Do you remember Aurora Labs? Yes? No? Well, I had to look them up and found we had last written about the company more than two years ago.
The company at that time had launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the construction of a powerful sintering machine capable of 3D printing in metal, plastic and ceramics. Unfortunately, the campaign was shut down in October of 2014.
We’re now told the company has shipped its first production S-Titanium Pro 3D metal printer.
What happened in between? In an inspection of their rather extensive documentation (likely present because they are one of the rare publicly-traded 3D printer manufacturing companies), it appears they’ve gone through a long series of challenges, fundraising, corporate reorganization, executive changes and much more. It seems that although they were cash-strapped in the early days after their original launch in 2014, the company transformed from a private to public operation and with that was able to raise a fairly large chunk of cash to continue operations.
Recently they’ve been negotiating with Australian mining companies in an effort to develop an ability to 3D print parts at mine sites, which I believe could be a very challenging proposition.
According to their website, the company offers two models: the S-Titanium and S-Titanium Pro 3D metal printers, each optimized for printing titanium powder. The difference between the two is build volume (150 × 150 × 500mm vs 200 × 200 × 500mm) and laser power (200W vs 300W). They’re priced at USD$40K and USD$43K, respectively.
The company does indicate there are powders other than titanium available for the machines, including:
Stainless Steel 316, Stainless Steel 420, Inconel 625, Inconel 718, Hastelloy C276, Stellite 1, Stellite 6, Stellite 21, NiBSi + WC60%, Iron
and coming soon:
Titanium Grade 1, Titanium Grade 2, Titanium Grade 4, Titanium Grade 6, Titanium Grade 12, Bronze, Brass, Gold, Silver, Aluminium AlSi7Mg, Aluminium AlSi10Mg
Today we see a post from them indicating they’ve shipped their first Pro model to an unnamed client. Here’s an image of them preparing the machine for shipment.
That’s good news, but the company will have to sell a number of units to make a go of it. And it’s quite possible they may, given the substantial and growing interest in metal 3D printing operations by industry in recent months.
Via Aurora Labs
