Divergent Technologies harnesses the power of additive manufacturing to unleash innovation in the automotive industry, making them a global innovator in the advancement of economical serial production. They have developed a state-of-the-art Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS®), which will now be strengthened with the addition of three production SLM NXG XII 600 systems, following a years-long development partnership with SLM Solutions. Deliveries of the machines will start in Q1 2022.
SLM Solutions and Divergent Technologies entered a Joint Development Partnership in 2017. For the last 1.5 years, Divergent has been operating with three SLM Solutions pre-production systems in its showcase facility in Los Angeles, California, which enabled them to accelerate the development and time to market of the next generation machines. The three additional NXG XII 600 systems will bring their install base for this printer to six, making them the largest shareholder of this model in the United States. This new fleet of NXG XII 600s will join their current install base of seven SLM®500 systems, three SLM®280 systems, and one SLM®125 system.
Kevin Czinger, Founder and CEO of Divergent and SLM Solutions Supervisory Board member, commented: “The purchase of the SLM NXG XII 600 is the culmination of years of intensive joint development that completes the shift from prototyping to production of complex structures, when combined with the Divergent Adaptive Production System as the future of human-AI design and sustainable systems.”
The game-changing SLM NXG XII 600 is equipped with twelve 1kW lasers, making it the fastest machine on the market. It’s capable of printing at speeds 5-20x faster than that of the current state-of-the-art and features a build envelope of 600 x 600 x 600 mm3, which enables efficient manufacturing of both large and consolidated components and many smaller components in one elegant, digital step. Taken together, these and numerous other advancements of the next generation system deliver a step-change in productivity from legacy systems, widely seen as a critical step towards broader production application of digital manufacturing technology.
Sam O’Leary, CEO of SLM Solutions, highlights that the NXG XII 600 “is designed to be used in serial production for high-volume applications as well as for printing large parts. The NXG XII 600 is the modern day “da vinci”, crafting masterpieces at serial production scale, making it the ideal choice for advancing Divergent’s unique digital manufacturing platform for the automotive industry.”
Divergent’s initial factory deployment will involve the production of thousands of tons of complex, automatically assembled structures, which will be hitting the road over the next two years. This will be followed by the scale-up of its advanced facilities, specially designed for sustainable production using DAPS®, including “fab-less” vehicle manufacturing, which will begin with the fully homologated Czinger Vehicles 21C hypercar.
