Anubis Manufacturing needed to develop frames to securely hold delicate electronic components inside a mass flow meter they had developed called the ARBOmeter. They chose to use additive manufacturing to produce the frames due to its ability to quickly produce customized parts at a low cost while allowing for continuous testing and design improvements. Specifically, they used a Formiga P100 laser sintering system to produce nylon frames. This allowed them to efficiently produce and modify the frames over 15 design iterations. The laser sintering process also enabled them to design frames with internal channels to help cool electronic components inside the enclosed meter, satisfying its IP65 rating requirements. Anubis was able to minimize production costs and time to market by using additive manufacturing for

1. Customer Case Study Industry
Facts
Shown mounted on a vibrating tray is an ARBOmeter, designed and manufactured by
Anubis Manufacturing Consulting Corporation, for measuring particulate flow (Source: Anubis).
Additive Manufacturing
Helps Anubis Go with the Flow (Meter)
Challenge
Production of customized
fasteners for a mass flow meter.
Solution
Fast development of the frame-
work design and inexpensive
production of the parts in small
series with a FORMIGA P 100.
Results
• Design flexibility: unique
frames to hold delicate
electronic components
• Evolutionary: technology
enables continuous testing
and optimization of parts
• Economic: rapid product
development at low costs

2. EOS technology and materials provide low costs, high quality,
and quick turnaround times for flow meter parts
Short profile
Anubis Corporation special-
izes in providing professional
engineering services to
companies with industrial
manufacturing operations.
Strategically placed, with
offices in Canada and Egypt
they offer services through­-
out North America, Europe,
the Middle East and Africa
so that they may meet their
global customer’s needs.
Address
Anubis Manufacturing
Consultants Corporation
4100A Sladeview Crescent
Unit 34
Mississauga, Ontario L5L 5Z3
(Canada)
www.anubiscorp.com
If you’re rolling out an industrial product and you want to manufacture it in the most efficient,
cost-effective way possible, you may want to touch base with someone who has done exactly that
time and again – Anubis Manufacturing Consultants Corporation (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada).
Recently, Anubis developed, patented, and commercialized a mass flow meter for particulates. Called
the ARBOmeter, the device can operate either as a strictly volumetric device or, with the addition
of a hopper and tray, a meter that can measure variable bulk density of materials. The ARBOmeter
is easy and inexpensive to install on existing product lines, where it can be mounted without
touching the product. The device is primarily used in the mining, plastics, recycling and food proces-
sing indus­tries, and it can measure flow of everything from pellets to powder to potato chips.
Challenge
Inside the meter’s stainless steel
enclosure are a number of delicate
electronic components, several
of which require a framework
that reduces vibration and keeps
it in place. The individual frames
need to hold each part firmly
and accurately at a fixed angle.
They also need to allow for easy,
tool-free installation and removal.
Components to be supported
include two cameras and an
LED light that have different
shapes and require unique frames.
“Given the challenges involved
in making the frames, using
Additive Manufacturing to make
them seemed like a good idea,”
says Tharwat Fouad, owner of
Anubis.
Because of prior experience with
EOS technology and materials,
Anubis selected laser sintering
as the process to make seven of
the frameworks, including those
for the cameras and LED light.
There were several reasons for
the choice: frame complexity
(incorporating such features as
built-in hinges and quick-release
snap fits), small production runs
and – most important – con-
tinuing evolution of the frame
designs.
In the Anubis ARBOmeter, white
nylon frameworks are custom
designed for individual compo-
nents and manufactured
in a FORMIGA P 100 plastic
laser sintering system from
EOS (Source: Anubis).

3. The ARBOmeter employs an
internal CPU that gives off heat.
To protect electronic components,
the temperature inside the stain-
less steel enclosure should not
exceed 42 °C/108 °F. “We needed
to explore a cooling system of
some kind,” explains Fouad. That
presented a challenge. Standard
practice might be to cut a hole in
the enclosure and mount a fan.
But in this instance, the device is
IP 65 rated, so neither dust nor
water can enter the enclosure –
and that means no holes at all.
Any cooling system would need
to be internal. “We searched
extensively and consulted elec-
trical manufacturers,” Fouad
explains, “but we didn’t find an
inexpensive way to cool an
enclosure and keep the IP rating
we wanted.” Laser sintering’s
potential for innovation and
design freedom should also keep
a solution for this challenge
ready.
Solution
“Several of the plastic parts went
through extensive redesign and
we chose to revise the flow meter
at least 15 times,” notes Fouad.
With so many changes, traditio-
nal plastics processes such as
molding would be far too costly
and would slow down product
development. By contrast, using
laser sintered nylon (PA 2200,
a Nylon 12 material), it was pos-
sible to manufacture the frames
inexpensively and produce new
versions overnight. The ability to
make multiple revisions within
tight turnaround times allowed
Anubis to create optimal frames
for each component.
A further benefit: A plastic laser
sintering system can create nearly
any shape. It could incorporate
channels inside the nylon frames
so that air could flow through
to cool the electrical parts. A thin
layer of nylon isolating the com-
ponents from the channels would
ensure that the meter could still
earn its IP rating. Engineers calcu-
lated the volume of air flow needed
to remove the heat as well as
size and design of the channels.
Adding an impeller fins and
baffles maximized the heat trans-
ference. Although time con­straints
prevented Anubis from finalizing
the cooling channel design on
the ARBOmeter they are currently
considering such a feature
for several other applications.
Results
Meanwhile, the ARBOmeter has
gone into full production. The
meter’s laser sintered frames are
built in batches of four nested
sets, seven to a set, over about
20 hrs. As a basis 3D data of
the part is used and before the
”The quality, repeatability, and
durability of the parts made by
using Additive Manufacturing
are very satisfactory. The EOS
technology is uniquely suited
to our needs on this project.”
”With laser sintering we were
able to inexpensively produce,
explore and further develop
multiple iterations of a part.
Traditional plastics processes
would be far too expensive and
time consuming in this case.“
Tharwat Fouad, Owner of
Anubis Manufacturing
Consultants Corporation
production starts it gets “sliced”
into layers. The laser sintering
system, which contains a bed of
plastic powder, generates the
desired geometry layer by layer.
A focussed laser beam then fuses
the powder material on the basis
of the digital data provided. Once
one layer has been completed,
the powder bed is lowered by a
few micrometers and the process
begins again. “The quality, repeat-
ability, and durability of the parts
are very satisfactory,” Fouad
enthuses. “The EOS technology is
uniquely suited to our needs on
this project.” Anubis has minimized
the frames to optimize set sizes
and plans to run five sets at
once in the FORMIGA P 100. The
company expects to make be-
tween 100 and 200 ARBOmeters
in 2013.
Anubis’ experience with plastic
laser sintering and other Additive
Manufacturing (AM) processes
has given them a broader under-
standing of the future role of
the technology. “I believe that
AM will close the competitive
gap between larger corporations
and small businesses, or even
individual inventors, for bringing
new products to market,” Fouad
says. “It will have a major im-
pact on speed to market and will
provide more manufacturing
choices to end users. I don’t
think it will eliminate traditional
manufacturing – at least in
the foreseeable future. But for
low-volume applications, it is
filling a valuable niche in which
it is more cost-effective, and
offers greater design freedom,
than traditional processes.”

4. Status 5/2013. Technical data subject to change without notice. EOS is certified according to ISO 9001.
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