Additive makes sense and where it does not....

Jake Volnov started DrukArmy to help the Ukrainian war effort. DrukArmy lets individual service members request parts, describe a use case or need, design parts, or order parts. These parts, millions of them, are then 3D printed. A lot of these parts go to make up key components of drones, an essential part of Ukraine´s defenses. 3D printed drone components , along with a lot of sacrifice, have he...

Dr. Habib Dagher founded the University of Maine ‘s Advanced Structures and Composites Center , which, with 400 researchers, is one of the leading composites research centers in the world. In 3D printing, the center makes houses out of wood waste and 3D prints boats and other large polymer structures. Habib believes in cheaper waste products over concrete for construction printing . He also...

Alex Kingsbury worked at the Australian research institute CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) on Additive before working for The Barnes Global Advisors , RMIT University , and now nLight . Alex is, of course, the co-founder of our other podcast, Printing Money . At nLight, she wants to expand the use of beam shaping in Additive. With beam shaping, we may be able t...

Matt Pine is training Marines to use 3D printing in the field and helping deploy the technology globally for the United States Marine Corps . Working primarily with desktop machines, he focuses on MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul), improvised repair, and delivering parts to where servicemen and women need them most. Matt talks about the needs of the Marine Corps, and we explore the differenc...

Continuum was previously known as Molyworks , and we loved their crazy startup story with founder Chris Eonta . Now Rob Higby is the firm’s CEO. With him, we discuss a more mature very different firm. We talk a lot about making aircraft, and aircraft MRO, which is a considerable opportunity but maybe not as easy as we think. Rob suggests that cargo aircraft could be a sweet spot for AM and g...

Dhruv Bhate is an associate professor at Arizona State University. There, he looks at structures, materials, and design. Previously, he worked at PADT as well as in the semiconductor and automotive industries. We talk here about meta materials, lattices, and the power (and risk) that these structures have. We also learn about bioinspired design. What is the best way to look at nature to find new f...

Jason Murphy´s NXC MFG ( Next Chapter Manufacturing ) is not a generalist service; instead, the company specializes in making tooling. Using LPBF and binder jet, the company produces some of the most complex, high-performance tooling worldwide. Jason talks to us about conformal cooling and when companies turn to Additive for their tooling needs. We also talk about manufacturing in America and work...

John Hart is a Professor at MIT ; he´s also the director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity as well as the director of the Center for Advanced Production Technologies. He is also a co-founder of VulcanForms . We could fill many episodes talking to John obviously, but here we focus on teaching additive, workforce development, the state of the US manufacturing ecosystem, casting st...

Rich Garrity is the Chief Business Officer of Stratasys . Rich shares Stratasys´ vision and future with us. We talk about machines, applications, clients, and the market in general. What technologies will Stratasys rely on, what materials will it focus on, will it stay with polymers or move more towards metals, how is it dealing with competition, and more will be addressed in this episode.

Marleen Vogelaar was Shapeways ‘ first CFO and, along with a new management team, rescued Shapeways out of bankruptcy proceedings. She takes us through the drama and effort to rebound the firm and grow it once again . What is their strategy to be? What markets will they target, what technologies will they use, and where will they invest? Will the firm focus on consumers, businesses, manufact...

Today we’re doing something completely different in not having one guest on the 3DPOD but many. We’re talking one by one to a team of people at Center Street Technologies . We will hear from the factory floor, machine operations, and founders, all speaking about their role and their part in this team. Center Street wanted this because they’re a team effort, and they want to show...

Øyvind Tafjord runs Visitech , a firm that makes the light engines that power a lot of the DLP machines we use in Additive. We talk to Øyvind about light engines, their market, competition, and the logic of really large vat polymerization systems. Øyvind thinks that vat polymerization systems using scrolling light engines of several meters by several meters would push Additive into low cost produc...