Sinterit and DyeMansion Join Forces as Polymer LPBF Enters Its Next Competitive Phase

The entry-level laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) polymer space is heating up. Whereas in metals it’s Chinese vendors offering breakthrough low-cost products, in polymer it’s HP and Formlabs enabling easier, lower CapEx entry into the market. For traditional low-cost sintering companies, this offers up a bit of a strategic conundrum. What to do? Do you meet the bigger firms at their chosen price point ($60,000 for a complete system including unpacking station for HP or $84,000 for just the X1 from Formlabs), or do you continue to offer lower-cost smaller systems? Or perhaps do you do something lateral such as making a system for healthcare or prosthetics? I’d personally opt for a strategy like that and make a medical kind of Sprintray kind of an offering for hospitals.

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