Desktop Metal has quali?ed the use of 316L stainless steel for the Shop System, a metal binder jetting system designed for machine shops.
"With an expanded materials portfolio, users can now leverage affordable, high-quality binder jetting technology to print end-use parts in 316L stainless steel with throughput, print quality and productivity unattainable via legacy additive manufacturing (AM) processes," said a company spokesperson.
Known for its corrosion resistance, high ductility and excellent mechanical properties at extreme temperatures, 316L is an austenitic stainless steel well-suited for demanding environments and applications.
The Desktop Metal materials science team has validated that 316L stainless steel printed and sintered using the Shop System meets MPIF 35 standards set by the Metal Powder Industries Federation.
Examples of key use cases include:
- Bulb nozzle: Custom spray nozzles are often used in chemical processing. With conventional manufacturing methods, such nozzles would typically be cast followed by extensive secondary machining on a 5-axis CNC. 316L is an essential material for this part because of its excellent material properties, even at elevated working temperatures and while spraying corrosive ?uids. 3D printing in 316L on the Shop System can produce the entire order of several hundred nozzles in less than a week with only one secondary thread-tapping operation required, reducing lead times and manufacturing process complexity.
- Medical device closure: Assembly closures can be used to latch and hold medical device components in place. "CNC machining these closures would be challenging given the miniscule, precise geometries, while metal injection molding (MIM) would require large investments and lead times for tooling-difficult to justify given the mid-volume requirements for the component," said the spokesperson. "The Shop System can print up to 10,000 medical device closures in a week, without any tooling costs and without the extensive labor costs and time that machining would require. 316L is an ideal material for medical components such as this closure, because of its corrosion resistance, which makes it easy to clean and sterilize."
- Watch bezel: A bezel is the main component that houses the dial and movement within a watch. With the Shop System, different watch bezel models can be printed in each build, enabling mass customization with no tooling required and minimal lead times. For consumer products applications such as this bezel, 316L is an ideal material since it allows for excellent corrosion resistance while maintaining the high strength.
The Shop System
"Featuring an advanced single pass print engine, the Shop System offers a turn-key solution for producing complex, end-use metal parts in a fraction of the time and cost of conventional manufacturing and comparably priced legacy AM technologies," said the spokesperson. "The Shop System includes all the equipment machine shops need to begin binder jetting-from printing through sintering-and is designed to scale throughput with a range of build volume con?gurations."
The Shop System features engineered powders and default processing parameters optimized to deliver high quality and ensure repeatability without the need for extensive third party materials quali?cation or process development. The use of software-generated hand-removable sintering setters eliminates the need for costly and labor-intensive post-processing steps.
Featuring variable build sizes up to 16L and a high-speed, single pass print carriage, the Shop System amplifies existing output with up to hundreds of complex metal parts printed per day. With speeds up to 800 cc/hour, the Shop System enables batches of tens or hundreds of complex printed parts in as little as ?ve hours.
Businesses can print dense, complex metal parts with ?ne feature detail and surface ?nishes as low as four-micron roughness average (Ra) out of the furnace. Leveraging an advanced single pass printhead, 1,600 native DPI, the Shop System delivers 400% percent the resolution of legacy binder jetting systems, according to the company. Reliable print quality is enabled by the 5x nozzle redundancy on the printhead.
The Shop System also supports 17-4PH stainless steel and chrome cobalt. A broad portfolio of additional materials is in active R&D with additional releases slated to roll out soon.
For more information contact:
Desktop Metal
63 Third Avenue
Burlington, MA 01803
978-224-1244
www.desktopmetal.com