Metal 3D Printer market in 2019

The best metal 3D printers in 2020

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Metal 3D printing technologies

Many manufacturers develop their own variations of existing technologies and label them with different or modified names:

• Powder Bed Fusion (PBF): DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering), DMP (Direct Metal Printing), LaserCUSING, LBM (Laser Beam Melting), LMF (Laser Metal Fusion), SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), SLM (Selective Laser Melting)
• Directed Energy Deposition (DED): DMT (Direct Metal Tooling), EBAM (Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing), EBM (Electron Beam Melting), LENS (Laser Engineered Net Shaping), LMD (Laser Metal Deposition)
• Metal Material Jetting (MJ) or Binder Jetting (BJ): Magnet-o-Jet, Nanoparticle Jetting, SPJ (Single Pass Jetting), Metal Jet
• Metal filament extrusion/Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF): ADAM (Atomic Diffusion Additive Manufacturing), CEM (Composite Extrusion Modeling), FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling), FFD (Fused Feedstock Deposition), FMP (Filament Metal Printing), BMD (Bound Metal Deposition), MIM (Metal Injection Molding)
• Lamination: SL (Sheet Lamination), UAM (Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing)
• Metal resin 3D printing: DLP (Digital Light Processing), FluidFM, SLA (Stereolithography)

Metal 3D printing services

Sculpteo
Shapeways
3D Hubs
Stratasys
i.materialise
Protolabs

Benefits and limits of metal 3D printing

Metal 3D printer benefits

• High-quality parts and prototypes
• Precision and accuracy
• On-demand production
• Ability to 3D print complex geometries
• Waste reduction compared to traditional methods

Limits of metal 3D printers

• Large footprint
• Learning curve
• Expensive hardware, material, and hidden costs (energy, time, etc.)
• afety precautions required for material handling