You can now 3D print in titanium! This is ultra high end new 3D printing process is one of the world’s newest and most advanced manufacturing technologies and is now in the hands of consumers, inventors, designers and you, for the first time.
Do you see the ball above? It is 2cm in diameter. And can you see the small diagonal bar inside the ball? We could write your name on that in a height of 2mm, in titanium.
We’re overjoyed that we’re the world’s first 3D printing service to let consumers order titanium 3D prints. Titanium 3D printing opens up an entirely new world of advanced engineering, manufacturing and jewelry applications for creative people worldwide. Titanium’s high heat resistance, high accuracy and unparalleled strength lets designers now make things that before now could only be made by the research and development departments of only the largest corporations in the world. By putting this technology in the public’s hands were democratizing manufacturing and giving you the opportunity to, design and order something this is exactly as you want it to be.
We do not yet know what you will do with this technology but our clients have been amazing us for decades now and we expect you blow us away with your creations.
The HeartGrid is a customizable titanium pendant where the heart can signify any date of the year that is special for you or special to the person you’re giving it to.
The OurPlace is another customizable jewel. Tell us the place where you met and we will place the heart exactly where it needs to be, 3D printed in titanium.
HeartGrid & OurPlace by Artur Tchoukanov.
How does the process work?
The titanium 3D printing process we use is called DMLS or Direct Metal Laser Sintering. It works as follows:
- A thin bed of titanium powder is laid down in the 3D printer.
- This layer is then sintered by a very powerful laser and will become the bottom layer of your part.
- A new layer of powder is applied and the process repeats itself.
- Your part is taken out of the 3D printer and any loose unsintered powder is removed.
- In most cases your part will have support structures 3D printed on and around it out of titanium.
- These supports have to be removed manually using very powerful circular saws and other tools.
- Once the supports have been removed manual polishing is required to remove evidence of the supports.
- Then a post finishing step may be required such as polishing the entire part.
Pricing
A Standard part 2 by 2 by 4cm with a volume of 1 cubic centimeter would be 93 Euros ($124). A part with the same bounding box and 4 cubic centimeters of volume is 144 Euro ($192).
If you would like to upload a design for titanium you can do so here. We’ve made another blog post outlining the technical specifications, pricing and a dose of truthiness about the process for those of you who want to delve deeper into 3D printing titanium.
Future Developments @i.materialise.com
At i.materialise we’re comitted to letting you make the future. We want to work with designers, software developers and inventors to give you the tools you need to design and produce anything you want, exactly as you would like it. Things made by you to fit you better, to express you better, to work better, to look better, to be better. Things made better for an audience of one, you. We want to slowly but surely push back mass manufacturing and replace it with individualized manufacturing. Titanium 3D printing is a step in the right direction, many more will follow. We will be updating this blog with new developments in 3D printing titanium and other advances in 3D printing technology. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook to be kept in the loop on further developments.
Should you have any questions about uploading and using i.materialise please email contact @ i.materialise.com. Should you have any other questions please email joris @ i.materialise.com
This is an incredible development. Combine the ease of prototyping and creation with the ability to outsource all supply chain management, and we have a creative-marketing-manufacture-distribution chain that rushes new ideas to production. This is a real breakthrough in manufacturing.
David,
Exactly!
Joris
–Well it looks pretty but how””s the stuff for tensile strength??
@Steamboat Ed
It””s a sintered process, so it””s probably not terribly high. Still for non-load bearing objects it should be plenty.
When will more eco and sustainable materials be available for use in these printers? Something like hemp plastic or other biodegradable materials?
What are the technical limitations and who is working on them?
Ugh. More 3D printing hype. Did you look at the quality/precision of this stuff? Awful. Terrible. Far worse than the worst cheapo “real” manufacturer. Not even remotely useful for anything but art pieces.
@Steamboat Ed The UTS is 1024 MPa. and here are the specs: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/dmls-guidelines-technical-specifications-for-titanium-3d-printing
@Paul people are working on them. Its a bit too big a question to answer in a comment. I””ll do more research and write a blog about sustainable materials to answer your question. I””ll write that up for you by next week. But in my opinion the most inspiring work right now is being done by Mark Ganter http://open3dp.me.washington.edu/
@Michael, a contrarian how nice! The Ebeneezer Scrooge of 3d printing. I must congratulate you on being ahead of your times kind Sir.
I’ve got to a small degree blog and that i was wondering if I am i able to use a number of the knowledge from this post if I offer a link back to your site? If you””d rather not, that’s okay, however this was a decent post.
YESSSS… Love my twitter follower widget!
Everybody is missing the point. The most important one is no waste.
Also amassing technology lets fly to the stars ,not tacky map of USA end hearts… Come on…!
Photoshopped!
@Creighton: Dude, ever heard of a light box? Look it up.
@Paul I wrote the post you wanted about recycling 3D printing materials: http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/recycling-3d-printing-materials-4-possible-solutions
So, i.Mat.., Materialise and Shapeways are actually the same conglomerate? Joris?
.
Other than that, is the 3D Titanium weldable to regular titanium tubing for example? I have some nice applications for Voronoi 3D Ti prints combined with standard manufacturing. Think of exeptional value added products
I still owe all my success to you
.
Thanks,
Tonis
We have been working with the DMLS Ti material for a year and a half now (we have a number of these machines)…primarily selling to OEM””s however, not as much for products such as this (meaning consumer one-offs). I noticed some questions and comments on the thread regarding strength and weldability. Although I could expand on this, the short answer is that the strength of the material is very close to wrought alloy (better than cast Ti) and it is easily weldable. Because the process rapidly cools after melting the powder, you get a very fine grain structure…thus producing mechanically robust parts. Smaller parts in particular will probably not require any post-thermal treatments (nor is a site like this aimed at providing thermal processing of parts), but even so, properties are excellent. We have been supplying Ti64 parts to a number of customers with very demanding applications for quite some time…and have had excellent results. Parts are 100% dense and match closely to wrought material…very impressive.
Well, this technology is rather old now. Companies like Arcam and EOS have been doing this (fully melted titanium with excellent material properties) since the beginning of 2000. Prototype era is over and companies buy these kind of machines for full scale production now (aerospace and medical).
This is definitely thought provoking, interesting writing about this. I will need to think on it! Not to hijack this thread, but I am interested in having some design jobs completed and came across a company – SEOdress, 25 Cadillac Drive #111 Sacramento, CA 95825 (916) 850-0736. Have you ever come across their business?