Editor’s Pick: Turnkey Binder Metal Jetting System for Machine Shops

Desktop Metal announces Shop System, which it describes as a turnkey solution for bringing metal binder jet 3D printing to machine shops. The company says this new system offers “cost effective” 3D printing with “unparalleled speed and productivity.” 

This new metal 3D printing system comes with a range of build volume configurations: 4L, 8L, 12L and 16L, which the company says allows machine shops to scale to require throughput. 

The Shop System uses Desktop Metal’s Live Sinter technology. The company says this technology takes the guesswork out of sintering printed parts, by applying predictive counter-deformation. The software simulates the complex forces parts experience during sintering and automatically adjusts the geometries that, once printed, will sinter to the original intended design specifications. 

Desktop Metal (DM) says parts created on the Shop System are printed fully supported in a powder bed. Hand-removable sintering setters “avoid hours of labor machining off support structures” typical to laser-based metal 3D printing systems. The result, says Desktop Metal, is “customer-ready, near-net-shape parts right out of the furnace.”

Desktop Metal has qualified 316L Stainless Steel for the Shop System. The company says 316L is an austenitic stainless steel suited for various demanding environments and applications including marine, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, food preparation and surgical tubing, among other applications. The company says 316L is known for its corrosive resistance, high ductility and mechanical properties at extreme temperatures. 

Shop System also supports 17-4PH stainless steel and chrome cobalt. The company says a “broad portfolio” of additional materials are in the R&D pipeline. 

DM says the Shop System produces end-use metal parts up to 10 times faster than the speed of legacy additive manufacturing technologies, and does so at a lower cost. The Shop System is rated at 800 cc/hour. 

Other specs and product claims for Shop System: prints dense, complex metal parts with surface finish as low as 4-micron roughness average; uses a 1600 dpi single pass printhead; delivers 400% higher resolution than legacy binder jetting systems.

The company claims average cycle times on the Shop System allow a new build every shift. The result is the ability to reserve machinist hours for refining critical features. Shop System offers a tooling-free manufacturing process, allowing for quick changeover from one part to another without custom setups. 

The Shop System and the new stainless steel are available directly from Desktop Metal. For more information, including explanatory videos, click here.  

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.