Heron AM

Heron AM is comprised of several key elements that can guarantee certain quality, accuracy, and performance standards. The platform was developed with an application-first approach: as Caracol is the system’s first end-user, they developed know-how on the type of challenges their clients might face when manufacturing parts and when working with LFAM technologies. After years of research and development, over 30 thousand hours of printing, and hundreds of projects with clients across sectors, the company decided to commercialize its system. The platform includes extrusion heads developed and patented by Caracol, a robotic arm for movement and support, a direct and continuous feeding system for composites and polymers, a dedicated software platform for complex tool paths, and other features to fully integrate the system. It was developed as a modular system, so that it can be configured and customized for different applications and manufacturing requirements based on different end-users’ needs. The system can produce components with a wide range of thermoplastics and composites (both from virgin and recycled origins) in the form of pellets and shreds. This makes the system ideal for the production of several medium to large-scale parts, such as: structural elements, tooling such as jigs for positioning, drilling, and cutting, molds, assembly rigs, beams, prototypes, metal replacement, temporary or permanent substitution of parts, and an array of applications and components we continue to discover every day. In November, Caracol announced two new major innovations: the High Flow Extruder and the Automatic Printing Bed. Caracol’s new High Flow Extruder was built to be the solution needed to create larger and more complex parts, thanks to the high throughput.