The company’s contract manufacturing service uses a Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) process to print parts, fixtures, and molds, accelerating product development for customers in the automotive, medical, and other industries.
By Mark Shortt
LIVONIA, Mich.—Novastar Solutions has built a multi-faceted, yet integrated business model that supports companies’ efforts in R&D, engineering, design and prototype testing, and manufacturing. The company is well known as a provider of test instrument calibration services, and as a seller of Farsoon 3D printers.
In early 2025, the Livonia-based company further expanded its business by introducing contract manufacturing of metal 3D printed parts. Today, Novastar prints parts in Stainless 316 (316 stainless steel) on its Farsoon 301M-2 3D printer. The printer is a Metal Laser Powder Bed Fusion (MLPBF) system, or Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) system, that uses dual 500W lasers for high-quality additive manufacturing.
“Our biggest strength is our partnership approach,” said Ryan Zemmer, additive manufacturing specialist at Novastar Solutions, in an interview with Design-2-Part. “We work hand-in-hand with customers to help them understand the process, how to best achieve their desired results for the given project, and provide recommendations on how to optimize their design files for the manufacturing process, if necessary.”
Novastar serves customers in the automotive, manufacturing, medical, aerospace, and consumer goods industries. The company provides metal 3D-printing services, along with engineering and design consultation, in support of these industries. Most of its clients are either OEMs or Tier-1 or Tier-2 suppliers.
“Being here in Metro Detroit, it’s still very much the heart of automotive. A lot of our clientele falls into that realm,” Zemmer said.
Zemmer said that 3D printing always provides an opportunity to achieve complex designs and geometries that would be truly impossible with other traditional subtractive manufacturing methods. Most of the clients who come to Novastar for its 3D printing service are in the pre-production stage, looking to test and validate a design.
“The given design may see volumes in the hundreds of thousands, but before their supplier goes into full production of those volumes, they’re going to need samples for box testing, validation, verification of accuracy—just verification that everything’s working as they anticipate it to work,” Zemmer said.
Because Novastar is currently running Stainless 316 in its printers, it’s not seeing high demand for parts from aerospace companies, which are typically seeking lighter-weight materials or materials that can withstand extremely high temperatures, such as aluminum or Inconel. However, Zemmer confirmed the company is seeing demand for manufacturing aids, such as fixtures, on the aerospace side.
Zemmer said that metal 3D printing is still “relatively fresh and new within the broader marketplace.”
“We’ve been in metal 3D printing for a little over a year now. Every week, every month, we continue to build our book of business. I would say the industry as a whole is starting to realize that this is not just prototyping technology, it’s something that can be used for manufacturing and end-use parts.”
As an example of how Novastar might work with customers to help them achieve their desired results for a given project, Zemmer mentioned what he called one of the biggest considerations in metal 3D printing—the need to build support structures to support the part during printing. That need is even stronger in metal 3D printing, as opposed to plastic, due to the weight of the parts that are being created.
“Probably one of the most critical aspects of preparing for a print job, and ensuring the best result the first time out of the gate, is the design of the support structure,” he noted. “There’s very much a blend of art and science when it comes to metal 3D printing.”
He said the process usually starts with identifying which surface of the part may have either the most critical or the least critical features on it. That’s helpful in determining how to orient the part in the growth process to avoid overhangs, keep through-holes dimensionally accurate, or provide insight on how the customer’s design could be changed so that it’s better suited for additive manufacturing.
“We have developed expertise within the metal 3D printing process to determine how to best orient parts, design support structures for successful manufacturing, and achieve dimensional conformity and tight tolerances, either through the printing process or by machining parts in a secondary process,” Zemmer said.
Zemmer also noted that improvements in software and modeling are having a positive impact on metal 3D printing. He’s aware of recent developments in support structure strategies and how to reduce the amount of supports needed. Some of the biggest trends that he’s seen within metal 3D printing, he said, have been increases in build volume and number of lasers within the machines.
He said that in software and modeling, probably the biggest developments are on the predictive analysis side of things. This means better understanding of the thermal loads that are being put into parts as they’re being grown, and the melt pool of the actual powdered metal as it’s being infused to the grown part. It also enables refinements to the strategies that are used “before you ever hit ‘start’ on the machine, he said.
For customers, the Farsoon 301M-2 3D Printer offers a way to achieve high-quality parts. Although results can vary based on thermal loads, Zemmer said Novastar has produced a 12-inch wide part within a tolerance of 0.005 (five thousandths). In addition to parts and fixtures, the printer can also be used to create intricate molds and mold inserts, heat exchangers, and rapid and hybrid tooling.
At a time when customers are often quoted multiple weeks for delivery, Zimmer said the biggest advantage of Novastar’s service—for all customers across the board—is timing.
“Customers often choose Novastar due to our fair pricing, value-adds, and quick turn-around.
There have been many cases where we’re able to get customers parts the same week or the next week in order to meet their development deadlines,” he said.