What's new
What's new

Markforged Metal Printer- Thoughts/Information?

Dylad

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Location
Connecticut
I see that Markforged now has a metal printer available using a plastic binder in the powder and a post-build sinter process. They are saying "99.7% dense" final products, and roughly 0.002" min layer heights, though I would think the washing/baking of the binder would leave parts very porous. They talk about A2 and Inconel-625 as available material, which seems pretty high end.

I am asking for further information, but does anyone have any experience or feedback with Markforged metal printing? They don't seem to specify exact system price, but their 'ROI' tool hints at a sub $250k system price.
 
The printer is about $100K, but you also need the sintering oven and debinder, so it gets close to $200K. They claim to handle the shrinkage by printing a sample part, then 3D digitizing the result, then making corrections on the second one. They have a competitor, Desktop Metal, a little cheaper. The samples depicted in their respective websites make it look like MarkForged has better resolution and motion control, but MarkForged also has very slick marketing so who knows. For a short time, MarkForged was running a promo, buy a meta printer get a carbon printer free. So maybe the uptake isn't quite meeting their expectations? Their carbon printer looks pretty cool though.
 
I will say that I've been extremely impressed with Markforged's plastic 3D printers. My company bought one and it was so good we bought another and are considering a third. I haven't tried their metal 3d printer but as a company they make one great product and I wouldn't be surprised if their metal printer was good as well.
 
I see that Markforged now has a metal printer available using a plastic binder in the powder and a post-build sinter process. They are saying "99.7% dense" final products, and roughly 0.002" min layer heights, though I would think the washing/baking of the binder would leave parts very porous. They talk about A2 and Inconel-625 as available material, which seems pretty high end.

I am asking for further information, but does anyone have any experience or feedback with Markforged metal printing? They don't seem to specify exact system price, but their 'ROI' tool hints at a sub $250k system price.

I don't have any experience with the actual use of the thing, but their ROI and price comparison calculations are absolute and utter BS. They do things like say "reduced lead time compared to a machined part by 3 weeks" and their reasoning for this is "machine shop was backed up with 3 weeks worth of work" which makes the hilarious presumption that nobody is ever using their own tool so it's always available for use immediately...

Then they say things like "cost of machined part $315.06, cost of Markforged part $11.45" despite it taking TWO DAYS for the $100k printer and $100k sintering oven to make it. So while they're clearly including programming time, setup time, machining time, wages, machine payments, rent, consumables, material etc for the machined part, they're simultaneously ignoring everything except consumables in their price calculations for the printed part. That dishonesty alone is massively off-putting in spite of how promising the technology itself looks.

Source - The Markforged Metal X: From Design to Finished Product - YouTube
 
Pricing on the printer, wash station and sinter oven is ~$125k for all three units. Material spec sheet that I have from MarkForged themselves shows the metal to be ~96% dense. While it is true that the sintered parts will shrink 20% from the printed part, the software from MF (Eiger) accounts for this shrinkage so you will end up with a part that is the size you intended in the first place without you having to do any math.

I am looking at a quote right now ready to pull the trigger on it over the next few days and if the two composite printers I have from MF are any indication of the quality I know this will be a very good purchase as well.
 
Pricing on the printer, wash station and sinter oven is ~$125k for all three units. Material spec sheet that I have from MarkForged themselves shows the metal to be ~96% dense. While it is true that the sintered parts will shrink 20% from the printed part, the software from MF (Eiger) accounts for this shrinkage so you will end up with a part that is the size you intended in the first place without you having to do any math.

I am looking at a quote right now ready to pull the trigger on it over the next few days and if the two composite printers I have from MF are any indication of the quality I know this will be a very good purchase as well.

Hey look, another brand new member countering negative things that have been said about a product for sale by a very internet-savvy manufacturing company. What a shock!

While it is true that the sintered parts will shrink 20% from the printed part, the software from MF (Eiger) accounts for this shrinkage so you will end up with a part that is the size you intended in the first place without you having to do any math.

I'm calling BS on this one, at least to the extent that we're talking about anything comparable in tolerance and quality as to what comes off a CNC machine without extraordinary measures. I've seen new parts come off of cutting edge DMLS machines made by EOS and Trumpf machines (that cost 5-10 times as much as this one) driven by just as sophisticated software, with a better process, and there were still program changes and tweaks to make to correct the production run.

But I'm always happy to be proven wrong :D
 
Hey look, another brand new member countering negative things that have been said about a product for sale by a very internet-savvy manufacturing company. What a shock!

Yup, I'm new. I was pointed here from a friend. I'm a MF customer, not an employee. I saw someone ask a question and I had legit answers. Take them for what they are worth.

As to the software's capabilities it's marketing to me too, but I will have some real world experience with it soon. ;)
 
Since you are a real customer with some of their composite printers, can you post some real pictures of parts you have printed with them? Whatever one might say about MF, they have a slick marketing campaign and it would be nice to see some good parts from real users.

If the shrinkage is very consistent, it might be possible to get parts from the metal printer that are somewhere close to size. But with 20% shrinkage across different sections with different solidity ratios, getting that on the first part is going to be an awfully tall challenge. Have they shipped any of these yet? I keep getting their emailings suggesting they are still working on it.
 
I have looked at the MF printer. What turns me off is

It’s SLOW
Very little examples of real parts made
Very difficult to get real answers out of the company or sample parts made

The price is of course a good thing, accuracy too.
 
I have looked at the MF printer. What turns me off is

It’s SLOW
Very little examples of real parts made
Very difficult to get real answers out of the company or sample parts made

The price is of course a good thing, accuracy too.

Slow is an understatement. The operating costs, performance and materials are misrepresented.
We are disposing of ours after 2 months of disappointments. I'm not sure how MF gets away with it.

Mark Forged Metal X Price Reduced Further For Part Out Or Scrap. | eBay
 
Good luck with your experience. Here's ours.

Mark Forged Metal X Price Reduced Further For Part Out Or Scrap. | eBay



Yup, I'm new. I was pointed here from a friend. I'm a MF customer, not an employee. I saw someone ask a question and I had legit answers. Take them for what they are worth.

As to the software's capabilities it's marketing to me too, but I will have some real world experience with it soon. ;)
 
I knew that 3D printed metal parts are expensive to make in a system like this, but only reading this realized how many more hidden costs are there - and this even not considering the amortization cost of the machine, the cost of the real estate it takes, and the fact that you can probably make only one or two parts a day. In fact I cannot see how one can make any money printing in metal unless someone comes with a system that is much less expensive to operate.
 
What a joke. As machinists, we all knew the limitations of 3D printing while the rest of the world were insisting that we'd all be out of jobs in 10 years.
 
I knew that 3D printed metal parts are expensive to make in a system like this, but only reading this realized how many more hidden costs are there - and this even not considering the amortization cost of the machine, the cost of the real estate it takes, and the fact that you can probably make only one or two parts a day. In fact I cannot see how one can make any money printing in metal unless someone comes with a system that is much less expensive to operate.

With just a handful of exceptions, 3D metal printers are a crutch for engineering firms who can't tell a mill from a lathe and can't be bothered to form lasting professional relationships with their local machine shops.

So they resort to 3D printing in-house, only to realize later that their parts can't be machined cost effectively and thus can't be brought to market.
 








 
Back
Top