SLM 3D Printing Guide

2. Introduction to SLM 3D Printing

2.1 SLM Market Share

SLM (Selektiv lasersmältning) metal 3D printing is a main metal 3D printing technology, about 52% metal 3D printing uses SLM, as you can see from this chart:

By the way, SLM and DMLS are almost the same process, and DMLS is a brand name.

2.2 SLM printers

If we want to adopt SLM 3D printing technology, we have to use SLM 3D printers, which are very expensive generally. Till exempel, we have Farsoon mFormics 200 SLM 3D printers, and the price of each unit is a little more than $200,000.

As for desktop SLM 3D printers, the technology is not yet widely used. This is not only because the price is still high, perhaps ranging from $50,000 till $90,000 per unit, but also because the production circumstances required are very demanding or it can be dangerous for production.

2.3 How to outsource a SLM 3D printing service?

If you want to outsource metal 3D printing, you had better find a SLM source factory with CNC machines, because the precision of SLM printed parts is not very high, so they need post – processing by CNC machines.

We are a leading metal 3D printing + CNC machining source factory, with 33 industrial SLM metal 3D printers and 14 CNC machines, so we can finishing the 3D printed parts in house, no need to outsource again.