Sharebot metalONE: The Newest Metal 3D Printer From Italy
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Sharebot are an Italian 3D printer company who manufacture printers across nearly every major 3D printing technology — FDM 3D printers, SLS, DLP, and now a metal 3D printer, the metalONE.
Ahead of the imminent release of the metalONE, we spoke with Sharebot about their journey into the industry, their unique Italian identity, and what the metalONE can do that other metal 3D printers can’t.
- You may also be interested in our metal 3D printer buyer’s guide, which the Sharebot metalONE features in.
- We also have a guide to all the major metal 3D printer manufacturers.
How did Sharebot start, and what inspired Sharebot’s entry into the 3D printing industry with your first 3D printer?
At the end of 2013, Cristian Giussani read an article on Wired about Andrea Radaelli, one of the first pioneers in Italy to create a 3D printer. Arturo Donghi informed by Cristian, decides to contact Andrea to create a company focused on research and production of 3D printers. Thus Sharebot was born.
The founding team consists of: Arturo Donghi, current CEO, responsible for the company’s strategy and marketing; Andrea Radaelli, President and Head of Research & Development of 3D printers; Cristian Giussani, Head of Software Development; Ambrogio Donghi, COO; and Marzia Pezzali, Head of the Academy.
This group of highly qualified, experienced and passionate people shared the same goal: achieving the Sharebot dream. More than five years have passed since, and today Sharebot 3D printers are all over the world.
Whereas most companies specialize on a particular 3D printing technology, you have chosen to cover a diverse range – including FDM, DLP, SLS and now DMLS. What inspired this decision, and how do you think this gives Sharebot an advantage over competition?
The mission of our company is to spread 3D printing technology to small and medium sized businesses and enable everyone to design and realize their own projects. All technologies help us in our mission. We didn’t stop with FFF / FDM [fused deposition modeling], the industry demanded more, and by integrating more technologies we could accomplish and satisfy all the needs of our customers.
We decided to enter the Research & Development world with our SLS 3D printer, Sharebot SnowWhite, and now metalONE. We are trying to give SMEs the techonology needed to upgrade and rethink their production processes.
For more information on the Sharebot SnowWhite, check it out in our SLS 3D printer ranking, or view the video below:
Many industrial 3D printing companies seem to be from either USA (3D Systems, Stratasys) or Germany (EOS, SLM Solutions). How does it feel to be a rare Italian 3D printing company, and does this affect your strategy?
We have imagination, passion, dedication and culture; Italy is among the most industrialized countries in the world, starting from Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo Galilei up to Antonio Meucci, Enrico Fermi, Guglielmo Marconi, Rita Levi Montalcini, as well as Carlo Rubbia, and Fabiola Gianotti, the first female CERN Director-General, plus many others that are successfully working abroad.
Italy started from the Roman Empire, and revolutionized the way things are made and created. That has inspired the fantastic Italian “unconventional way of doing” tradition. We, as many other innovative firms, are trying to keep this tradition up to date. I think the right word isn’t “rare” but “out of the ordinary”. We try to do all the things differently, as our motto “do it different”.
Sharebot asked us to include this video showcasing some of Italy’s finest aspects:
Your Sharebot BIG 3D printer utilizes LSL technologies. How does this differ from other resin 3D printers and the way they work, and what advantages does this technology give over standard SLA/DLP printing?
It’s a Led Screen Light 3D Printer that uses Special Daylight UV resins. The advantage is the bigger print area bundled with an affordable price.
The first deliveries of the new DMLS printer, the Sharebot metalONE, are set to be delivered soon. How difficult was the research and development process in creating this printer, and how long did it take?
It has been a long way started in 2014; at first we released our SnowWhite SLS 3D printer in 2016 [selective laser sintering] and now have more then 60 printers installed around the globe. The metalONE can be considered a direct descendant of the SLS SnowWhite project
The main difficulties encountered are in the profiling of various metal powders starting from steel, nickel, titanium to aluminum.
How does the metalONE differentiate itself from other DMLS printers?
Easy to use, in 10 minutes you can start a new print, and in less than 30 minutes you can clean the printer and change powder. Affordable, completely open parameters with a lot of info inside the log files in order to fully understand the process layer by layer. There are also some photos of each layer in order to implement AI solutions. The ideal metal 3D printer for all those who want to test new materials and thanks to its printing area and the standard DMLS printing process, it allows the creation of objects and prototypes using only a minimum of 800gr of metal powder.
The ideal printer for research and those who want to experiment with a metal investment with a reasonable investment.
We feel it is probably the smallest, most affordable and easy to use metal 3D printer on the market.
