Desktop Metal has shipped its first Production System P-50 printer, marking the commercialization of the company’s flagship additive manufacturing technology for mass production of end-use, metal parts. The P-50 is designed to mass-produce high-performance metal parts with the repeatability and cost required to compete with conventional manufacturing. (Photo: Business Wire) As one of the most highly anticipated advanced manufacturing systems ever introduced, the P-50 is the product of nearly $100 million in investment and a four-year development program overseen by Desktop Metal engineers and materials scientists. The P-50 is designed to mass-produce high-performance metal parts with the repeatability and cost required to compete with conventional manufacturing. Stanley Black & Decker, the first P-50 customer, is a purpose-driven industrial organization that operates the world’s largest tools and storage business, including such iconic brands as DEWALT, BLACK+DECKER, and CRAFTSMAN. The Production System - World’s Fastest Way to 3D Print Metal Parts At-Scale Created by the inventors of binder jetting and single-pass inkjet technology, the Production System is an industrial manufacturing platform powered by Desktop Metal’s Single Pass Jetting™ technology. It is designed to achieve speeds up to 100 times those of legacy powder bed fusion additive manufacturing technologies and enable production quantities of [...]

Here’s another great new 3D printer from Desktop Metal, today we will showcase the Fiber™ machine. Many of these new printers will also be showcased in our upcoming 3D Metal Printing Online Seminar Series which will happen over the next couple of months. Please stay tuned for more details on that and in the meantime let’s take a look at one of the new releases from Desktop Metal. The Fiber system brings continuous fiber 3D printing to the desktop of engineers and designers. Composites are commonly used in performance automotive, aerospace, and many other industries. They are ideal for parts that require the strength and stiffness of metal but at a fraction of the weight. Traditional Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) processes are only suitable for large-scale parts and require million-dollar systems. And while manual methods do exist, these can be labor-intensive with expensive tooling. How can engineers gain access to AFP without breaking the bank? Desktop Metal was able to scale down AFP and make it accessible via 3D Printing. They did this through a new process called micro automated fiber placement. During the μAFP process, one Fiber™ printhead deposits a continuous fiber tape along critical load paths to build dense reinforced sections [...]