WE PRINT YOUR IDEAS
Legor 3D Metal Hub: the sustainable innovation centre dedicated to 3D printing for the luxury goods industry
From the forty-year experience of Legor, progress, innovation and sustainability meld to create the Legor 3D Metal Hub: an innovative centre aimed at experimenting and producing precious and non-precious components through revolutionary 3D Metal Binder Jet technology.
3D printing represents an alternative approach to traditional investment casting, with the advantage that it does not require the combustion of waxes or resins, nor the use of gypsum, meaning a great step towards increasingly sustainable production processes.
Legor is the first company to experiment with utilising revolutionary 3D Metal Binder Jet technology to cater for needs of the jewellery and fashion accessories markets.
No need for a mould
Quick creation of sampling
Production of different pieces during the same cycle and ability to print multiple overlapping layers
Zero waste: reusable powder at the end of the cycle
Production of hollow or interlocking pieces without the need for soldering
Main stages of printing with Binder Jet
Standard material currently used: AISI 316L stainless steel
The ultra-fine metal powder (between 5μm and 25μm) is the starting point for using this technology.
Once the CAD model of the object to be produced is received, dimensions are scaled to allow for volume shrinkage that occurs during processing. Special software slices the pieces to obtain overlapping 2D images of the 3D objects. The next stages of the process are as follows:
1 Inside the build unit of the printer, a roller spreads out a layer of powder to a predetermined thickness. Next, the printing heads selectively apply a binder corresponding to the 2D images obtained previously
2 Step 1 is then repeated until the height of the objects to be produced has been reached
3 The build unit is then placed in a Curing Station, where curing takes place at around 150 °C: the binder is activated and still-fragile “green” objects are obtained, immersed in a bed of powder
4 After a meticulous Decaking and Depowdering process, the “green” objects are placed in the sintering furnace
5 A special three-phase heating process is performed in the furnace:
Debinding: the binder evaporates completely; the pieces are composed only of dust grains;
Sintering: The particles begin to coalesce and a metallurgical bond is formed. This is the phase where the most volume shrinkage occurs;
Cooling: the pieces undergo controlled cooling to avoid residual stresses and unwanted cracks.
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1 Inside the build unit of the printer, a roller spreads out a layer of powder to a predetermined thickness. Next, the printing heads selectively apply a binder corresponding to the 2D images obtained previously
-
2 Step 1 is then repeated until the height of the objects to be produced has been reached
-
3 The build unit is then placed in a Curing Station, where curing takes place at around 150 °C: the binder is activated and still-fragile “green” objects are obtained, immersed in a bed of powder
-
4 After a meticulous Decaking and Depowdering process, the “green” objects are placed in the sintering furnace
-
5 A special three-phase heating process is performed in the furnace:
Debinding: the binder evaporates completely; the pieces are composed only of dust grains;
Sintering: The particles begin to coalesce and a metallurgical bond is formed. This is the phase where the most volume shrinkage occurs;
Cooling: the pieces undergo controlled cooling to avoid residual stresses and unwanted cracks.
