Additive Industries has launched the MetalFab 420K, a quad 1kW laser system. The machine is intended for aerospace, manufacturing, and automotive applications and comes with a 420 x 420 x 400mm build volume. Lasers are full field, and the company says that, “Optimised, highly homogenous and high velocity gas flow to ensure consistency and quality across the powder bed, enabling high laser power and scan speeds to be achieved without compromise,” while better oxygen and humidity management. The lasers have variable beams with diameters ranging from 100 to 500 μm, while all other parameters are open.
A super cool feature is that the machine can run up to eight jobs without the operator. This is a very mature and often-requested feature from many high-volume users. For weekend builds, short builds, and high volume production, you don’t want to have to have an operator there for every changeover. This is hugely wasteful in time. And also, it can be super inconvenient. Finding good people for night shifts and planning changeovers can also be challenging. This should really help with the ROI of the machine and should make it liked on the shop floor. I’m sure that if people are curious about this machine, then this will be the feature that draws them in for a call with Additive Industries. Laser calibration is automated, and there’s a permanent filter that also removes a major annoyance.
The system can also store three materials at once on multiple cores. That’s an interesting feature for some who may have a sometimes exigent but not always prevalent need for Inconel 718, for example, and may want to save time through this. I’d be curious to know how the switchover is and how automated that is. Have they eliminated the need to crawl over the whole machine with a vacuum cleaner fun altogether? Sieving is enclosed and automated, which is nice, especially for some of the more explodey powders.
Additive Industries CEO Mark Massey,
“Our objective at Additive Industries is to develop manufacturing systems which provide market leading quality and productivity for manufacturers working with additive manufacturing technology – this is the philosophy which drove our development of the MetalFab 420K. Based on the feedback of our valuable global customer base we have built this new system from the proven DNA of our MetalFab product portfolio with a key focus on the needs of our demanding users in the space, aerospace, automotive and high-tech sectors who are looking to push productivity further in their manufacturing operations, where no compromise in quality is acceptable. The MetalFab 420K delivers this.”
Meanwhile, Manager Technology Niels Cruts said,
“Our R&D team has delivered a range of technical innovations implemented in the MetalFab 420K which, with its open architecture will allow our users to further push the limits of our technology to deliver even more challenging applications and reduced cost per part. The system has undergone an extensive development and testing period, including a beta program where it has been run in a demanding production environment with one of our key customers in the space sector, producing production parts.”
SWISSto12 uses MetalFabG2 metal 3D printers from Additive Industries to make RF components like this X GEO multibeam cluster. Image courtesy of SWISSto12.
Besides the eight build continuous build feature I really like that this printer was tested for six months with a space company before launch. That’s much better than many PowerPoint rendering launches we’ve seen lately. You can buy a 420K now, and delivery is expected in Q2 of 2026. The 420K is an important machine for Additive Industries. The previous MetalFab Flex system confused a lot of people. The company seems undersized when compared to SLM Nikon and EOS. Whilst its early vision has been more than proven right by market developments, the company itself seems a bit lost as to who it is for. SwissTo12 bought four systems last year. If it can keep finding stellar customers like those who are pioneering and, in fact, owning key applications, then a relatively small player could find pace and growth. Copper, copper on things that are brazed often, inductors, heat management applications, and space parts out of exotics and copper are in high demand. Good performance on that material, especially if they had less smoke and spatter than others, would be just the thing to vault Additive Industries ahead.