The most modern 3D printers producing plastic, photopolymer resins and metallic powders, dedicated to rapid prototyping and serial production – this is what the Lower Silesian 3D Printing Center is supposed to look like – an innovative incubator for companies from the Lower Silesia region on a national scale. The first 3D printer – Stratasys J720 Dental – has already been delivered and launched by the Krakow company CadXpert. The next ones will appear soon, and the investment will be open to entrepreneurs in less than a year.
The Lower Silesian 3D Printing Center is being created in cooperation with the Marshal’s Office of the Lower Silesian Voivodship with the Lower Silesian Innovation and Science Park. The value of the investment is over PLN 24.1 million, including 15.7 million from EU funds obtained from the Regional Operational Program.
The goal of the emerging 3D Printing Incubator is to create a place for the development of regional companies from the SME sector. Entrepreneurs, innovators and startups will be able to implement their ideas and launch products faster on the market. Small, innovative companies or budding entrepreneurs usually cannot afford to buy expensive machines or rent office space, warehouses and studios.
The mission of the Lower Silesian Park of Innovation and Science is to respond to the needs of regional innovators at the start, so that these companies can grow without hindrance. Students, pupils and scientists will also be able to use the Incubator’s offer. The 3D Printing Academy will also be created within the Lower Silesian 3D Printing Center, where you will be able to learn and explore additive technologies using the latest 3D printers.
Investors wanted to make available the most modern technologies used by foreign companies. Thanks to this, Polish innovators will build their competitiveness from the very beginning. As Sebastian Kącki from the Lower Silesian Innovation and Science Park announces, the studio is to be divided into a thermoplastic printing zone, a bio zone in which machines for medical and dental applications and a 3D metal printing zone will be used. In this way, the 3D Printing Incubator will be able to meet all the needs of companies from various branches of the economy.
Currently DPiN is already involved in the selection of machines, and the first 3D printer has been implemented and is ready to work. The Krakow company CadXpert, the official distributor of the Stratasys brand in Poland, took care of the 3D printer Stratasys J720 Dental. Stratasys J720 Dental uses PolyJet technology – the only 3D printing method with many materials and colors. Models that look exactly like the final product made using several production methods can be created on 3D PolyJet printers. On one work table you can make an object consisting of internal structures, from rigid elements with the properties of popular plastics, from flexible, transparent or multi-colored materials.
PolyJet technology is also one of the most precise additive methods. For the J720 Dental model, the layer height is only 14 micrometers, and thanks to the soluble support material we can achieve arbitrary geometry with high dimensional accuracy.
The foundation act for the construction of the hall of the Lower Silesian 3D Printing Center was signed and dug in by the Marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Cezary Przybylski, the Deputy Marshal Grzegorz Macko, and the President of the Management Board of the Lower Silesian Park of Innovation and Science S.A. Sebastian Kącki. The investment will consist of office space for rent, 3D Printing Incubator, i.e. a modern prototype room and a showroom with workshop space. Construction is expected to be completed by mid-next year.
