About Akhani 3D

Akhani 3D, a South African based Additive Manufacturing (3d Printing) Service Bureau.

Boasting a comprehensive in-house toolset, Akhani 3D offers a turnkey — ISO 9001:2015 Process Certified — AM Print-to-Product work-flow and serial-production service that includes CNC part machining, 3D scanning, CAD part optimisation, Additive Manufacturing optimisation, 3D printing and finishing.

Akhani 3D is born out of our 18+ years of experience in 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing. We have in-house capability and expertise in all the major technologies ranging from full colour binder jetting to direct metal. Our team has extensive experience in Design for Additive Manufacture and is skilled in providing part optimisation solutions to take your ideas from concept to reality.

The journey from traditional manufacturing to additive manufacturing if fraught with challenges. It’s like crossing a minefield:

1. Your skillset is based on subtractive manufacturing paradigms. You don’t (yet) posess the design for additive manufacturing skills.
2. You’ve invested in subtractive manufacturing technologies, which technologies will stay and which will become redundant?
3. Your business processes are all built around and optimised for subtractive manufacturing technologies. How are you going to incorporate additive manufacturing into these work-flows?

These are all real challenges. We know, because our background is also in toolshops and subtractive manufacturing. We’ve also had to come to grips with the challenges that using AM technologies brings, for example:

1. What AM technology is best suited to any specific application?
2. Will using AM result in the same quality?
3. How do finished part costs compare? When does AM make sense and when does traditional manufacturing make sense?

This is where we come in … we are not stuck on just AM for AM’s sake. We will lead you through the minefield that sits between traditional and additive manufacturing.

DONE FOR YOU

Our current range of Additive Manufacturing technologies includes:

• Stereolithography (SLA/DLP): The SLA process utilizes a vat of liquid photopolymer resin cured by ultraviolet laser to create solid 3D models.
• Selective Laser Sintering (SLS): SLS employs a high power laser to fuse plastic powders into finished prototypes and functional end-use components.
• Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF): Another additive manufacturing technology, FFF (similar to Fused deposition modeling (FDM)) uses a plastic filament, unwound from a coil to supply material to produce a part.
• Composite (FFF): FFF parts printed with continuous fiber reinforcement using Carbon Fiber, Fiber Glass, Kevlar and high temp Fiber Glass
• Direct Metal 3D Printing (DMP): Direct Metal Printing uses additive manufacturing technology. A high-precision laser is used on metal powder particles, producing horizontal metal layers. We currently offer:
  • 3D 316L Stainless Steel printing
  • 3D Aluminium 6061printing
  • 3D MS1 Maraging Steel printing
• Dyemansion Polyshot Surfacing: Our automated mechanical PolyShot Surfacing (PSS) is the most efficient process on the market to achieve the best end-use part finish. It does not remove any material and works perfectly for hard plastics like PA12 or PA11 across all geometries.
• Dyemansion Deepdye Colouring (DDC): Our innovative DeepDye Colouring (DDC) technology offers unlimited colour choices. In addition to over 170 RAL and standardized colours, which are ready-to-use without additional development costs and waiting times, our colour matching also offers the possibility of creating individual tones for you – from corporate colours to seasonal trend colors and individual skin tones.
• We also have in-house CNC machining capabilities for applications that require mixed type manufacturing.

With all these technologies at our fingertips and a continuous stream of projects – covering the straightforward, all the way through to imaginative, boundary-pushing customer designs – we’ve lived the 3D printing dream, warts and all.

For our clients, we can truly say, “We do this stuff”. And because we do this stuff day-in and day-out, we can call it like it is, complete with our trained-this-way engineering practicality.

Akhani 3D is not your usual ‘have a couple of 3D machines in the garage’ 3D print bureau service. Our approach is to enable our customers to transition their traditional design and manufacturing processes to an optimised Additive Manufacturing production process, wherever it makes sense.

IS 3D PRINTING FOR ME?

Having lived with the real and sometimes unfulfilled promises of 3D printing these last 18+ years. We are constantly looking to the developments in 3D printing, carefully sorting the hype from the real-world. It’s from this basis that we engage our clients in paid consultations, helping them see and understand the developments over the horizon.

Developments that will force them to reconsider their existing business models or join the dinosaurs as they face manufacturing irrelevance and ultimately, extinction.

Industry 4.0, a term that encompasses a range of technologies, is real. A revolution is taking place right under our noses. A revolution that will disrupt strong, established manufacturing businesses if they do not embrace those technologies and gain an understanding of how to deploy those technologies in their industries.

3D printing is one of those technologies. Join us as we work for you to embrace the future. Our future.