Additive Snack

Fabian Alefeld hosts Karl Littau, CTO of Sakuu, to discuss why rechargeable battery manufacturing has changed little in decades and how Sakuu is rethinking it with additive approaches. Littau explains conventional thick-film slurry coating and stacked anode/cathode layers, noting heavy use of copper and aluminum and high costs driven largely by bill of materials. He outlines battery basics (anode, cathode, electrolyte) and contrasts lithium-ion with solid-state concepts, where solids replace liquid electrolytes but face commercialization challenges. Sakuu’s initial product targets electrode coating by shifting from wet, solvent-based processes to dry powder-bed methods, enabling powder reclaim/reuse, removing toxic solvents, reducing equipment size (e.g., long drying ovens), and potentially increasing throughput. The conversation also covers future possibilities like multi-material patterning, arbitrary shapes, bipolar designs that reduce metal, and broader impacts on EVs, grid storage, and electrification.
 
00:00 Welcome and Topic
01:32 Why Batteries Need Change
04:13 Cost Drivers Today
07:53 Sakuu Additive Approach
13:09 Battery Basics Explained
18:30 Dry Powder Manufacturing
26:10 Speed and Footprint Gains
28:47 Scaling and Supply Chain
32:27 Future Shapes and Structures
35:42 Solid State Readiness
37:48 Sakuu Origin Story
40:31 Roadmap and Industry Impact
42:34 Electrification Future Vision
49:48 Wrap Up and Thanks

Fabian Alefeld hosts Pan Michaleris, founder of PanOptimization (PanX), and Erik Denlinger, co-founder and chief engineer, to discuss the evolution and role of simulation and finite element analysis (FEA) in additive manufacturing. Pan shares his background as a Penn State professor and entrepreneur (including a prior company acquired by Autodesk) and explains how simulation helps reduce costly trial-and-error builds by predicting distortion, temperature, stress, buckling, cracking, and recoater risks, while moving toward closed-loop manufacturing-to-design workflows and property prediction. Erik outlines PanX’s commercial capabilities - fast thermo-mechanical simulation for very large parts, distortion compensation, and dwell-time optimization - and describes proof-of-concept work on controlling melt quality and hardness via parameter modulation. They cover adoption in aerospace/defense and new space, qualification implications, integration with build-prep workflows (e.g., EOS/Velosis), and cautious, validation-focused views on AI surrogate models.
00:00 Welcome and Episode Preview
01:13 Meet Pan and Erik
01:59 Pan’s Journey to PanX
03:59 Erik’s Origin Story
05:10 FEA History and the Elephant Test
08:32 Why Additive Needs Simulation
10:23 Closing the Design Manufacturing Loop
14:33 PanX Today Core Capabilities
17:30 From Distortion to Material Properties
20:25 Making Simulation Usable for Engineers
27:06 Workflow Integration and Automation
29:44 From Failures to Design
30:41 Who Uses PanX Today
32:41 Simulation for Qualification
35:17 Layerwise Parameter Control
38:51 Why FEA Is Hard
41:38 AI and Surrogate Models
46:53 Future Material Tailoring
48:37 Roadmap Workflow Integration
52:27 Closing Thoughts and Wrap

Host Fabian Alefeld speaks with Japan-based additive manufacturing consultant Peter Rogers about the state of additive manufacturing across Asia Pacific. Rogers contrasts Japan’s advanced but risk-averse manufacturing culture - strong in incremental optimization, with slower certification (notably medical) and limited defense budgets - with faster-moving but smaller markets like Australia/New Zealand, where mining drives demand for rapid, remote part supply. They discuss China’s manufacturing scale and government support, its growing dominance in desktop FDM, and how low-cost Chinese metal PBF machines can win and retain service-bureau business despite Western strengths in quality and productivity. Singapore is highlighted for academia and MRO, while Korea spans shipbuilding, semicon, automotive, and defense. Southeast Asia is still production-focused with limited local R&D, whereas India is rising as an English-speaking engineering and R&D hub for global OEMs. Both see lowering costs and AI enabling broader, consumer-facing AM applications.
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
01:49 Peter Rogers Background
03:32 Moving to Japan
05:12 APAC Additive Overview
09:23 China Manufacturing Dynamics
13:27 Reshoring and Kaizen Mindset
18:45 Traditional Skills vs Additive
20:57 Japan Nearing Inflection Point
25:06 Top APAC Applications
29:02 Japan Korea Industry Mix
30:31 China Scale And Funding
33:18 FDM Race To Bottom
34:27 Bambu Ecosystem Advantage
36:53 Metal AM Price Expansion
38:23 Chinese Metal Machines Case
40:30 Competing On Productivity
44:10 Southeast Asia Adoption
47:06 India RnD Powerhouse
49:46 Future Consumer Breakthroughs
52:40 Japan Pushing DED Limits
55:30 AI Lowers Barriers
57:13 Wrap Up And Farewell

Host Fabian Alefeld interviews Erin Mastroni, President and founder of I3D Manufacturing (founded 2013), about building one of the largest additive-focused contract manufacturers and the industry’s shift from prototyping to production. Mastroni describes moving from fashion retail and trend forecasting to an MBA in sustainable business, spotting production AM as a key trend, and launching a metal powder bed fusion business in Oregon with limited traditional manufacturing experience. She recounts early funding challenges, using SBA/New Market Tax Credits, and landing Blue Origin as an early customer, which helped establish I3D as a fast-moving development partner known for tackling difficult materials like titanium and new nickel alloys with EOS. I3D grew from 5 people and two machines to two campuses, ~30 machines, and 54 employees, is launching an internal “I3D Academy,” navigated a severe COVID revenue drop without layoffs, and was acquired in 2023 by BTX Precision (L Squared Partners), expanding into turnkey CNC and broader capabilities while discussing PE’s role, production scalability, and emerging AI opportunities.

00:00 Podcast welcome
01:47 Fashion to additive
04:27 Funding and mission
06:52 Blue Origin breakthrough
08:27 Becoming a dev partner
12:19 I3D today scale
15:29 Growing talent academy
17:05 Growth phases and pandemic
20:22 Acquisition and turnkey expansion
22:06 Private equity tipping point
27:43 Private Equity Momentum
28:41 Flow Driven Applications
32:54 Supply Chain Use Cases
35:12 Scaling Production Know How
40:21 One Stop Shop Strategy
43:14 Customers Get Smarter
47:31 Next Wave Breakthroughs
53:03 AI In Additive Manufacturing
57:25 Closing Thanks

Fabian Alefeld hosts Duann Scott on the Editor Snack podcast to discuss how AI is evolving in additive manufacturing, moving from “AI-washing” and impractical text-to-mesh hype toward more capable tools using language models, visual language models, surrogate models, and emerging foundational models. Scott describes testing tools by trying to make them fail and highlights a recent success with the Raven plugin for Rhino/Grasshopper, which generated a parametric VESA mount and tripod adapter from minimal prompts, then iteratively added fillets and an isogrid structure and produced a printable part within hours. They discuss constraints like missing engineering training data and design intent, the promise of AI for toolpath and process optimization (including transfer of parameter knowledge across materials), and the role of the 3MF format in capturing toolpath and metadata to enable richer, searchable datasets. Scott previews CDFAM events in Barcelona, DC, and Tokyo and emphasizes that progress requires significant data work and investment.
 
 
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 
02:18 AI Hype to Real Progress
 
04:13 Testing AI Design Tools
 
04:46 Data Gaps and Design Intent
 
07:15 Two Paths for AI Design
 
10:15 Raven Grasshopper Breakthrough
 
13:17 Pushing Parametric Complexity
 
20:28 Limits of Black Box Optimization
 
22:40 Toolpath and Material Transfer
 
26:18 Alloy Discovery and Qualification
 
28:05 3MF Role Teaser
 
28:18 3MF Format Overview
 
29:17 Smarter Toolpath Extensions
 
32:31 Metadata for AI Training
 
35:43 Data Ownership and Synthetic Data
 
39:59 AI Impact on Additive
 
44:10 Workforce and Reshoring
 
47:22 What Is CDFAM
 
49:49 CDFAM Audience and Format
 
51:43 DC Event and Government
 
54:05 Wrap Up and Thanks