“Additive manufacturing (AM) is very likely to be the future, but for that to truly happen, several critical issues still need to be addressed.” We wrote these words more than ten years ago.
So where do we stand today? Can 3D printing already be considered a viable solution for manufacturing gears?
In our opinion, not yet.
The main reason is that the same limitations we identified a decade ago—namely production speed and dimensional accuracy—still exist, although significant progress has certainly been made.
By nature, a gear is a precision component. As a complete mechanical element, it must comply with extremely tight tolerances, and precision itself is measured through a variety of parameters rather than a single value. When it comes to industrial applications, where precision is often the determining factor, today’s 3D printing technologies are still unable to consistently achieve the level of accuracy required. In these situations, conventional manufacturing processes remain the preferred solution.
That said, we firmly believe there is already a significant market for additive manufacturing.
The first and most obvious application is prototyping.
It is also an excellent solution for small companies and start-ups that need to manufacture limited quantities while working with constrained budgets. Investing in traditional gear manufacturing equipment—such as a €400,000 gear hobbing machine—is simply not realistic in these cases, whereas a 3D printer offers an affordable and practical alternative.
There is another area where additive manufacturing has proven particularly valuable—one that directly reflects our own experience.
Several years ago, MICROingranaggi purchased a 3D printer. The investment was recovered in just a few months and today, operating at full capacity, it saves us more than €10,000 per year.
Why?
Because we are fortunate to have an engineering department that goes beyond designing products. Our engineers continuously study, develop, and create solutions that often have no commercial equivalent.
In addition to producing prototypes,
we use our 3D printer to manufacture custom production tooling designed entirely in-house, eliminating the need to purchase these items from external suppliers.
Typical examples include plastic grippers for loading and unloading components, as well as dedicated fixtures used during assembly and quality inspection, such as supports and holding devices for measuring equipment.
An even more significant example is the testing fixture we developed for our gearmotors.
Nothing comparable was available on the market, so we designed it from scratch, tested it extensively, and refined it until it performed exactly as intended.
The result proved so effective that one of our customers, who was preparing to launch a small production line, asked us to manufacture the same fixture for their own facility.
This experience confirms our view: while 3D printing is not yet the ideal technology for manufacturing high-precision gears, it has already become an invaluable tool for engineering departments, prototyping, and the rapid development of custom manufacturing equipment. In these areas, additive manufacturing is no longer just a promising technology—it is already delivering tangible value every day.
