MetalBase: An Engineer’s €10,000 LPBF Machine

Slowly, we’re coming to grips with low-cost LPBF. Companies like Xact Metal and One Click are making machines available for under $100,000. Easy to use, these are expanding the market. Meanwhile, Chinese firms are working on machines priced at $50,000 and even $25,000. But, what about a €10,000 (around $12,000) LPBF machine? Frankly, I would not have thought it possible. That is, until I interviewed Tom Bakker of Metal Base.

Tom is the founder of Metal Base, a company that wants to completely redefine what low-cost LPBF is. Tom is a systems engineer at VDL Enabling Technologies Group, in its Technology & Development division. This is a portion of a leading Dutch industrial group that does precision machinery and advanced mechatronic systems. Their crowning achievement is the wafer handler for ASML’s EUV machines. EUV machines (extreme ultraviolet lithography systems used to manufacture the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips) are the most complex machines on the planet, they make the cutting edge chips that power the latest phones and computers. In this case for the new High NA EUV platform, the TWINSCAN EXE. Tom is the robot team lead of the wafer-handling robot, the EXE5000, which moves silicon wafers inside the machine with nanometer-level precision. Before that, he worked on wafer calibration robots, vacuum end effectors and more. So one of the many thousands of hard-working engineers working on one of the most expensive and complicated machines in the world, wants to make a low-cost LPBF machine? 

Before this, Tom worked as a System Integrator at the well-regarded specialty mechatronics and machinery builder MTA. MTA makes things like microsurgery robots, nonporous thin-layer manufacturing machines, the AM Flow sorting and AI detection line, and a robot that replaces nurses in drawing blood. Before this, he worked for four years for Additive Industries as a mechatronics design engineer. I initially thought that Tom was naive, but he is not. And I assumed that he didn’t know what he was doing. But he does know what he’s doing. Indeed, given his career, he is highly qualified to engineer an LPBF machine. But, still, €10,000? Twelve grand? I didn’t even think it was possible.

Tom loved his work at VDL, which he described as taking place at the intersection of precision, hard work, and creativity. Because of his love for mechatronics and LPBF, he started experimenting at home with a 30W laser to print metal. Initially, Tom was his own recoater, manually recoating layers. But it worked… kind of. Then he experimented with a 60W laser. When he’d finished the prototype, he saw real potential. He iterated and improved his initial designs. Now Tom has sold five machines to five different customers. Tom’s goal is not to make a M290 that’s as cheap as possible; he wants to reimagine LPBF. He wants to make the process as accessible as possible.

Tom thinks that a 100,000 is simply too much for an LPBF machine. He told us, “There are too many out there that wish to print metal but can’t spend that kind of money.” He’s not aiming to equal what other machines do. He freely admits that the path he’s chosen won’t deliver the results other systems do. He says, “This is not for space companies but for industries that do not have access to technology. This is for handlebars, not rocket engines.” The way he has engineered his machine, from first principles, makes it much more radically low-cost than others. And… It’s a kit.

The machine plugs into a standard wall outlet and uses Klipper as well as Orcaslicer  The printer does not print titanium  Instead, he’s optimized it for 316L stainless steel, bronze, and Inconel  The densities and tensile strengths he can get are comparable to those of industrial machines for Inconel and 316L  For bronze, he’s at 94% density; copper is at 80% density  Build volume is 128 by 100 mm, and build speed is 1.5 cm³/h.

You can see a video of how it prints Inconel below.

Here you can see a thermal and tensile test of a printed part.

Here is a year-old video of parts of the machine.

A Nitrogen generator is an extra option. The laser is a 445 nm, 60 W diode laser on an XY gantry. Making this work is key to the machine’s success, but Tom thinks that too many people making LPBF machines are focusing on the laser.

He says, “focus needs to happen, how the light I send hits powder, is important. But it’s not the most important thing. having a short optical path close to the melt pool, good gas circulation, good airflow, not getting the optics not dirty and the actual laser power on your bed…are more important.”

Now, to me, this is worrying because he’s starting to make sense. I’m going from thinking this is unbelievable to thinking that I may have to buy one. In his setup, he’s currently getting 20 to 30 joules per cubic mm in a controlled way. This is compared with industrial fiber laser machines, which typically use around 80 to 100 joules per cubic mm. In his low-cost LPBF system, efficiency is key  Tom has used input shaping to reduce damping effects. Most of his engineering time was spent on flow dynamics. 

The system is incredibly simple. But it has a HEPA filter and additional filtration, and also includes laser, oxygen, and door monitoring, as well as CE. There is also a powder overflow system. The systems in customers’ hands are doing well. A fabled user, an LPBF expert, a manufacturing firm, and a 3D printing service are among his first customers. He’s taken feedback from them between May and December of 2025 and pumped this into his new machine. He’s now doing the Kickstarter, hoping to sell around 10 to 20 systems. He wants to spend the Kickstarter money and time on documentation. Tom is “not looking for a unicorn startup…just to make metal printing more accessible.” He suggests that a well-outfitted workshop is needed to assemble and operate the machine, and stresses that everyone should always wear PPE. The cost of the system is €8,500 (excluding VAT), and it will require 30 hours of assembly. A Nitrogen generator costs €1,200. Welcome to the future, folks, it’s going to be a wild ride.