CRG Defense said it is now one of the first companies in the world, and just the second in the United States, to acquire the machine.
With this tool, CRG Defense says it can produce aerospace-grade polymer and composite parts at scale.
Think of it this way: Ian Fuller, strategic director at CRG Defense, told the Dayton Daily News that many additive printers can print something the size of a toaster, some eight inches on a side, for example.
This big machine allows CRG to print “essentially a full oven and stove.”
The ARGO, which CRG has used since June, is “a complete game changer in terms of the scale of what we can print,” Fuller said.
The printer uses “fused granulate fabrication” to produce thermoplastic components, CRG said. The “hypermelt” technology uses pellets as the core raw material, letting manufacturers to drop in or feed pellets instead of filament strands into the printer, which are then melted to build up the part CRG wants to create, layer by layer of plastic in a painstaking process.
“That opens up some unique capabilities,” Fuller said.
It has a build volume of 1000 x 1000 x 1000 mm (that adds up to 39 x 39 x 39 inches), allowing for the production of large, complex parts and assemblies that meet demanding aerospace requirements, the company says.
This investment represents an expansion of CRG’s efforts to move beyond research and development into industrial production, Fuller said. Asked how much the company invested into the ARGO, he said CRG has invested “multi-millions” into its additive manufacturing portfolio as a whole.
“The ARGO 1000 is an anchor point of that expansion” into industrial production," he said.
He added that, of course, CRG continues to be dedicated to research. “What we’re trying to do is take that legacy and current R&D, and move it into systems integration, to really utilize that R&D, that technology that we’ve developed over the years and put it into systems platforms, capabilities that CRG Defense can manufacture or supply to various customers.”
And no surprise: This investment was inspired by a contract from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the place where the Air Force researches its future and sustains its fleet.
After 28 years as Cornerstone Research Group, the company recently rebranded as CRG Defense, a business focused on defense technology.
The list of companies CRG has spun off or nurtured since the 1990s remains long: Spintech Holdings, Rushlight Ventures, Advantic, Kineticure, Lectratek, PositAssets and others.
The privately held business that started with 1,200 square feet in Beavercreek, has expanded with a 25,763-square-foot, two-story facility next to its 123,000-square-foot office and manufacturing facility at 8789 Washington Church Road in Miami Twp.
A ribbon-cutting and grand opening for the new facility is scheduled for mid-July.
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