Zortrax Introduces Metal 3D Printing Kits for M300 Dual Printer

It’s been seven years since Polish 3D printer manufacturer Zortrax released its M300, a larger upgrade to its original best-selling M200 desktop 3D printer. Since then, the system, in its various upgraded forms, has been used for a wide variety of applications, including aerospace, automotive, sporting equipment, and more. Up until this point, the Endureal was the company’s only 3D printer that could use metal materials. But now, Zortrax has introduced a metal 3D printing option for its industrial-grade, desktop M300 Dual printer, with two new kits—Zortrax Full Metal Package 316L and Zortrax Full Metal Package 17-4 PH—featuring all the necessary essentials for desktop metal printing.

“Zortrax M300 Dual is a truly universal machine, which combines a large workspace, single- and dual- extrusion modes, intuitive interface, and a very wide range of ready-to-use, calibrated material profiles,” said Michał Siemaszko, Head of Research and Development Department at Zortrax. “We’re now adding an option of metal 3D printing to this desktop printer with two comprehensive sets: Zortrax Full Metal Package 316L and Zortrax Full Metal Package 17-4 PH, encompassing everything that’s necessary to start metal 3D printing and to ensure fully functional metal parts, which exhibit the properties of steel.”

A 3D printed steel screw made on Zortrax M300 Dual with BASF Ultrafuse 316L metal filament.

The versatile M300 Dual features a large 265 x 265 x 300 mm workspace, with both single- and dual-extrusion modes, advanced filament control, and automatic calibration. It also supports a wide variety of its own, and third-party, materials, from standard PLA and ABS filaments to flexible materials, engineering options like Nylon, and advanced composites reinforced with glass or carbon fiber, like BASF Ultrafuse PPGF 30 or BASF Ultrafuse PAHT CF15. Speaking of Ultrafuse material by BASF Forward AM, the two new metal kits for the Zortrax M300 Dual contain the metal-polymer filaments BASF Ultrafuse 316L and BASF Ultrafuse 17-4 PH. These Ultrafuse metallic powder materials enable users to 3D print models out of the two most commonly used types of steel: 316L surgical-grade stainless steel and 17-4 PH hardened steel.

A triangle bracket made on Zortrax M300 Dual with BASF Ultrafuse 17-4 PH metal filament

In addition to the two metal-polymer filaments, the new Zortrax Full Metal Packages include everything you need to print metal parts on the M300 Dual:

• BASF Ultrafuse Support Layer material
• Magigoo Pro Metal adhesive
• extra hotend module
• adapter with a PTFE tube; installation instructions here
• voucher for professional sintering and debinding processes by BASF’s German partner Elnik

The new metal 3D printing option for the M300 Dual also comes with an updated version of the company’s proprietary Z-SUITE software, specifically with improvements to the Z-SUITE slicer.

“The latest version of Z-SUITE BETA features a set of improvements in printing with metallic powder filaments,” explained Ewa Piórkowska, R&D Software Project Manager at Zortrax. “A new gyroid infill enables printing metal models with 60% to 90% infill. Another change enhances the way in which support structures are printed with BASF Ultrafuse® Support Layer. Here, supports are divided into smaller blocks along all axes and narrowed down towards the bottom. All this makes supports placed in the areas that are difficult to reach easier to remove and reduces their footprint on the model.”

Support structures divided along the Z axis

Z-SUITE’s BETA version 3.2.0 has several new features, such as a new gyroid infill, the novel way support structures are 3D printed with BASF Ultrafuse Support Layer, improved shrinking plate, and automatic scaling of metal models. These improvements help further align Z-SUITE with what the 3D printer’s user base needs, namely the two-stage post-processing method that turns “green” parts into steel ones.

(Source/Images: Zortrax)