Alumide 3D printing is a technology that has been in use for many years and that allows us to obtain parts with great resistance and a metallic finish. Do you want to use alumide to manufacture your parts? We explain you how you can do it and, if you want, we give you a quotation for your project.
What is Alumide?
Alumide is a 3D printing material consisting of a mixture of polyamide (nylon) powder with aluminium powder. Alumide parts have a porous finish and a metallic shine, as well as good mechanical properties and temperature resistance, which is why it is used in rapid prototyping and short production series.
Here’s also a video to give you an idea of what alumide pieces look like :
¿How is the alumide printed? The alumide is printed like all other additive powders, using SLS technology (powder sintering).
In SLS printers there is a bed of material that is constantly filled with powder and kept at a high temperature (high enough for the material to be hot but not to melt or sinter). SLS machines also have a laser beam guided by a set of moving mirrors called galvanometers. These mirrors deflect the beam and move it across the entire surface of the dust bed. When the laser beam touches the powder surface, the resulting heat sinters it, i.e. it joins the powder particles together to form a solid part.
You can appreciate it better in the following diagram:
What are its properties?
- Alumide has similar properties to polyamide for 3D SLS printing, which are modified by the inclusion of aluminum powder. The parts have a porous finish, like all powder sintering parts.
- The aluminum powder gives a very different glossy grey color to the white finish of the SLS polyamide parts, as you can see in the photos in the article.
- It slightly increases the rigidity of the part to include aluminum. The parts are also less deformed than parts containing only polyamide.
- It improves resistance to temperature, as the conductive properties of aluminum allow thermal loads to be dissipated throughout the volume and external surface of the part.
- Aluminum parts can be dyed, just like any other nylon sintered part, to obtain colored parts.
Request a quote for Alumide printing
At Bitfab we can help you with your alumide 3D printing project. All you have to do is get in touch with us and we will answer you with a quote for alumide printing in less than 24 hours :