Ultimaker, the global leader in professional 3D printing, announced the extension of its Ultimaker Platform with a Metal Expansion Kit, making metal 3D printing more accessible and affordable. Engineers using the new Kit will be empowered to produce applications capable of high mechanical stress and thermal resistance, an impossible task even with high-performance thermoplastics.
The Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit is explicitly developed to remove existing process's bottlenecks and limitations by providing users all the dedicated items, software features and knowledge to maximise process efficiency.
The newly introduced Kit comes with materials that are automatically recognised by the printer through NFC and enables efficiently switching between printing plastics and metal on one machine. The technology is powered by Ultimaker Cura, Ultimaker's powerful and easy-to-use slicing software, and is compatible with the Ultimaker S5 Platform.
"The Kit provides access to a complete and validated 3D printing workflow on an open platform that offers competitive quality and lead times normally only accessible with full in-house metal fused filament fabrication (MFFF) solutions at a much higher total cost of ownership," says Andrea Gasperini, Product Manager at Ultimaker.
"This unique all-in-one bundle by Ultimaker unlocks the Metal 3D printing on open desktop platforms like Ultimaker S5, makes MFFF more accessible and affordable. With all the necessary components and accessories in the kit, it facilitates for users switching between printing plastics and metal parts back-to-back," commented Firat Hizal, Head of Metal Systems at BASF Forward AM.
The Ultimaker Metal Expansion Kit will be available in North America, China, EU countries and UK in July 2022. Contents of the Kit vary by country; initially the BASF Forward AM Ultrafuse® Support Layer and Ultimaker Print Core DD 0.4 will only be available in EU and UK.
