Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit

Ultimaker, a 3D printer-manufacturing company, is releasing its dedicated 3D metal-printing solution in the form of a Metal Expansion Kit. It produces applications capable of higher levels of mechanical stress and thermal resistance when compared to thermoplastics.

3D printed applications with the new kit

The Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit provides all the tools necessary to further expand Ultimaker printer capabilities beyond thermoplastics. Components such as dedicated items, software, features, and knowledge to optimize process efficiency and expand Utimaker printer capabilities. The new kit comes with materials that are automatically recognized by the printer through Near-field communication (NFC), and enables switching between printing plastics and metal on one machine. The technology utilizes Ultimaker Cura, and is compatible with the Ultimaker S5 Platform.

According to Andrea Gasperini, Product Manager at Ultimaker, the Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit has a number of applications. Chief among these is the capability of printing parts such as tools, jigs, fixtures, replacement parts, functional prototypes, and auxiliary components. The kit is part of a 3D printing workflow which is typically only accessible with full in-house metal fused filament fabrication (MFFF) solutions.

Inside, it contains all required items for metal parts preparation, from printing to accessing post-processing services. These include materials and a set of dedicated print cores to support both the metal filament, an Ultrafuse 17-4H, and the Ultrafuse Support Layer. Along with this is a new Print Core DD 0.4 created for the package, which is designed to print abrasive support material. Print cores and materials in the kit are replaceable, which alleviates requirements for permanent hardware modifications.

Access to the Ultimaker 3D Printing Academy and the BASF Debinding and Sinistering Order Management Portal is complimentary. The Academy was developed alongside the team of BASF Forward AM, and features a knowledge base to teach the full workflow in order to successfully apply Metal FFF on the Ultimaker platform. The Management Portal is a network of debinding and sinistering services for post-processing of the 3D printed part into a full metal part.