South Korean automotive giant Hyundai’s Namyang R&D Center is now running two VX1000 HSS polymer 3D printers from German equipment maker ExOne Global Holdings.
The machines use a High Speed Sintering process in which an infrared-absorbing ink is deposited selectively onto PA12 powder and fused layer by layer through a sintering emitter. At 1,000 x 550 x 190 mm, the build volume is large enough to print a complete door panel in a single run.
Hyundai’s explanation for the investment centers on producing large components as single pieces, a workflow that otherwise introduces joints and compounds tolerance errors across the stack.
“Hyundai is using High Speed Sintering exactly as we designed it, for full-scale functional parts. Keeping large polymer parts accurate and repeatable, print after print, is one of the hardest challenges in polymer 3D printing. We solved it, and that turns additive manufacturing into a tool automotive teams can rely on for real development work.” said Eric Bader, Chief Executive Officer, ExOne Global Holdings.
Managing Large-Scale Polymer Production
Holding those dimensions consistently from one run to the next depends on the VX1000’s temperature management across the full build volume. The powder-and-ink sintering method is sensitive to thermal variation, and the printhead’s 8,000 nozzles need that stability to maintain part properties at scale.
To keep both machines running with minimal downtime, replacing the sintering emitter or print modules is designed as a routine task, and each printer feeds process data in real time into existing monitoring systems. A shared unpacking station and central powder supply serve both units and can be arranged to fit different factory and R&D floor configurations.
That operational flexibility maps onto how Namyang’s newly formed Additive Manufacturing Solutions team is actually using the printers. The team handles pre-production and test parts, small-batch production, and research prototyping, but also the urgent sourcing of components that would otherwise require dedicated tooling to procure.
Tooling lead times are long, and the parts tied to them tend to be the ones that stall development schedules. By printing functional, full-scale components directly, the team can validate at full scale without waiting on tooling, and ExOne states the process compresses design iterations from weeks to days.
Scaling Automotive AM Beyond Prototyping
The VX1000 installation sits inside a broader consolidation of AM capability at Namyang as reported last month. The Additive Manufacturing Solution Center is the first facility Hyundai Motor Group has built specifically for additive manufacturing. It brings polymer and metal printing under a single roof, running processes from vat photopolymerization to directed energy deposition (DED) for large structural metal parts.
Every component produced there is checked against production-equivalent benchmarks for dimensional accuracy, tensile strength, bending stiffness, and impact resistance. The VX1000 units add large-format polymer sintering to that mix, addressing a scale and throughput shortfall the center’s other polymer processes do not cover.
The scale question is not unique to Hyundai. Jaguar Land Rover’s Additive Manufacturing Centre at Gaydon runs 20 industrial 3D printers across six technologies, with polymer powder bed fusion accounting for 87% of its capability. Yet in October 2024, JLR’s additive manufacturing specialist described the vast majority of the center’s output as functional prototyping for test cars instead of full-scale production-equivalent validation.
The center’s primary focus on functional prototyping illustrates the limits of using its existing additive capability for larger-scale development work, while Hyundai’s new installation is designed to produce larger components as single pieces.
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Featured image shows the two VX1000 HSS units installed at Hyundai’s Namyang R&D Center. Photo via ExOne Global Holdings.
