Rapidia, a machine manufacturer that develops metal paste printer and compact sintering furnace, has significantly reduced the price of its metal 3D printing machines, in an effort to maintain a wide accessibility of metal AM.
Founded in 2015, Rapidia made a real splash in the industry when it entered into a partnership with ExOne. The latter white labelled their metal paste printer and compact sintering furnace. This was a mutual opportunity, as it allowed Rapidia access to ExOne’s established brand and distribution network, while providing a product that expanded ExOne’s portfolio. When ExOne was acquired by Desktop Metal in late 2021, that synergy was lost, and the partnership ended.
Rapidia has spent the last year building out a sales team and network of their own. By controlling the entire customer journey, Rapidia is now able to deliver their Conflux 1 metal additive manufacturing platform at a more accessible price.
Conflux 1 is a metal 3D printing system powered by Metal Paste Deposition, which works by printing a flowable bound metal paste. The paste is dried, layer by layer, creating green parts with 90% less binder than found in metal filaments or MIM feedstocks. As a room temperature process, MPD is not limited by the speed of melting and then cooling polymer carriers. Moreover, the low binder content allows green parts to be put directly into short sintering cycles, skipping the debinding step and ultimately outputting many finished parts in under 24hrs.
Rapidia CEO, Artem Bylinskii says “Our metal printing technology is accessible because of its ease of use and low operating cost. We’re now in a position where we feel we can be more proactive and more disruptive by making our technology more accessible in price too.”
Conflux 1 hardware packages, consisting of one printer and one vacuum sintering furnace, are now available starting from $99,000 USD.
Bylinskii adds, “We see a gap in metal additive manufacturing because the cost of entry for production solutions is so high. It’s a major risk for companies to borrow upwards of half a million to get that capability. With our new pricing, we hope to provide a more scalable production solution where businesses can start with a couple of machines, and then continue adding printers to their fleet at an easily digestible cost.”
Remember, you can post job opportunities in the AM Industry on 3D ADEPT Media free of charge or look for a job via our job board. Make sure to follow us on our social networks and subscribe to our weekly newsletter : Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Instagram ! If you want to be featured in the next issue of our digital magazine or if you hear a story that needs to be heard, make sure you send it to contact@3dadept.com.