At MultiSource Manufacturing LLC, we provide a wealth of manufacturing services, including extensive, precision-based, prototype fabrication. Our prototype capabilities range from single components to full assemblies with rigorous testing and full diagnostics of the final product. When you work with MultiSource, you gain the benefits of a state-of-the-art prototyping program that promises quality from the very beginning. Our prototyping technicians utilize additive manufacturing technologies to build unique components and assemblies for a broad range of industrial applications.

 

Additive manufacturing today is synonymous with 3D printing, and while it’s a newer industrial process, it has a rich, albeit short, history starting in 1974.

 

Additive Manufacturing Timeline

 

1974:  David E. H. Jones published a conceptual overview of 3D printing in his column in the New Scientist journal.

 

1981: After the development of early additive manufacturing technologies in 1980, Hideo Kodama, working at the Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute, created two ways of additive manufacturing with a thermoset polymer.

 

1984: The stereolithography process was developed and patented by Olivier de Witte, Alain Le Méhauté, and Jean Claude André. Soon after, Chuck Hull from 3D Systems Corporation patented his own stereolithography fabrication system that used ultraviolet light lasers to cure photopolymer layers.

 

1988: Fuel deposition modeling (FDM), the type of 3D printing used by most commercial consumers, was developed by S. Scott Crump. His well-known company, Stratasys, marketed the first commercial FDM machine in 1992.

 

1995: The Fraunhofer Institute introduced selective laser melting processes.

 

2009: Any original patents for FDM machines and the FDM printing process expired. Because the industry was now open to competition, the development of this and other printing processes rapidly increased. In the 2010s, various metalworking forms of 3D printing were introduced, though limited, as were 3D printing of other materials than polymers, such as ceramics.

 

2012: Filabot, a 3D printing and filament company, developed ways for FDM and fueled filament fabrication (FFF) printers to utilize a broader range of more durable plastics.

 

2014: Dr. Manos M. Tentzeris and Dr. Benjamin S. Cook, working at the Georgia Institute of Technology, displayed the first use of new 3D printing software technology. This was a vertically integrated printed electronics additive manufacturing platform (VIPRE) that allowed the 3D printing of electronics with operational capacity up to 40 GHz.

 

Since 2014, software programs and 3D printing tools have been developed to even greater capabilities, and commercial consumer 3D printers have saturated the market. At MultiSource, the use of 3D printing is a key tool in the manufacturing of precision-based prototyping.

 

To learn more about our uses of additive manufacturing and prototyping capabilities, contact MultiSource Manufacturing LLC at (952) 456-5500 today. Or request a quote or more information online to get started with us today.