Precision Additive, a company that recently debuted in the AM industry, has opened a metal 3D printing division for rapid prototyping & small to mid-batch production.
As a reminder, the Colorado-based industrial 3D printing service has been founded based on one observation: many industries are outsourcing work to other countries, making people speculate that the future of ‘American Made’ may not be so prolific, hence its ambition to “revitalize American manufacturing”.
The new unit will mainly work with Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) and will complete a production environment that already includes Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) for industrial composite and plastic materials.
For those who do not know, DMLS is a process in which metal powder is fused together into thin layers, one-by-one, to produce a final three-dimensional part.
“We have researched the market for industrial 3D printing thoroughly and we see the potential for Direct Metal Laser Sintering to be a popular choice among many industries for their rapid prototyping and small to mid-batch production needs,” says Jason Korbelik, CEO of Precision Additive. “Our customers are indicating a need to receive their metal parts quickly and with tight tolerances and DMLS can deliver on those needs.”
Direct Metal Laser Sintering has important advantages over subtractive manufacturing technologies, such as CNC machining. First, it is capable of producing parts with complex geometries and instant assemblies that are difficult or impossible to machine. Instant assemblies are not possible to machine all at once, and because they require no assembly with DMLS, they have more strength, reduced weight, and cost less to produce when 3D printed. Secondly, DMLS requires no additional tooling or setup time, which saves customers time and money. DMLS printed parts are fully dense, quickly producible, and afford product and part designers incredible flexibility. This flexibility of part design leads to improved strength-to-weight ratios and more efficient parts.
Precision Additive currently offers nine high performance metals for their DMLS process: Aluminum A6061-RAM2, Aluminum A7050-RAM2, Aluminum AlSi10Mg, Stainless Steel 17-4, Stainless Steel 316/L, Maraging Steel MS1, Inconel 625, Inconel 718, and Titanium Ti64. “Depending on the end use of a given part and what kinds of forces it will be exposed to, the metal to produce it will differ,” Jason says. “So, we wanted to be sure to offer a wide selection of metals for our customers according to their applications.”
3D printing provides tremendous capabilities to localize supply chains and reinvigorate manufacturing in the United States. According to Hub’s 2021 3D Printing Trends Report, “73 percent of engineering businesses estimated they will produce or source more 3D printed parts this year compared to 2020”.
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