Technology 3 min read

Are You Ready for 3D Printing to go Mainstream Thanks to Desktop Metal?

lppicture / Pixabay.com

lppicture / Pixabay.com

A Massachusetts-based company developed a new 3d metal printer that would be 100 times faster, and 10 times cheaper, than existing platforms.

In the aviation, automobile, and shipbuilding industries, lighter parts mean reduced fuel consumption and the saving of billions of dollars, not to mention fewer carbon emissions.

The stakes are this high and the equation is that simple, however making light and cost-effective parts can’t be accomplished via traditionally expensive and wasteful manufacturing processes.

Desktop Metal’s solutions to make metal 3D printing mainstream.Click To Tweet

Metal 3D Printing to Boost Manufacturing

According to a report published this month by IDTechEx, the global market for 3D printing metals is projected to be worth $12 billion USD in the next decade (2018-2028).

Across the board, manufacturers are increasingly coveting 3D metal printing as a cost-effective, fast, safe and quality alternative to current production processes.

Metal 3D Printing market to be worth $12 billion USD by 2028. Click To Tweet

Metal 3D printing promises to significantly change how parts are designed, prototyped and manufactured. Just take a look at Norsk Titanium‘s 3D printed commercial jet parts–now in use by Boeing.

Norsk has developed an impressive, scalable system that produces zero waste.

However, most solutions available on the market have failed to deliver on this promise.

Many of the current metal 3D printing systems are complex, very expensive, and not fast enough to enable industrial production on a mass scale.

To cash in on that demand, many startups, pushed by big investors believing in the viability of the technology, are working to find innovative approaches to enable mass-produced metal 3D printing.

Desktop Metal’s Solutions to Make Metal 3D Printing go Mainstream

Founded in October 2015, Desktop Metal is a Boston-based startup that develops professional metal 3D printing solutions that are much cheaper and faster.

https://youtu.be/aUOCiRktuCo

In its Series D funding round (the 4th round of funding), Desktop Metal raised $115 million USD, achieving a total investment of $212 million USD. Among the investors are some big names like Alphabet (via GV, formerly Google Ventures), New Enterprise Associates, General Electric (via GE Ventures), and Techtronic Industries.

Desktop Metals’s client portfolio already counts the likes of BMW, Caterpillar, and Lowe’s.

It’s very clear that the hype around Desktop Metal doesn’t come out of nowhere.

The Boston startup claims its 3D printers are capable of producing metal parts 100 times faster, and 10 to 20 times cheaper than some laser systems currently available on the market.

DM now offers two low-cost metallic 3D printing systems that cover the whole manufacturing cycle (from prototyping to mass production) and allow for fast and safe manufacturing of metal parts of high quality.

The Studio System is aimed to engineers for in-house use, as an office printer, for prototyping and small scale production. The Production System, to be available in 2018, is intended for mass production of full-scale designs at costs 20 times lower than conventional systems.

How long until you have a metal 3D printer in your office? Your home?

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Zayan Guedim

Trilingual poet, investigative journalist, and novelist. Zed loves tackling the big existential questions and all-things quantum.

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