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Building upon progress made during a recent workshop, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, has established the Additive Manufacturing for Lighting Consortium. The consortium, composed of lighting and 3D printer and material manufacturers, convened its first meeting on April 2.
LRC said in a release that the consortium will help bridge the knowledge gap between the lighting and 3D printing industries and build a collaboration for successful adoption of additive manufacturing for high-quality, value-added lighting. LRC said
3D printing could allow manufacturers to create and rapidly print custom products on demand that are uniquely designed for the spaces to be illuminated, improving aesthetics, functionality, and manufacturing costs. Research is still needed to advance the integration of 3D printing into the lighting industry, and the Lighting Research Center has conducted initial investigations into the potential for printing different types of lighting components.
The consortium’s first-year objectives include market assessment, education, and collaboration on pilot research projects. The group’s long-term goal is to build a center of excellence that will offer best practices and solutions for additive manufacturing of lighting systems.
“In the future, we hope that the consortium will provide market intelligence, technology guidance, and standards representation, among other competency-building activities, which will enable companies to address this transformation proactively,” Nadarajah Narendran, LRC’s director of research, said in the release.