University research and engineering programs are often looking for a way to eliminate many of the constraints previously seen with traditional manufacturing methods like CNC machining. Enter a new 3D printing system designed for machine shops and metal job shops.
On the heels of its new fiber composites 3D printer, Desktop Metal has recently launched another new system. Called the Shop System, this is the world’s first metal binder jetting system.
The Shop System is an affordable, high-quality binder jetting technology to print end-use metal parts. It’s great for universities because of its:
- Ease of use and operation — Designed with the modern machine shop in mind, the Shop System is built to fit seamlessly into your workflow. You can produce parts with superior surface finish and resolution versus laser-based systems at a fraction of the cost.
- Higher productivity — With a high-speed, single-pass print engine, the Shop System produces high-quality metal parts up to 10x faster than laser powder bed fusion—producing up to 70kg of metal parts per day.
- High print quality — Print customer-ready, high-resolution parts with incredibly fine feature detail. Achieve surface finishes as low as 4µm Ra out of the furnace, and <0.1µm Ra with mass finishing. The Shop System produces fully dense, solid parts, no debind or infill required.
Here’s how it works:
- Print — For each layer, the printer spreads metal powder across the build bed, and precisely jets a binding agent to bond loose powder and define part geometry. Layer by layer, metal powder and binder is deposited until the entire build volume is packed with bound parts and surrounding loose powder.
- Depowder — Once an entire build is complete, the build box is removed and placed in a powder station for bulk and fine depowdering — with the help of a hand-held air pick. Loose powder is removed from the parts and recovered via a built-in powder recycling system with powder sieving.
- Sinter — Depowdered parts are placed onto trays in a shop-safe, high-throughput furnace for batch sintering. With an external gas hookup and temperatures reaching 1400ºC, the Shop System furnace is able to deliver quality and reliable sintering in a shop-friendly format.
The system starts at $150,000. Contact us to learn more about pricing or for detailed specs.
