Minnesota-based digital manufacturing company Protolabs recently launched a service for metal printing. The new fabrication option will fill out the companies suite of manufacturing offerings that include injection molding, sheet metal forming, CNC machining, and 3D printing of polymers.
Josh Parker, Production Project Leader at Protolabs, explains the move to production-capable metal printing: “We’ve seen a trend in the last few years where engineers went from using 3D printing metal as prototyping, casting, or machining parts and just getting them faster. Then we had some customers that grew out of that prototyping stage and said ‘We want to start designing from the get-go to make our parts in DMLS. We want to take advantage of all of the abilities of making the internal cooling channels or making complex assemblies combined into one piece.’ Once we started seeing that, we wanted to evolve with our customers.”
Concept Laser
The Protolabs 77,000-square foot 3D printing facility in North Carolina is one of the largest such facilities in the world, with over 100 industrial-grade 3D printers that produce an average of 60,000 parts every month. The facility employs nearly 200 people and has produced over 1 million 3D printed parts. Still, in order to handle production orders for 3D printed metals, Protolabs acquired an additional two dozen GE Additive Concept Laser Mlab and M2 3D printers. Customers can also choose from several secondary processes such as machining, tapping, reaming, and heat treatments that improve mechanical properties.
Additionally, Protolabs is offering enhanced inspection reporting options that include an analysis of the source powder, certified mechanical testing, and quality assurance inspections. They’ll test everything from tensile strength and Rockwell hardness to dimensional accuracy and surface roughness to ensure that production parts are up to snuff.
“We see it every day. The designers and engineers we work with in industries like aerospace and medtech are choosing additive manufacturing for complex components in high-requirement applications,” said Greg Thompson, Global Product Manager for 3D Printing at Protolabs. “These new production capabilities help them optimize their designs to enhance performance, reduce costs, and consolidate supply chains—and do so much faster than ever before.”
