Name: From Prototype to Production: Where BLT Metal 3D Printing Fits Best
Uploaded: 2026-08-11T18:00:08.483Z
Duration: 17 min 17 s
Description: From Prototype to Production: Where BLT Metal 3D Printing Fits Best

Transcript for "From Prototype to Production: Where BLT Metal 3D Printing Fits Best": Good morning, everyone. Today, I wanna answer one practical question. Where does BLT fit best in metal additive manufacturing? The short answer is in many areas. However, they are not limited to what you see in this presentation. I wanna start with real applications, look for what has changed for the customer, and show the production system behind those results. As we go, let's keep three questions in mind. Can we make the part? Can we make it repeatably at the volume we need? And can we manage a full workflow without creating a new set of bottlenecks? That is the real difference between an interesting printed part and industrial additive manufacturing. Let's go to the next slide. My name is Benjamin Davenport. I'm with GoEngineer, and it's a pleasure to meet everybody. I'm a part of the application engineering team supporting BLT. So let's start with a very small part that carries a surprising large amount of responsibility. Here we have or with consumer electronics, Oppo. What you're looking at is a hinge structure inside of an Oppo n five foldable phone. BLT produces this part using metal additive manufacturing regarding titanium. The hinge acts as a structural carrier for a flexible display. It controls the folding motion and has to survive repeatable use without giving up stiffness or durability. BLT has used a 28 step process, to produce these titanium structures with a minimum wall thickness around it, point 15 millimeters, which is incredible. That is half the previous at a point 30 millimeter wall. At the same time, the reported hinge rigidity increased by 36%, and the component strength increased by a 120%. So the part actually became thinner, but it didn't become more fragile. It be actually became stronger. And this is not a one off demonstration. BLT has reported delivering over 1,000,000 of three d printed consumer electronic banks by September 2025. With APA out of the way, let's take the same idea but putting the material exactly where it's needed. However, we're gonna be moving from millimeters to a vehicle scale structure. This is where we bring in the automotive sector. This, if you're not familiar with, is a company called BYD known as Build Your Dreams. They make electric vehicles. This specifically is the u nine x, a really, really cool car in my opinion. The key image here is the printed front structure. This is a one piece aluminum component with a topology optimized cavities and ribs built into the design. The reported result is 30% lower structural weight and 200% higher torsional rigidity compared to an equivalent solid structure. Those numbers matter together. Weight reduction itself is useful, but not if the structure becomes less capable. Here, the design places material along load paths, removes rematerial where it's not helping, and increases rigidity at the same time. Pretty cool stuff. There's also a manufacturing benefit. One integrated structure means fewer separate parts, fewer interfaces, and fewer assembly constraints. That can simplify the build materials and reduce the number of places where variation can enter the system. This is where large metal AM becomes compelling. We're not just simply printing a novelty part. We're consolidating a real vehicle function at a scales at a structural scale and doing it with the consistency needed for a production application. I would say this is pretty neat. Of course, leaving the automotive section, scale does not always mean a physically larger part. Sometimes it means making a very different part without making the process extremely expensive. Here comes in more of the medical and hearing device sec sector. This is a titanium in ear monitor, which is a good example for mass customization because everybody's ear is different. Every customer requires a different geometry, but the shape, I would have to note here, is also functional. The internal channels influence how the drivers are positioned and how sound moves through the device. Pretty important for those who are using this, especially for performing. According to the source material, traditional production can take up to twelve weeks, require specialized tooling, and generate roughly 20% of material waste. Complex occutional channels are also extremely difficult to make. With the additive group, reported outcomes are up to 50% shorter lead time and up to 20% lower production cost. This also is accommodating by a 20 to 30% improvement on sound clarity, which is amazing, the fact that we're able to use additive, to improve these things. What I like about this example is that it uses customization with that is not treated as a penalty. The design the digital design changes, but we don't have to create a new tooling strategy for every customer. This is a strong fit for additive, a high value part, complex internal geometry, and an individual variation that improves the product rather than complicating the factory. With the, more, simple version, we can go on to a more critical, with, light weighting, to improve efficiency and safety. Here we have a more structural part. This is known as a roller coaster bogey. Now I know it looks a little bit weird to look at, but what this is is a a buoy is what connects the car to the track in on a roller coaster. It guides the motion, absorbs the impact forces. In other words, it is a safety critical load path, and it's not a decorative bracket. The component is produced with, aluminum on the s 800, and it weighs over 17 kilograms and measures over 150 millimeters in size. The additive design has reduced the weight about 60% compared to the conventional assemblies while preserving the structural role of the component. Pretty awesome. With this weight reduction, this results in a potential energy savings up to 20 to 30% compared to the original traditional design. A lighter moving assembly requires less energy over each cycle of operation. And there's also less assembly complexity. An integrated component removes interfaces that can loosen, wear, or require maintenance over time. So the value here is just not that we printed an unusual shape. The value shows up also in its daily use, its energy use, its main maintenance exposure, and its reliable operation, essentially designing the function into the park. With this out of the way, we're going to rather than down to earth, we're gonna actually take the skies in our next application, eVTOL. So outside of the consideration of weight, we also have to consider the option of thermals. In this example, the eVTOL motor bracket has to do several jobs at once. It has to be light, it has to be stiff, and has to manage high heat under power operation. In this in this design, the heat pipes, cooling fans, and internal channels are printed directly into one aluminum structure. They are not separate. Cooling hardware are added after the bracket is manufactured. This part is produced on a six layer laser s 400 platform. It is a topology optimized structure that reduces unnecessary weight while the integrated thermal features move heat through the component. This is an important way to think about additive. We're not simply asking, can we print the bracket we already have? We're asking whether or not the bracket and the cooling system can become the same part. That change can reduce interfaces, simplify assembly, and create more compact propulsion system. Also a note, because of additive, it also gives the designer room to adapt. This also, aids with the thermal layout to aid for different aircraft configurations. Outside of thermals, with after this, we're gonna move into one of my favorite sectors, which is gonna be robotics. They may also have thermals, but they also have unique, unique, challenges as well. Robotics, especially in this day and age, especially after 2020 all the way up to 2026, we've seen a rapid increase in this market and advancement, and it's only getting better. So robotics is moving closer, moving quick, quickly toward, smaller sensors, lighter structures, and more complex geometry. A faster design iteration and traditional manufacturing often handles one or two of these demands well, but it struggles to arrive when they're when they all arrive together. As this example, the, Photon finger b has a six axis force sensor that only measures around 8.5 millimeters. This is extremely small. It has to be compact, but it also has to deliver reliable accuracy for advanced robotic sensing, as you can see on this on the fingers. BLT can fit over 900 of these sensors in one build while reporting dimensional accuracy of 0.5 millimeters or better, which is amazing. And to add to this, they can keep the surface surface roughness up to or have an RA of two to three microns, which is amazing. BLT also reports thousands of these sensors have already been delivered, which is a great transition moving from a handful precision prototypes to controlled production batch. So when it comes to this, robotics is not only the story of micro micro precision. It's also the ability to apply the right platform and process discipline from tiny sensors all the way up to large structural components. Not trying to brag, but I can say that BLT can pretty much handle it all. With this out of the way, we're gonna go into one of our final applications that we know and are not limited to is the thermal systems. Heat treatment thermal and thermal components are a strong fit for additive, because the performance depends on so heavily on internal paths and surface area. BLT can design those paths around the ad customer's other, actual operating conditions as you can see here. And but the however, the challenge is to making sure that the custom design does not remain a custom experiment. The process still has to produce the mission of stability, consistent mechanical properties, and repeatable thermal performance from batch to batch. But I will say, when it comes to BLT, they have been able to prove this time and time again. And because it is metal additive, we can do, we can run through simulations and AI to be able to even improve the whole process in itself. A really, really cool application. So when it comes to all these applications, I'm gonna take a step back and try to answer the question, how is BLT able to support all these different industries? Well, it comes down to who BLT is. And when people ask me what, what BLT does, for the company, I would say they do a lot of things. They make they make, laser powder bed systems, to sell. They'd have contract manufacturing so that we can help customers with a solution if they're not, if they if they don't have the ability, to acquire a machine in house, and they make their own ingredients and their own powder. And, also, what is not shown here as well is, that they have application engineering support. So if you are looking to, ink take your part to the next level for additive manufacturing and metal, then BLT has the has the people there to be able to, satisfy that need. Speaking about people, the the reason they're able to make all this happen is that they have over 4,000 employees at their site. 25% of them are in r and d alone. 40% of them have advanced advanced degrees such as a master's, and they have over 600 approved patents, which is truly incredible. Something that's also impressive, just to, you know, put paint a full picture here is that they, they are not small when it comes to their campus. They have over 900,000 square feet of space, and they are located over three different areas. What you'll see here is their main campus of corporate, which is located in Xi'an, China. However, they are not also limited to Shenzhen, China and very soon to be, in the Bay Area, California and The United States, which we're extremely excited about. Another thing is that I mentioned earlier, their contract manufacturing. They have over a thousand printers, that are being used to help customers with very very solutions with very different, powders. This is a great solution for a lot of our customers who who just wanna prove out their designs, do contract manufacturing or have a large volume of parts, which is a lot of exciting. And when I say large format machines, we're not talking about the smaller ones, we're talking about everything from an A300 and above, which is around a 200 by 200 by 300 millimeter build platform, which is incredible. Speaking about the machines, here you can see the lineup of the machines. And to kinda speak back to the applications and how we're able to, you know, print everything from really something really small all the way up to something very large like the BYD car is BLT doesn't make one machine at one size. They have machines from all the way down to one sixty by one sixty by 200 millimeter build volume all the way up to a hundred and fifth a 1,500 millimeter build platform at a over 32 laser count, which is truly incredible. I have seen these machines personally, and I can say they're truly impressive. And we can't talk about the machines without talking about the powder. Without each application requires a different type of powder. And just to give you an example, we have over 60 verified powders that we can print on these machines. As an example to show you as more of a mid tier system such as our s 400 is we have all these validated machines, materials with their, layer thicknesses. So really great option. This can range between titanium, stainless steel, and even copper. Truly, truly impressive. And then the other thing is that as you saw with the contract manufacturing, when it comes to these things, these printers are made for manufacturing. The systems can be configured so that you are able to see powder in an external system. This is, to be able to make sure that you don't have to load powder each time that you are finishing a build. This is amazing because you're we're able to configure one external system with up to four s four hundreds. And so if you're looking to maximize production, this is a great way. This is a, made to, they're made to, for manufacturing from from the start. And then finally, the most exciting of these is that, BLT is looking into robotics. We are, they are able to, look into the ability to have a mass scale production by using automation. And this brings a lot of solutions for a lot of our customers who are looking to automate their builds and reduce the labor time when it comes to the air. With that, that wraps up my webinar. If anybody has any questions, feel free to them in the chat. And, for those who have to leave, please, visit our web page at goengineering.com/blt. Alrighty. Well, as we wait for questions if they come in, please feel free to see the, view upcoming webinars on the top of the screen and, so that you can see more exciting content from GoEngineer. Okay. We have a question. so Adam asked you mentioned that the that these are for production use. Is there a version for prototyping uses? I would say, they are, when it comes to these machines, they are, the all all of them can be used for production, even the smaller ones. The only limitation is that your build size and your vault your laser count is going to only allow you to build, as quickly as you can. When it comes to production, we recommend anything around the s 400 because it has a laser count up to six lasers, and has a large build volume around 400 millimeters by 300 by 400. So any of these can be used for prototyping, or production. It just depends on how what your expected outcome is. But great question. Oh, Barrett asked a question. Are these print, parameters for each material transfer between each all the printers? Yes. So so, most of all these, printers have the same parameters. It just depends based on laser count. The or if you, are running a printer that has a higher wattage laser, then we may have more or less, powders. But we can answer any of those questions, with a phone call. So yeah. Okay. Well, I guess that wraps everything up. I don't think anybody has any more questions. And, well, thank you, Adam. Alrighty. Well, thank you everyone for your time and, hope everyone's having a great day. Again, please let us, please look into our upcoming webinars, and for more exciting things at GoEngineer.