As LPBF parts grow more complex, depowdering can no longer be an afterthought. Solukon's SPR-Pathfinder® PRO brings simulation depth, process transparency, and accurate time prediction to the most demanding geometries in metal additive manufacturing.
Picture this: a heat exchanger whose internal channels are thinner than a human hair. A rocket combustion chamber with regenerative cooling circuits so intricate they could never be machined. These are the type of parts that metal additive manufacturing and laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) in particular, make possible. They are also the parts that are hardest to depowder.
In aerospace, residual powder inside a cooling channel is a certification risk. In serial production, an undepowderable geometry discovered after printing means rework, delay, and cost.
Solukon’s automated depowdering systems were built on a conviction: that automated depowdering should not be a mechanical task but an intelligent one. A depowdering machine without the right software is power without precision: the machine can move, but it cannot think through the geometry. SPR-Pathfinder® has always been the intelligence behind the motion.
But as parts become more complex, the demands on that intelligence grow with them. SPR-Pathfinder® PRO has been developed to address the critical unknowns that complexity creates.
As LPBF geometries become increasingly complex, depowderability is emerging as a limiting factor for industrial adoption. Parts only create value when powder can be removed reliably and repeatably. SPR-Pathfinder® PRO was developed to remove this barrier. In direct response to market demand the Solukon team around Product Owner Hemank Raj has worked on the large software upgrade for the following reasons:
By making depowderability a predictable engineering parameter, Solukon enables manufacturers to validate complex designs before production starts. Andreas Hartmann, CEO and CTO summarizes why Solukon has decided to work on a comprising upgrade of SPR-Pathfinder®: “At Solukon, we have always believed that reliable and intelligent automated depowdering can be achieved when machine, process, and software are aligned. The parts our customers print today are more complex than ever and we have grown alongside that ambition. SPR-Pathfinder® PRO reflects years of listening to the market and advancing our software in step with the most demanding AM applications: parts with sub-millimeter channels, densely packed internal surfaces, and geometries previously inaccessible.”
The PRO version introduces three capabilities that go beyond the existing software:
Higher simulation resolution
SPR-Pathfinder® PRO supports up to 1,000,000 particles, a 20-fold increase over the standard version, combined with an unlimited number of voxels. This makes it possible to accurately compute even the most intricate internal structures, including sub-millimeter channels and densely packed internal surfaces that were previously inaccessible to simulation. In the simulation by SPR-Pathfinder® PRO, the part moves in the same way it will later during the corresponding cleaning step in the Solukon machine. This makes the process much easier to understand.
Cross-sectional inspection in all planes
The software now enables cross-sectional views of the component in all planes (X, Y, and Z), giving operators full visibility inside the part at any point and from any direction. Also, the part’s transparency can be adjusted very granularly. This makes it straightforward to identify powder traps and bottlenecks before a single layer is printed.
Accurate process-time prediction
For many industrial operators, depowdering remains an unknown variable in production scheduling. SPR-Pathfinder® PRO now allows users to specify exactly how long the calculation and depowdering process in their Solukon system will take and to determine how that time fits into their production schedule. This eliminates a bottleneck that grows more costly as production volumes increase.
“SPR-Pathfinder® PRO is the result of working closely with operators who push LPBF to its limits every day,”, says Hemank Raj, Product Owner of SPR-Pathfinder®, adding: ”The standard version already removes the guesswork from depowdering program creation. With PRO, we go further: users can now look inside the most complex geometries, predict process time with confidence, and validate depowderability before the first layer is printed. That changes how engineers think about postprocessing from the very start of a project.”
With the introduction of SPR-Pathfinder® PRO, Solukon now offers the software in two versions, each designed for specific applications and production needs.
In general, the SPR-Pathfinder® software uses the CAD file of the complete build job to calculate the ideal motion sequence for removing powder from complex interior structures as quickly as possible. calculations are based on the digital twin of the part.
Each version is compatible with the following Solukon depowdering systems:
• SFM-AT350
• SFM-AT350-E
• SFM-AT800-S
• SFM-AT1000-S
• SFM-AT1500-S
SPR-Pathfinder® Basic helps to calculate cleaning programs for moderately complex components. It provides the core automation that makes manual programming unnecessary. For users whose parts do not require advanced simulation and want a cost-effective entry-level depowdering software Basic is the right tool.
SPR-Pathfinder® PRO is designed for highly complex components and for operations where process transparency and production planning precision are non-negotiable. It delivers full simulation depth, cross-sectional inspection capability, and accurate process-time prediction.
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