It is no industry secret that the Orthotics and Prosthetics Industry loves the ICARUS and its high-flow capabilities. But something was missing in this field, PETG is only so strong and only offered check socket capabilities. What if we had another material for 3D Printing in this industry, that was stronger than PETG in terms of ultimate break points, but yet still easy to print with? Plus, 3D Printing is already hard enough for new users to understand (even though we have come a long way in making that easier). So what material made sense for us to focus on? The answer came from our friends over at Valley Prosthetics and Orthotics, and owner Steven Chu, who introduced us to co-poly Polypropylene sheet material.
As an outsider in the O&P industry, we listen to our clients when it comes to developing a new material or product, we want to make their lives easier with Additive Manufacturing. The last thing we wanted to do was create a new material that the industry never heard of, or had no idea how to post-process, that would only increase the barrier to entry for 3D Printing. Co-Poly PP made sense as we learned it was traditionally sold in sheet form for prepatory sockets, and in some use cases, even used as definitives. But we quickly learned there was a problem with this concept, there are tons of polypropylenes in the word, how the heck do you find the right one? Short answer is, you test a lot of them using pellet extrusion 3D Printing.
So what happens when you find the right material and you are told it cannot be extruded into filament? You get creative, very fast, to ensure all your filament customers have access to it. This post is continued in Part 2.