Category: Uncategorized

Summer 2024, We Will Be Closed Weeks 29-30

Dear Customers.

Summer has progressed to the point where the vacation season is approaching. This Summer, we will be closed during weeks 29 and 30, which is from July 15th to July 28th. Urgent orders received by Tuesday, July 9th, we aim to print and deliver by the end of week 28. Non-urgent orders and those received later in the week 28, will be processed starting from week 31, when we will resume normal service. For more information, please, contact us at sales@3dtech.fi 

Wishing You all a Sunny and Relaxing Summer!

3DTech Team

Summer 2022 Business Hours. We Are Closed Weeks 28 & 29.

Dear Customers.

The Summer is well on the way and the vacation season is nearing. We will be closed the weeks 28 and 29, i.e. from July 11th to 24th. Urgent orders coming in by Tuesday the 5th of July, we aim to print and deliver by the end of week 27, but orders coming in after Tuesday or not urgent will be printed from week 30 onwards when we serve again normally. For more information, please, contact us at sales@3dtech.fi 

Wishing You all a Sunny and Relaxing Summer!

3DTech Team

We are open on weeks 52 and 1

We are open and serve our customers also Monday the 23rd of December and Friday the 27th of December as well as week one Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We are closed from 24th to 26th of December as well the 1st and 6th of January.

Warm thanks to our customers and partners for the past year. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2020.

 

Customer Case: Tarume – Because Everyone Has a Story

Kalle Saarinen (left), Tomi Kalpio, Teemu Lohimies and Tuulia Alanen-Brandt launching the collection in Helsinki.

Tarume is a new brand offering eyewear designed and manufactured in Finland. Tarume’s story began when two engineers, Teemu Lohimies and Tomi Kalpio, as well as optical specialists Tuulia Alanen-Brandt and Kalle Saarinen, came together and started creating an innovative collection of 3D printed spectacle frames that are customizable to meet the users’ individual requirements when needed.

“Tarume, our brand name originated from the thought that we all have a story to tell. 3D printing technology provides us a means to produce various digitally customized products like spectacles and sunglasses which we are introducing first. With our products, one is able to communicate their own personality and story, because when meeting someone, we always look at each other’s eyes. Every Tarume product has its own little story to tell, too.  Stories also evolve, live and change, as do the Tarume products, allowing them to stay relevant and functional, always serving their users’ individual story.” tells Tarume’s Creative Designer Tuulia Alanen-Brandt.

Final My Way frames

“In 3DTech, we are used to print objects mainly to meet industrial needs. Therefore consumer and design eyewear products are a new territory to us challenging us to take some new viewpoints for example in some printing-related technical aspects. The journey so far has been very interesting and it has been a real joy to see how well the 3D-printed frames have been received in the market,” says 3DTech’s Marko Piira.

The frames are printed by 3DTech with HP Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D printing technology of durable and lightweight polyamide material. The prints get their individual color in Tarume’s manual dyeing process and the final touch comes from a hypoallergic coating.

Printed frames before dyeing and coating.

The collection was launched in August and the feedback has been enthusiastic. In a short time, several opticians have taken the Tarume eyewear into their store’s collection.

More information:

tuulia@tarume.com
www.tarume.com
Facebook: @tarumedesign
Instagram: @tarumedesign

Subcontracting Fair Finland 24.-26.9.2019 in Tampere

We’ll be again at the Subcontracting Fair Finland next week in Tampere. The theme of the fair this year is sustainable manufacturing that also the industrial 3D printing/additive manufacturing fully supports. Like the previous year, we are sharing the stand with PLM Group Finland, who, among other things, imports the HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D-printers that are the heart and soul of our own service production. This ensures that the visitors coming to our stand, have a great opportunity to get a comprehensive view to industrial 3D printing solutions from both, service and equipment as well as software point of view.

You will find us in Hall C, Stand C1266.

Link to the fair’s home page and registration.

More information about PLM Group here.

Welcome!

The Era of Additive Manufacturing Has Dawned

Only a few people know that in southern Finland the ecosystem of companies and experts in the field of additive manufacturing or more familiarly 3D printing is quite versatile in proportion to the size of the region. The ecosystem also collaborates, which can be the basis of totally new industrial solutions. Among others, the new solutions of metal printing and bioprinting serve as the trendsetters.

Additive manufacturing is becoming a great tool for the medical industry as it enables printing of unique fully customized pieces, yet at an affordable price. 3D printing technology can be used for both prototyping and production of medical instruments, surgical prototype models, as well as custom-made implants and prosthesis. Indeed, 3D printing can be used for various applications to create parts adapted to the needs or to the morphology of the patients but what if instead of inanimate objects, it could be possible to print living human body parts?

3D printing technology can be used for both prototyping and production of medical instruments, surgical prototype models, as well as custom-made implants and prosthesis.

It sounds like science fiction, but it may well become a reality in the near future. Obviously, bioprinting of tissues and organs can’t be performed with a traditional printer as 3D bioprinting is a complex process. However, if you replace the ink of your traditional desktop printer with cell-laden hydrogel bio-ink and paper with bio-paper made from ingredients such as collagen or gelatin and add a third dimension, the depth, to complement the movement in the horizontal and vertical dimensions? With these modifications, you will end up with a basic 3D bioprinter capable of dispensing living cells embedded in a supportive hydrogel matrix in a layer-by-layer fashion according to a CAD model. As the hacking of an inkjet printer is not as straightforward as it may sound and not everybody is keen to build a bioprinter of their own from the scratch, luckily nowadays there are several commercial bioprinting systems already available, as many new bioprinting companies have emerged during the past few years.

Turku-based 3DTech Ltd has launched on the market their modular Brinter™ bioprinting platform, which is the first ever bioprinter developed entirely in Finland. Modular bioprinters are cost-effective solutions offering several print heads based on different dispensing principles in a single printing platform. This allows the printing of various biomaterials with different viscosities into a single construct. The most common printing technology implemented in the majority of commercial 3D bioprinters is the extrusion-based approach due to its inexpensive assembly and operational costs. Extrusion-based printers dispense cylindrical filaments of bioinks employing either pneumatic (air pressure) or mechanical (piston) forces to deposit the bioink through a nozzle. Currently, bioprinters, such as Brinter™ can already be used in a variety of applications, such as a versatile tool for basic research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine conducted at universities and research institutes.

The next new wave of personalized medicine will be 3D bioprinted customizable patient-specific drugs, which can be altered in terms of drug loading, the release rate, and the taste of medicine simply by changing the geometry of a tablet.

Moreover, before translating from bench to bedside, bioprinting offers a cost-effective solution for the pharmaceutical industry to shorten and enhance the productivity of the drug discovery process. Bioprinted tissue models (e.g. liver) with multiple cell types and a complex native-like physiological environment will eliminate the need to use test animals for testing drugs during the drug discovery process. In addition, bioprinting can be used to recapitulate the cancer microenvironment by precisely locating tumor cells and microcapillaries into a tumor tissue model to study cancer pathogenesis, growth, and metastasis.

The next new wave of personalized medicine will be 3D bioprinted customizable patient-specific drugs, which can be altered in terms of drug loading, the release rate, and the taste of medicine simply by changing the geometry of a tablet. Ultimately, in the long run, the bioprinting technology will provide inspiring solutions to address the shortage of organs for transplantation. As further progress is achieved in the field of biomaterials, bioprinting techniques, and cell technology, bioprinting will transit into clinical practice, as the printing of fully functioning tissues and organs becomes a reality.

The global market for 3D bioprinters has a value of approximately $774 million and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.8% between 2017 and 2025. Furthermore, it is estimated that by 2027 there will be over 5,000 3D bioprinting platforms installed worldwide, giving a unique opportunity to innovative 3D bioprinting rookies, such as 3DTech, to thrive and dislodge the current industry leaders. Undoubtedly, bioprinting will be the next trend in healthcare and personalized medicine.

Sanna Turunen,
D.Sc. (Tech.) in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering,
Product Manager,
3DTech Ltd,
Finland

Postdoctoral Researcher,
Tampere University,
Finland

The article was originally featured in Baltic Rim Economies May 29th, 2019. The link to the publication is here.