Forming sheet metal is expensive. It requires expensive stamping tools and dies be made, and you need a massive press to load them into. The press takes up a lot of space, as do the tools and dies, which can only make their one shape.
Production technology company Desktop Metal has upended sheet metal forming with their Figur G15 machine.
This uses the company’s Digital Sheet Forming technology, which uses a ballpoint to press into the metal, deforming it at the point of contact.
The ball essentially draws the shape of your part, layer by layer.
You go straight from CAD to shaping your part; there is no wait for the tooling to be produced.
This technology completely obviates the need for presses, tools and dies. Those objects will still have their place in mass production—sheet metal forming is a $300 billion market—but for more nimble operations that don’t need to produce hundreds of thousands of units, the Figur G15 will allow them to save millions of dollars.
Here’s the impressive machine in action:
