As the original selective laser sintering (SLS) patents expire, a number of ventures are rushing to develop their own, low-cost sintering machines to enable an ever-greater number of individuals to 3D print high-resolution objects with the speed of SLS. One company based out of Poland, called Sand Made, has come out of the woodwork with their own SLS machine, the Sand Made LS ONE printer.
The LS ONE, to be officially unveiled at TEDx Krakow on June 13, has a build volume of 150 x 150 x 150 mm, and has been designed to sinter a variety of materials, including Nylon 12, polystyrene, a Nylon 12/Styrene composite, wax, and foundry sand.
This allows the LS ONE to, not only 3D print the sorts of Nylon prints you might get from an online marketplace like Shapeways, Sculpteo, or i.materialise, but also prints for foundry casting. Using a CO2 40 Watt laser and a galvanometer capable of scanning up to 3000mm/sec, the Sand Made printer can achieve layer thicknesses of 0.06-0.35 mm at a speed of up to 13mm /per hour.
The LS ONE has a potential price tag of $28,000, and should be released in the fall. While more affordable than industrial SLS machines, with prices well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars (albeit, with a much larger build volume), the LS ONE is significantly undercut by other start-ups attempting to enter the low-cost SLS space. Sintratec is currently fulfilling Indiegogo orders with its ~€4000 machine and Norge’s Ice1 was going to be sold at around $13,000, before the company was purchased by Prodways. Sharebot is also working on its Snow White printer, but the price has not been disclosed. Finally, Sinterit hopes to sell a $5,000 by the end of the year.
Of course, none of this means all that much if the quality isn’t there to back it up. Sand Made may be able to deliver a very high-quality machine, worthy of the price. To see for yourself, you can catch them and the LS ONE at the Małopolski Festiwal Innowacji this month.
