A Basketful of Product Announcements From 3D Systems

Industry leader 3D Systems announced a number of new products, services and partnerships to beef up their industrial capabilities.

The company, currently in the number one spot on our 3D print company leaderboard, has been incrementally improving their products for many years. However, this month they announced quite a bundle of new products and service, some of which are based on new partnerships.

Metal 3D Printers

To start, the company announced not one, but two new metal 3D printers, the DMP Flex 350 Dual and DMP Factory 350 Dual. The “dual” in the product name gives away their secret: these machines, while based on their namesake predecessors, are equipped with dual lasers.

Two lasers working on the same print bed simultaneously can provide up to double the throughput on the machine. That will be of significant interest to operators, who are able to defray the capital cost of the equipment over up to twice as many parts, thus lowering the unit cost of production. This adds to the already formidable production capabilities of the original devices, including integrated powder recycling, centralized control, and 24/7 capability. These are definitely production machines for manufacturers, and they should be available early in 2022.

There’s also a new metal 3D printer for dental applications, the DMP Flex 200, which now features a 500W laser and a somewhat larger build volume at 140 x 140 x 115 mm.

SLS 380

3D Systems announced a brand-new SLS device, the SLS 380. This powder-based device is able to consistently produce high quality parts at manufacturing scale.

There’s a number of very interesting features in the SLS 380, including a water-cooled laser system that is likely to be more reliable and long-lasting. There’s quite an emphasis on print quality, as the system includes a new accessory they call “Material Quality Control”, or the “MQC 600”. This system monitors powder recycling ratios and powder delivery to up to four machines simultaneously. This should significantly lower operator effort.

3D Systems has also partnered with AMT for use of their intelligent post processing system.

All of these features are controlled through a new SLS workflow that ties together not only the printer, but the MQC 600, materials management, post processing, and their powerful 3D Sprint software.

3DXpert 17

3D Systems released a new version of their 3DXpert software, which features additional functionality. One of 3D Systems’ latest acquisitions, Oqton, has powerful AM software technology and is also available. The combination of the two tools could provide a huge boost to 3D Systems clients for sophisticated design-to-print functionality and workflow.

When you step back and look at these announcement in aggregate, it’s pretty clear that 3D Systems has focused strongly on manufacturing here: throughput and consistency of output are paramount concerns of manufacturers, and 3D Systems is addressing those needs with this series of announcements.

Via 3D Systems