Digital Metal® – First in the World: Automated depowdering for metal binder jetting
When going into mass production of printed components, automation is key. Digital Metal® is continually evolving the automation of binder jetting processes—and is proud to announce that a renowned German Research Institute recently invested in DPS 1000, the world’s first commercial automated depowdering station for metal binder jetting, together with a complete printing system.
Digital Metal®, a global leader in high-precision metal binder jetting systems for industrial use, can now add automated depowdering of metal binder jetted components to their offer. “A key benefit of the DPS 1000 for Digital Metal customers is that it will free up time, and also bring consistency by removing the human factor from the equation,” says Alexander Sakratidis, Sales and Marketing Manager at Digital Metal.
One of the first customers for the DPS 1000 is a renowned German Research Institute. One of the institute’s missions is to industrialize additive manufacturing technologies to create resource-efficient products for the future.
“Metal Binder Jetting will enhance productivity and precision while at the same time reducing costs of metal additive manufacturing, which opens the door for series production,” says the Head of Process Department at the institute. “However, one major technical challenge is depowdering of the green parts and there is a huge potential in working on automation solutions in this context.”
Parts depowdered in DPS 1000
Parts depowdered in DPS 1000
The customer believes that automated depowdering will be key to industrialization of AM. “To date manual depowdering and cleaning have taken up most of the work hours in the binder jetting process. Automating this step makes the whole AM process cost efficient while ensuring more consistent part quality.”
The institute has been impressed with the DPS 1000’s ability to precisely remove metal powder from most geometries of any parts. The added manual cleaning option makes it possible to clean even tricky geometries after the initial program has removed most of the powder. They are also pleased with the whole Digital Metal printing system, and how well it fits with their mission to industrialize the additive manufacturing of metals.
“With this system we can easily test multiply different powders to enhance the print quality and make more precise predictions on the shrinking of the sintering process,” says the customer. “It convinces with its precision, and even very delicate structures can be printed.”
To learn more about the DPS 1000 and Digital Metal binder jetting printing systems go to https://digitalmetal.tech/news-and-media/virtual-events/, scroll 3 min into the video to see the automated sequence.
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About Digital Metal
Digital Metal is the world’s first company to commercialize state-of-the-art 3D metal printers for the production of components with advanced geometries. Digital Metal’s proprietary binder jetting technology enables the production of complex objects with superior surface finish and accuracy, which is not possible with competing technologies.
The company also offers printing services of metal components. Among the customers are many of the world’s leading technology companies such as Fraunhofer, Honeywell, MTC (The Manufacturing Technology Centre, UK), Koenigsegg, Bosch, Duerr Dental, CETIM (the French Technology Center for Mechanical Industries), Siemens and Volvo to mention a few. Millions of parts have been produced, where of a substantial amount in serial production at the production plant in Sweden.
Digital Metal was founded in 2003 and has its headquarters in Sweden. The company is part of the Höganäs Group, the world’s largest producer of metal powders.
For more information on Digital Metal visit digitalmetal.tech
