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Dash-CAE (Oxford, U.K.) has invested in one of the largest 3D printers in the U.K. to help accelerate manufacturing in composites. Anticipating demand from the automotive and aerospace markets, Dash-CAE’s lean approach combined with its Stratasys F900 is said to help reduce production time by up to 85%, design time by 90% and all at a fraction of the cost.

“Our 3D printers are helping us slash development times and costs, while building fully functional parts and production tools,” explains Tim Robathan, managing director of Dash-CAE. “Other large printers such as ours may be based at customer sites for internal use only, yet ours is open to all.”

Dash-CAE has been a partner to the transportation industry since 2006, providing a lean pit-stop like approach to design and engineering. “Our primary interest was to develop easier processes for molding carbon fiber parts,” says Robathan. “As a result, we pioneered tooling for composite parts — both for direct and lost tooling.” 

Dash-CAE’s 3D print division is now creating rapid tooling, jigs, fixtures and production applications. It has three Stratasys Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) printers covering build sizes from 0.305m³  to 1m³. FDM Technology works with production-grade thermoplastics to build strong, durable and dimensionally stable parts with high accuracy and repeatability. 

“With 3D printing, we can quickly run through multiple complex iterations and save a lot of time,” says Robathan. “Carbon fiber is very cost effective but tooling costs can be prohibitive. Our tooling is the alternative, and can be used in autoclaves and out-of-autoclave processes.”