Why We Introduced PowTReX basic for Metal 3D Printing Powder Recovery

Metal additive manufacturing encompasses a wide range of industrial 3D printing processes that offer a wide range of advantages versus traditional metalworking processes and each one demands substantial investment in equipment and engineering expertise. One custom metal 3D printing company may offer a particular expertise in binder jetting or material jetting while another may specialize in powder bed fusion and another may focus on direct metal laser sintering. Each process may excel in different applications but all of them rely on very expensive metal powder for 3D printing.

Metal Powder Based 3D Printing

All of the metal additive manufacturing processes leave an excess or unused amount of these metal powders in the build box after printing a component part or product. Discarding this costly material as waste is rightfully unacceptable to most AM companies but after printing, it’s no longer in the pristine condition needed to put it back into the hopper for reuse.

This is why we developed the original PowTReX metal powder reprocessing system. In tandem with our companion pneumatic vacuum conveyor, it automatically extracts and sieves unused powder after a completed build job to remove oversize particles that agglomerated during printing and collects the sieved powder for automated recovery and return into the process. A single PowTReX can integrate with multiple 3D printers from nearly any of the best 3D printer brands to support fast-growing companies that need to scale yet refuse to waste precious metal powders.

Latest Volkmann 3D Printing Equipment Innovation

Given our many years of experience working with BMW and GKN Additive on large scale additive manufacturing projects, it would make sense to develop equipment for 3D printers producing huge volumes at scale – and we do. But as a family-owned and operated manufacturer, we also recognize the many, many startup and early stage additive manufacturers that either aren’t ready to scale or need a scaled down way to recover metal material during short runs and trial and error testing.

That’s why we recently introduced PowTReX basic. This system offers all of the core functions of our PowTReX scaled down into a more compact unit designed to serve a single 3D printer. A worker uses a suction lance to extract the excess metallic powder from the build chamber then it is automatically sieved and collected inside for reuse. Any remaining oversize particles are diverted for removal. It’s even set on casters as standard so it can be easily rolled from one 3D printing machine to another.

Download free PowTReX basic pdf here.