Based in Campbell, California, Velo3D Inc — a leading metal additive manufacturing technology company for ‘mission-critical parts’ — has announced its first Sapphire XC delivery. The Sapphire XC (XC standing for extra capacity) is the company’s newest and largest metal 3-D printer that delivers both faster production and larger parts.

A scaled-up version of the Sapphire Printer, it uses the same Flow print preparation software, the same Assure quality control software, and the same Intelligent Fusion manufacturing process.

Sapphire XC has been built to enable a seamless transition of parts that were developed and qualified on Sapphire Printers to the larger, more productive Sapphire XC, reducing the cost of producing parts by up to 75%.

This new machine also expands the use of Velo3D’s production solution to parts that are up to 400% larger in volume than the largest parts possible with the original Sapphire. The aerospace company receiving the new Sapphire XC will use the machine to scale up production of its product that is built using the fleet of Sapphire metal 3-D printers it already has.

Benny Buller, Velo3D’s founder and CEO, said: “I believe that the Sapphire XC will quickly become ‘the gold standard’ in advanced metal additive manufacturing. Because our customer is already using our ‘end to end’ production solution they can immediately and seamlessly move parts to Sapphire XC to achieve a phenomenal increase in production rate.

“We made a huge effort to ensure that Sapphire XC uses the exact same manufacturing process as Sapphire. The ability to move production seamlessly between different products was considered impossible when we started Velo3D, but I am proud to declare that we have unlocked this ability for our customers and partners.”

Velo3D currently has a backlog of firm bookings for a further 17 Sapphire XC systems, as well as 19 additional reservations.