Tech Briefs Magazine - February 2021 - 47

Milling head on the MasterPrint™ machine removing 3D-printed thermoplastic material, finishing the contours of this scale-model cargo ship.
The Ingersoll MasterPrint™ can 3D-print molds and parts as large as 100
feet long, 22 feet wide, and 10 feet high at print rates up to 500 pounds
per hour.

with numerous more axes (turntable, mandrill, linear rail, etc.).
The operator's experience is the same, whether controlling traditional fiber placement, robotic fiber placement, 3D printing,
robotic 3D printing, or any CNC machining process.
The machine tool industry has long anticipated the ability to
virtually design, test, and redesign the digital twin of a
machine, mold, or part before moving into actual production.
In aerospace, the sheer size of a machine or a part has made
physical prototyping especially costly. Traditional trial-anderror prototyping would produce massive losses in time and
material. To escape these constraints, software engineers at
Ingersoll developed simulation software that enables process
engineers to virtually design and develop a machine, a mold,
or a part. The software wraps around the Siemens Virtual NC
Controller Kernel (VNCK) simulation software. The controller
processes and simulates virtually all machining cycle data and
tool paths exactly as they would be performed on the actual
machine, and the Sinumerik Operate interface graphically displays this exact digital twin simulation.
Large-Scale 3D Printing and Milling Platform
The world's largest thermoplastic 3D printers at Ingersoll
Machine Tools provide the prospect of faster prototyping,
shorter lead times, and 90 percent reductions in manufacturing costs. Ingersoll innovation continues with the development
of the MasterPrint 5X™ - a turnkey print-and-mill machine
with even greater productivity breakthroughs that is again
enabled by the Siemens Sinumerik 840D sl CNC platform.
Michael Falk is a mechatronics engineer and the leader of
the Siemens sales team that has supported Ingersoll in its rollout of the MasterPrint series. " Ninety percent of the time, anything that is 3D-printed will need to be finish-milled, " Falk said.
" The new MasterPrint does exactly that as a turnkey operation
to produce the world's largest parts incorporating automated
change-head technology developed by Ingersoll and supported
by Siemens. "
The MasterPrint approach to large-format 3D printing combines the amplified speed, dexterity, and accuracy of 5-axis
motion. The same gantry can now interplay the functions of
printing, milling, fiber placement, tape laying, inspection,
trimming, and more. The MasterPrint 5X can print from any
Tech Briefs, February 2021

angle to its full advantage, rapidly making a massive mold or
part using the most efficient sequencing. The 5-axis printing
nozzle changes orientation accordingly to print much more
complicated parts.
" The sync actions during the 3D printing is where a lot of the
magic happens, " Falk said. " You get great-looking parts with
consistent bead geometry. The printing slows only as needed
around corners, then resumes optimal speed. Corners are not
overfilled. There are no infill issues, no necking down of the
bead, no voids in the tooling, and no material build on the
inside of the part. "
Ingersoll has taken full advantage of Sinumerik Run
MyRobot/Direct Control, the robotic compensation software
that is now a key feature of the Siemens Sinumerik 840D sl
CNC. Ingersoll offers a wide range of robotic systems where the
CNC on the machine can control multiple modules operated
by the same robot.
In addition to making improvements among the existing
machines at Ingersoll, engineers are using the Siemens
Sinumerik CNC toolsets to investigate pathways to new machine
development. One of those pathways is in materials research.
Material property questions explore variables such as strength,
shrinkage, warpage, and the use of isotropic versus anisotropic
materials. Material solutions emerge in the realms of rapid prototyping for civilian, defense, and infrastructure applications.
The concept of a one-of-a-kind printer also emerges - one that
can support ambitious initiatives such as bio-based feedstocks
using cellulose derived from wood resources.
While manually conducted visual inspections are still common today, they are becoming analog answers to an increasingly digitally automated production challenge. Ingersoll sees the
day coming soon when inspections are routinely a function of
the machine as a secondary process. A fiber placement machining process will monitor layup, check for any defects, and
assure the part's accuracy and reliability. Similarly, a hybrid 3Dprinting process will one day print and machine back-to-back
with seamlessly integrated process self-monitoring.
As Ingersoll and Siemens have demonstrated, the promised
advantages of Industry 4.0 are being implemented today. Having removed the boundaries to large-format robotic fiber
placement and 3D printing, expectations now rise toward
making breakthrough improvements across the entire part
production process.

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