Desktop Metal’s mid-volume metal 3D printing offering, the Shop System, is now shipping globally.
The Boston-based company introduced the Shop System this time last year. The single-pass binder jetting system targets a nice mid-range production setup, like in metal workshops. The smaller, office-friendly Studio System and larger, mass production-oriented Production System bookend the Shop System.
Desktop Metal Shop System
When we heard about the mid-volume offering, we were intrigued; Kerry took a good look at the specs and performance of the Studio System here.
I caught up with Desktop Metal earlier this year for an update about the company’s progress. Desktop Metal Co-Founder and CTO Jonah Myerberg told me then that the system is “great to open up into metal 3D printing at a low cost and high capability.”
“It offers superior part quality compared to other technologies, including high resolution, and uses the highest native DPI at over 670 million drops per second. It also has five times redundancy, more than any of the competition out there trying to do the same thing,” he added.
Functionality for the system encompasses “any parts you would cast, really,” as Myerberg put it. He laid out some good candidates for the Shop System:
- Near-net shape parts
- Complex geometries (though simple is of course possible as well)
- Parts that would be CNCed
- Part costs in the range of $50-$100, in quantities of “a few to a few thousand”
More from that catch-up is in our interview here.
Shop System Shipping
But, as they say, that was then and this is now: so here we are a year on from first intros, and the news about the Shop System today is installations.
Introducing a new 3D printing system is all well and good, but the market can’t truly react until they get their hands on it. Desktop Metal emerged with huge fanfare five years ago and since then has continually made the headlines with high-profile fundings, unicorn-status valuation standing, and a recent decision to go public. Such news notoriety raises not only the profile of the company, but the eyebrows of the industry. Interested parties, that is, want to know how these things play out in the real world.
Installations are now underway, the company says, throughout North America, the EMEA region, and the APAC region. Early customers have already had their Shop Systems set up for some time and are offering insights into how they’ve found the experience.
They offer feedback indicating their own usage — and how the industry can benefit. Some examples include:
“The Shop System and the Studio System are two complementary machines that will allow us to train operators and realize demonstrators to show trainees, thanks to real applications, the possibilities of each machine and technology to understand the impact of the design and process parameters on the global value chain. Being among the first adopters allows us to be part of European and French national working groups in order to develop qualification and certification for additive manufacturing and validate the training processes to be aligned with the industry needs,” said Patrice Mayoral, AFPMA CEO.
And:
“With the Shop System, we can scale to hundreds of near-net-shape parts daily — with dramatically reduced labor costs and expanded geometric flexibility relative to traditional methods such as machining and casting,” said Scot Andrews, President of Impac Systems Engineering.
And:
“By enabling mass production of amazingly intricate geometries, metal binder jetting is about to transform the luxury goods space. As a pioneer in the use of additive manufacturing in luxury goods for some of the world’s most valuable and iconic brands, E.A.C. has been exploring metal Binder Jetting technology over the past four years,” said Patrick Chouvet, Manager E.A.C.
The last of these, E.A.C., is a luxury-focused brand based in France that has been using the Shop System to produce some really beautiful pieces of jewelry like these:
Shop System Setups And Pricing
The Shop System is, of course, a system. The full setup includes:
- Single-pass binder jetter 3D printer
- Drying oven for hardening green parts prior to depowdering
- Powder station for depowdering parts with built-in powder recycling
- Desktop Metal furnace for industrial-strength sintering
- Integrated powder handling accessories and workflow
The Shop System can scale up depending on specific users’ needs. It’s available with build box configurations of 4L, 8L, 12L, and 16L. Pricing for the 4L (350 x 220 x 50 mm) setup starts at $166,500, and goes up to $241,500 for the 350 x 220 x 200 mm 16L printer.
Customers also receive access to Desktop Metal’s software solutions. These include things like the Fabricate MFG build preparation software and the recently-announced Live Sinter application. (More on that last soon following a nice deep dive recently with the company.)
Via Desktop Metal
