500 Companies and Counting: The Global Adoption of VLM Technology

In March of 2022, BCN3D Technologies announced its innovative additive manufacturing technology called Viscous Lithography Manufacturing (VLM)™. This patented technology has the potential to become a key player for serial mass production. Thanks to the combination of part performance, productivity and cost per part, VLM removes the barriers of efficiency for short and mid scale production; taking advantage of the flexibility that additive manufacturing has promised over the years, on a manufacturing level. 

Since the technology release, VLM has gained significant attention worldwide, with over 500 companies registered in the Technology Adoption Program, aiming to become early adopters of the technology. Over the past six months, we have embarked on an exciting journey, partnering up with innovative companies, who are looking to disrupt their markets by radically changing the way of manufacturing

On the material side, we colaborate with partners such as Arkema and Henkel, who are taking advantage of the possibility to process high viscosity resins on room temperature, to create new formulation strategies. Together with them and our early adopters, we are building a material portfolio that reaches the perfect balance of properties to make our objective possible: Be the first additive manufacturing technology able to compete in the traditional manufacturing industry in an efficient and scalable way. 

The journey has just started, and every day we are finding new challenges and opportunities to develop. For that reason, we have expanded our capacity to welcome new companies into our technology adoption program. We want to push the transformative potential of VLM technology even further. So we open our doors to companies with highly innovative values, looking to find new strategies for improving efficiency, and productivity into their traditional manufacturing processes. 

VLM materials combine properties such as impact resistance and energy rebound reaching the main industrial requirements and homologations (ESD, Flame-retardancy, VOC, Chemical resistance, Biocompatibility, Clean casting…). 

As a result, we obtain High-Viscosity Photopolymers with the potential to displace thermoplastics in applications across all the vertical markets.

Some examples of disruptive applications:

  • Short and mid production runs: Additive manufacturing the need for expensive moulds, dies, or tooling typically associated with traditional manufacturing processes, making 
  • Multimaterial Parts: VLM multimaterial functionality improves efficiency on most of the traditional manufacturing processes, by removing assembly steps, reducing the number of components needed and avoiding complex and expensive processes like overmolding. 
  • Spare Parts: On-demand production of spare parts, reducing inventory costs and lead times. 
  • Customised products: Additive manufacturing ads value to customer goods and functional parts throughout product customization catering to specific customer requirements and enhancing overall performance.

Learn more about some of our recent VLM application developments with the parts showcased at Formnext 2022.⏬🚀

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