The Virtual Foundry set out to make metal 3D printing realistic for everyone with an FDM printer. The dream comes true with Filamet™, their line of sinterable FDM metal filaments.
Open: The Virtual Foundry prides itself on developing these filaments within an open architecture model. Filamet™ delivers in printers from the most humble home versions to the most robust industrial systems. If it prints PLA, it prints Filamet™. In fact, no special adjustments or equipment are necessary. These 85+% metal filaments print just like PLA with settings recognized by the beginning and experienced user alike.
The Virtual Foundry President, Tricia Suess, appreciates the team’s approach. “It’s quite thrilling to be on the front edge of metal 3D printing technology. Brad and his team have developed something here that changes how work is done. Our innovative people have created a product within an open architecture that increases the efficiencies of current work systems and expands the value of our customers’ product offerings.”
Safe: Filamet™ is made of metal powder encased in a binder of non-toxic, environmentally friendly, biodegradable and carbon neutral polymers. That means safer operation and no exposed powdered metals.
While prints made with Filamet™ can be polished to a beautiful shine in their green state, many applications dictate post-processing. Filamet™ again surpasses other metal AM solutions by debinding with simple heat – no catalysts, no solvents, no safety risk.
Priced to Compete: Create high quality, high purity, 100% metal objects at a fraction of the cost of current metal printing systems. Since Filamet™ can be used in any FDM printer, all printer brands are options. Since objects printed with Filamet™ can be sintered in common industrial furnaces, this hardware can sourced from a wide variety of industrial suppliers.
Benn Simms of Ledwell Plastics writes, “After finding an article on The Virtual Foundry’s Filamet™ I immediately saw the potential for this exciting product and wanted to be involved. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work with them and explore the possibilities for this product in the injection moulding industry….Injection mould tooling is a very expensive and time consuming process. This has the potential to massively de skill it for minimum outlay and hugely improve production times.”
Open architecture FDM Metal systems built around Filamet™ can be put together for as little as $5000.
The Virtual Foundry guarantees metal printing success with its open, safe, and economical metal 3D printing filaments.
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Featured image shows the metal 3D printed NIST test artifact. Photo via NIST
Featured image shows a figure 3D printed on an FDM machine in Stainless Steel Filamet. Photo via Virtual Foundry
