A 3D printing robot demonstration center will be officially unveiled this month by an Exeter-based technology specialist as it looks to build on a 25 per cent increase in sales.
Rapid Fusion has completed a £750,000 investment drive that has developed two new additive manufacturing platforms and, importantly, is building a dedicated facility in Exeter to demonstrate its services.
The 5,000 m² unit at Skypark will house the company's Apollo cell and the latest Zeus creation. This combines a 3D printing robot with a unique CNC milling capability, providing customers with a turnkey solution for larger shapes.
Investment will also flow into new people, with a LFAM Robot Print engineer being brought in before Christmas, and engineering and deployment and software lead recruitment will soon follow.
Jake Hand, founder of Rapid Fusion, said: “2024 was a very good year for us, with revenue on our additive manufacturing platforms exceeding £1.7 million. This was well above expectation.
“There is a clear move in the market towards greater pressure and more complex geometries, and we see this not only from automotive and aerospace, but also from the building where we have signed an exciting offer with Italian business -Nanoo .”
He added: “With the interest in our technology, we wanted to create a demonstration center that people could visit and see the cells in action. We may even run a few 'prototype' procedures to test the speed, accuracy and reliability of ours prove solutions.”
Rapid Fusion will take part in Abu Dhabi in February and JEC in Paris. It recently signed several new reseller agreements to increase domestic and global sales.
These included Hyperion in Australia, the US Prosecution, MAPTEC in Dubai and CNC World in the UK.