Very cool, cutting edge stuff!
I’m a little disappointed. I think they’re hoping for metal additive manufacturing in the future, but no where do they do it on line in the demo or in any of the documents I’ve found. They appear to be using this for post processing, with the only AM system being a high speed line wax deposition system. Now, it’s a great, flexible multi-stage finishing system but it’s still very early, and it appears they ended work on it in August 2015.
I did a little looking around and I see what you mean. I found this post - https://www.tno.nl/en/focus-area/industry/flexible-free-form-products/additive-manufacturing/continuous-3d-printing-faster-cheaper-and-more-flexible/ and wrote an email to Frits Feenstra to see what the status is now. Note that Feenstra was looking to get people involved who were interested in the project - “If you would like to join in the discussion on the uses of these advances or experiment with a machine to make your own products please get in touch with Frits Feenstra.”
I received a response - “thank you for your interest in our Hyproline system. We developed this system as a research platform to demonstrate the capability of in-line hybrid manufacturing, comprising the steps of in-line inspection, multi-material printing, selective ablation and fast product handling. There are different ways to get access to our hybrid printing platform. We could define a project to work with the system in our labs or you can lease the system to demonstrate the manufacturing capability in your own lab (the system is transportable, we have shipped the system before!). We can also provide you with a customized research platform, designed and engineered to your needs.”