Due to our long-standing relationship with MHI Vestas we have a strong understanding of their products and had in fact assisted with the CAD for this blade and even the design and fabrication of some of their tooling requirements. We even incorporated 3D printing components into these designs. 

Our 3d printing service marries perfectly with the design services we offer giving us the ability to design, manufacture, and test a custom-built part in a short time frame. 

Possibly the main advantage of 3D printing is speed, although when model making this goes completely out the window. Working on this project was incredibly fiddly and we had to sand and finish some very thin parts, certain parts of the model were extremely delicate and many hours were spent gaining a perfect fit between mating components, constantly working away and offering them up until we achieve our goals. 

We did encounter a few challenges during the project, but due to previous experiences they were soon resolved, and although a big advantage of 3D printing is that any given printer can create almost anything that fits within its build volume, when printing 2 metre long blades you have to get a bit creative. 

Both MHI and MedTec agree that the use of 3d printing methods lends itself to the company’s ethos on sustainability. We find that 3D printing creates a lot less waste material for a single part plus the materials we use in 3D printing generally are recyclable. 

With 3D printing, fewer parts need outsourcing for manufacturing, we kept the majority of this project in-house, and when we could not, we used local companies to offer support.  The environmental impact is very low as there was no need to source parts and have them shipped across the globe 

We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved with this model and we cannot wait to get stuck into our next project.