Materialise has reported 44% higher productivity on an EOS polymer 3D printing platform that EOS is preparing to launch, compared with the previous EOS platform. The additive manufacturing service provider evaluated the system under real production conditions and also recorded a reduction of more than six minutes in build time per part.
The trial part was a cable twist wheel produced for GKN Aerospace. Materialise said the machine successfully printed the component. The evaluation also looked at reliability, the impact of the platform's new features, productivity and efficiency, usability and control, and the ease of post-processing.
Three-laser architecture
EOS has not yet released all technical details. The company has disclosed that the platform uses a three-laser architecture, intelligent utilization and dynamic load balancing. The dynamic load balancing feature is intended to maximize output per build by equally balancing the exposure workload, while greater laser capacity contributes to higher productivity.
Giovanni Vleminckx, process engineering manager at Materialise, said the three lasers make a visible difference in performance. He added that their intelligent utilization helps the company achieve considerably higher throughput while maintaining the part quality its customers expect.
Process control and powder handling
The new system also offers extended process controls. Users can work with validated parameter sets or open them up for greater control and alignment with specific applications and key performance indicators. Vleminckx said the standout was not one isolated feature but the overall performance of the system, which combines the productivity needed with the process stability and control required to bring demanding applications into production.
Materialise also noted downstream benefits from an advanced roller recoater that creates softer powder cakes. This makes it easier to depowder parts and reduces handling effort. Vleminckx described the soft powder cake as a tangible improvement for operators, adding that parts are easier to unpack and depowder, making the overall workflow noticeably more efficient.
Those improvements matter to a manufacturing service such as Materialise, which has high-throughput requirements and needs to adapt to different production applications. In the cable twist wheel build, productivity rose 44% compared with the previous machine, and build time per part fell from 19:53 to 13:51 minutes.
EOS plans to reveal the platform in person from November 17 at Formnext 2026 at its booth in hall 12, booth D71. Until then, the available information covers the features EOS has disclosed and the results Materialise has reported from its evaluation, rather than a complete specification of the new system.