Boasting a compact footprint (it’s the smallest metal 3D printing system on this list) and slicing software with printer and print management features, the Markforged Metal X aims to be an easy-to-use machine promising to take your parts from design to fully functional metal parts in as few as 48 hours.

Metal for the Masses

Markforged Metal X: Review the Specs & Use Cases

The metal 3D printing process used in the Markforged Metal X, called Atomic Diffusion Additive Manufacturing (ADAM), involves the process of using a bound metal powder rod embedded inside a plastic filament. The resulting parts are then put into a debinder and sintered in separately available workstations.

The printer itself ($99,500) and the two post-processing components comprise the complete Metal X setup, with a total price in the region of $160,000, including close support from Markforged itself with its three-year success plan.

The main metal feedstock is used as support material, with a fine ceramic interface layer printed between supports and part to ensure clean breakaway post-sinter. The Metal X can print parts from a variety of verified metal alloy filaments, including tool steel and Inconel. In early 2020, Markforged also introduced a new copper material option.

Desktop Metal launched its latest Studio System 2 metal 3D printer in February 2021, building on the previous Studio System+, but with a big change: no debinding step necessary. Now prints from the Studio System can be moved directly into the accompanying furnace, cutting the previously required debinding step. The printer-to-sinter process definitely speeds up the production process.

Much like a traditional FDM printer, the Studio System 2 extrudes a metal filament to create the desired geometry (similarly to Markforged’s ADAM system).

Metal Printing, Made Affordable

Desktop Metal Studio System: Review the Specs

Easing you into the process of printing metal parts is the company’s software called Fabricate that automates a lot of the metallurgy, such as automatically scaling your part (to account for sinter shrinkage), orienting it for ideal print and sintering success, and generating the separable supports. Simply upload your design and follow the onboard UI for step-by-step guidance, the company says.

The upgraded printer natively supports 316L stainless steel material. It is backward compatible with all previous materials, including the copper material launched in late 2020, but they require a separate debinding station. New native materials will be added through 2021.

The Desktop Metal Studio System 2 sells for approximately $110,000 for the complete system, including the furnace station.

Where Desktop Metal’s Studio System 2 provides an efficient route to metal one-offs and custom tooling, the Desktop Metal Shop System scales things up, swapping bound metal deposition for binder jetting technology to enable faster throughput of parts – all in a modestly-sized workshop-suitable form.

Designed with machine shops in mind, the Desktop Metal Shop System is available in a variety of build volume configurations (up to 12-liter capacity) and offers the capability to group different batches of parts into single print cycles – tooling-free – rattling off the full volume of parts within a typical shift.

The Shop System uses Desktop Metal’s own spin on binder jetting, with more than 70,000 nozzles depositing droplets of binder in a single pass onto the company’s custom metal powders. The company claims surface finishes as fine as 4 Ra microns are possible post-furnace.

The Desktop Metal Production System is to the Shop System, what the Shop System is to the Studio System 2. Scaling production capability up in a factory-floor-friendly footprint, the Production System, Desktop Metal claims, achieves near-net-shape metal parts at speeds above that of competing laser-based metal additive manufacturing systems, and even competing binder jetting machines.

In a nutshell, the Production System uses a form of binder jetting the manufacturer has titles Single Pass Jetting (SPJ). This technology increases the time the printer spends actively printing, in comparison to other binder jetting systems. It forms a green metal part from loose metal powder that is precisely clumped together using a liquid binding agent.

A fixed build volume of 490 x 380 x 260 mm in the larger P-50 model provides ample space for high density runs. Desktop Metal also offers the P-1 model, designed to bridge the gap between benchtop development and mass production. It has a smaller build chamber at 200 x 100 x 40 mm but uses the same SPJ tech to produce equally high-quality results as its bigger sibling. P-1 also supports direct process transfer to the P-50 for production scale-up.

Uniquely among Desktop Metal systems, the Production System’s open platform accepts low-cost non-uniform powders, such as those used for metal injection molding. That means manufacturers can continue to use their preferred MIM powders, or, where establishing a manufacturing base, source locally. The Production System’s print parameters are adjusted to match.

Flexibility and agility come on the back of features such as inert processing to ensure powder uniformity and a cold printing process that allows for immediate transferal from printer to debinding.

3D System’s entry-level DMP Flex 100 metal 3D printer offers a build volume of 100 x 100 x 90 mm and the ability to print parts with overhangs down to 20 degrees without supports. Surface features as fine as 5  microns should mean a minimal need for post-processing. 3D Systems calls its technology Direct Metal Printing, where each layer is melted on to the previous one creating a strong and dense part (up to 99.9%).

The system’s 100-watt fiber laser, while lower power than those of the larger metal 3D printing solutions in 3D System’s line up, is powerful enough to handle a broad selection of the company’s metal powder library, including a variety of titanium grades.

Tailored to niche uses that demand fine detail, the DMP Flex 100 makes use of dedicated gas lines to achieve the vacuum necessary to print 3D System’s additive manufacturing-optimized powders. As such, it requires the necessary building infrastructure to facilitate this.

If you’re ready to move up from entry-level machines, 3D Systems offers five other, larger production units plus a networked factory solution.

An introductory binder jetting 3D printer suited to R&D environments, the ExOne Innovent+ is ExOne’s smallest metal printer. It’s compatible with a variety of metal powder feedstock to form one-offs and small batches of parts. More for research, verification, and experimentation than production, this flexible system utilizes ultrasonic dispensing technology to prepare uniform layers of powder for binding. This technology allows Innovent+ to use rougher low-cost metal powders with good quality.

ExOne offers five metal additive manufacturing machines ranging from the Innovent+ on the small size all the way to  X1 160Pro with a 800 x 500 x 400 mm build volume and a build rate of more than 10,000  cc/hour for true metal part production. ExOne’s family of metal 3D printers is designed as a scalable system that can drive your business from R&D and prototyping to serial production on the same printhead engine.

New to the ExOne family is the Metal Designlab 3D printer in an exclusive partnership with Rapidia, a Vancouver, Canada-based technology company. This office-sized, entry-level machine is marketed toward researchers, educators, and industrial designers. The printer uses a new Hydrofuse water-based paste material with inlaid metal or ceramic powders, that doesn’t require debinding before sintering. HydroFuse paste developed by Rapidia replaces 98% of the binder with water, which evaporates while printing. The company currently offers 17-4 PH and 316L materials. The printer combines with the new X1F advanced furnace.

The Swedish manufacturer Digital Metal is a pioneer in high-precision metal binder jetting systems for industrial use. Its parent company, Höganäs, is the world’s largest producer of powdered metals giving the company a leg up in R&D when it comes to metal part production.

The Digital Metal DM P2500 is a robust machine for both serial production and prototyping with a focus on fine tolerances, surface finish, and resolution for small complex components. Small part sizes means there is plenty of room for large numbers of components to be printed simultaneously. Like other powder bed fusion printers, the DM P2500 does not require any support structures or involve any heat transfer, which means you can pack the build box densely.

With Digital Metal technology, your part can have a surface quality of 6 microns without any post-processing, while other AM processes typically leave a much rougher surface. Surface quality is important for components with internal channels, as post-processing of those surfaces is very challenging.

The M 100 metal 3D printer is EOS’s entry-level system for metal printing. Featuring direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) technology, this machine is equipped with a 200-watt fiber laser to melt and fuse fine metal powders. The small laser spot enables fine resolution, making it ideal for geometrically complex metal parts.

The M 100 is optimized to reduce post-processing and cleaning time, which in turn allows for parts to be produced quickly and more effectively, EOS says. It also has a modular inner design and powder supply bin, which should make operation and maintenance easy. EOS is pushing the machine especially toward the medical field, to which the M 100 is particularly suited with EOS’s certified medical-safe metal materials. The company highlights the printer’s suitability for producing dental bridges and crowns.

The manufacturer is constantly releasing new metal powders, with the latest nickel-chromium NickelAlloy IN939 material launched in February 2021. Do note that the M 100 is compatible with a limited number of EOS materials, and may not be able to process some of the more high-end powders.

If you’re in the market for a metal 3D printer for production capacity, EOS has you covered. The German manufacturer offers industrial 3D printing systems that can be flexibly integrated into existing production environments with a range of different build space sizes, laser power ratings, and scalability.

Industrial powerhouse GE currently offers 11 metal 3D printers – five Arcam EBM machines and six Concept Laser SLM machines – and is developing a binder jetting option.

The Arcam line boasts dimensionally accurate parts quickly and efficiently with a high-power electron beam for high melting capacity and productivity. The Concept Laser machines use lasers to melt layers of fine metal powder and create complex geometries Several different machine envelope sizes — including the largest powder-bed metal additive system in the world, the X Line 2000R.

The X Line 2000R features an 800 x 400 x 500 mm build volume and brings two 1,000-watt lasers to bear in order to keep production times down. With an eye on the production of large metal parts for the automotive and aerospace industries, the X Line 2000R turns prints jobs around at a clip thanks to two rotating, reciprocal build modules.

This metal printer uses Concept Laser’s LaserCusing (a type of selective laser melting) technology and can 3D print objects from alloys of steel, aluminum, nickel, titanium, and precious metals, with the operator’s need to handle reactive powders minimized by closed recycling loop. Excess powder is siphoned off for inertized sieving and reprocessing stations before feeding back to the machine.

Placing emphasis on productivity, Renishaw’s RenAM 500Q system builds on the company’s established range of metal printers and amps throughput with an array of four 500-watt lasers, each capable of hitting the entirety of the build volume. This allows the RenAM 500Q to accomplish full layer sinters quicker than single-laser systems, increasing output and, consequently, reducing cost per part.

A number of inbuilt automation systems – such as sieving and powder recirculation – for material and atmosphere management complement the printer, ensuring operator safety and reducing the time required to operate and maintain the machine. An intelligent gas flow system reduces both argon consumption and emissions.

The RenAM 500Q features a typical build volume of 245 x 245 x 335 mm (substrate dependent) and can output some 150 cm³ per hour, depending on the geometries being printed and other material variables.

In addition to being the most visually exciting industrial metal 3D printer on this list, Australian manufacturer Spee3D’s WarpSPEE3D is unique for its use of supersonic 3D deposition. The technique works by directing an extremely fast stream of air at a robotic-arm-mounted build plate. Feeding metal powder feedstock into the airstream, the metal fuses on contact with the plate, building up near-net parts layer by layer.

An evolution of the Spee3D’s first machine, the small-volume, research-tilted LightSPEE3D printer, the WarpSPEE3D system supersizes to a build volume of ø1,000 x 700 mm, making it one of the larger metal 3D printing systems at the market today.

A viable option for on-demand printing applications for heavy industry, Spee3D’s material portfolio includes corrosion-resistant aluminum composites best suited to marine applications. Particular value also comes in the WarpSpee3d’s relatively low infrastructure requirement. No inert gas hookups are necessary for supersonic 3D deposition.

The Velo3D Sapphire “next-gen” metal 3D printer sets itself apart as a volume production system with the advantage of support-free 3D printing and a one-meter tall build volume. Using dual 1-kilowatt lasers in its ø315 x 1,000 mm print space, the Sapphire can print in three alloys.

For Velo3D, support-free geometries mean the Sapphire can achieve prints with overhangs of zero degrees – flat surfaces on the horizontal plane, basically. In addition to saving time on post-processing prints, the printer able to realize internal channels and volumes without consideration for support structures. It can print otherwise near-impossible features.

In late fall 2020, Velo3D introduced the new Sapphire XC printer, the name standing for “Extra Capacity.” True to its name, the Sapphire XC can increase production by five times compared to its sibling and reduce cost-per-part by 75%, the company claims. This new printer, with a build volume of ø600 x 550 mm and eight lasers, is projected to start shipping in Q4 2021.

In addition, Velo3D is planning to start rolling out its hardware and software upgrade to the Sapphire – dubbed Sapphire Gen 2 – in Q2 2021. This updated model is said to increase productivity between 10-50% and can be retrofitted onto existing Sapphire units.