(506) 2240-6804
Copper 3d printing service
Copper (CuNi2SiCr) 3D Printing | Get Custom Metal 3D Prints Fast
Back
-
Materials
Materials by Service
Injection MoldingCNC Machining3D PrintingSheet Metal
Materials by Type
PlasticsMetalsElastomers
Related Links
Customer Supplied ResinsColors
Injection Molding Material Alternatives Guide
Struggling with thermoplastic material shortages? We created a detailed guide to resin substitutes for ABS, PC, PP, and other commonly molded thermoplastics.
Download
-
Resources
Design Tips Guides and Trend Reports Case Studies Design Aids Webinars and Trade Shows
Blog Videos FAQs Educators and Students Glossary
Industries Medical Aerospace Automotive Consumer Electronics Industrial Equipment
-
About Us
Who We Are Why Protolabs? Research and Development Cool Idea Award Partnerships Sustainability and Social Impact
Careers Investors Locations Press Procurement
Contact Us
Proto Labs, Inc.
5540 Pioneer Creek Dr.
Maple Plain, MN 55359
United StatesP: 877.479.3680
F: 763.479.2679
E: [email protected]Best-in-Class Online Quoting
After uploading your part design, you'll receive an online quote that includes manufacturing analysis to help improve part manufacturability. Within your quote, you can also adjust quantity and material and see price changes in real-time.
Learn More
Get a QuoteSign In
3D-printed copper provides strong mechanical properties with high thermal and electrical conductivity
UPLOAD A PART
Copper (CuNi2SiCr) is an alloyed copper material with excellent thermal and electrical conductivity. This alloy can be used in harsh environments where pure copper is not feasible. Copper is structurally stronger, harder, and has higher elongation when compared to AlSi10Mg, which also exhibits thermal and electrical conductivity properties.
Final parts built in CuNi2SiCr receive stress relief application.
Primary Benefits
- Good thermal and electrical conductivity
- Better corrosion resistance than pure copper
- Robust mechanical properties
Copper(CuNi2SiCr) Material Properties
- US
- Metric
3D-Printed Copper Part Dimensions
Maximum part size and minimum feature size will vary based on selected resolution. 3D-printed copper is available in high and normal resolutions.
| Resolution | US | Metric | |
| Maximum Dimensions | High (20 μm) | 3.8 in. x 3.8 in. x 3.7 in. | 98mm x 98mm x 94mm |
| Normal (30 μm) | 9.6 in. x 9.6 in. x 13.0 in. | 244mm x 244mm x 330mm | |
| Minimum Feature Size | High (20 μm) | 0. 015 in. | 0.381mm |
| Normal (30 μm) | 0.030 in. | 0.762mm |
Applications for 3D-Printed Copper
Copper (CuNi2SiCr) is an excellent choice when thermal or electrical conductivity are required.
- Heat sinks
- Heat exchangers
- Resistance welding tips
- Tong arms for robots
- Busbars
- Rocket nozzles
- Heat exchangers/Heat sinks
- Induction coils
Related Resources
Blog
Metal 3D Printing with Copper Offers Excellent Mechanical Properties
Metal 3D printing with a copper alloy offers excellent mechanical properties with high thermal and electrical conductivity.
Read Blog
Guide
Rapid Manufacturing for Metal Prototypes and Production Parts
Learn about the material properties of hard and soft metals as well as the machining, molding, and 3D printing processes used to manufacture metal parts.
Read Guide
Design Tip
Designing for Direct Metal Laser Sintering
Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) produces complex, durable, lightweight metal parts. Depending on the design, DMLS can be a reliable way to manufacture metal parts.
Read Design Tip
White Paper
Combining Part Assemblies with Additive Manufacturing to Reduce Cost and Increase Performance
How to find the right opportunities to consolidate multi-part assemblies into single components with industrial 3D printing
Read White Paper
3D Printing in Copper | DMLS & EMB
3D printing in Copper
Copper is a metal known for its fantastic thermal and electrical conductivity. Ideal applications for 3D printing in copper include induction coils, heat exchangers and electrical wiring.
About Copper
Copper is a metal material very popular for its great thermal and electrical conductivity, and high ductility.
Ironically, these characteristics are also what made it impossible to be 3D printed until 2018. For instance, its highly conductive properties caused the heat from electric beams to be reflected. Material manufacturers had to develop new techniques to make 3D printing with this metal alloy possible.
These new techniques have optimized the material and existing processes in a way that highly conductive 3d printed copper parts can now be produced in a cost-efficient manner. These parts exhibit high stiffness, low magnetic permeability and high elongation at break. One of its main physical characteristics is the reddish color that gets a greenish hue due to oxidation.
One of the advantages of 3D printing in copper is the increase in performance caused by the design freedom that only additive manufacturing can offer. Some common applications for copper parts are heat exchangers, induction coils and heat pipes.
Strengths
✦ Great thermal properties
✦ Excellent electrical conductivity
✦ Design freedom for 3D printing in Copper increases the performance of parts
✦ Bacteria will not grow on it
✦ Highly malleable
Weaknesses
✧ Sensitivity to oxidation leads to a greenish shade
✧ Corrosion can occur at any moment
common applications for copper
– Electrical wiring
– Conductive inductors
– Electronic device cooling
Available technologies on our copper 3d print service
Direct Metal Laser Sintering produces high-end metal parts free of residual stress and internal defects.
Electron Beam Melting creates sophisticated parts with high dimensional accuracy and strength.
characteristics of 3d printing in copper
Max. Bed Size (mm)
800x400x500 mm
350x350x380 mm
Max. Bed Size (in)
31.5×15.8×19.7 in
13.8×13.8×15 in
Layer Height
30-150 μm
130 μm
Accuracy
Smoothness
Flexibility
Rigidity
Biocompatible
Food Safe
Watertight
Recyclable
general technical data for 3d printing in copper
Density
8.74 g/cm3
Young Modulus
109 GPa
Yield Strength
385 Mpa
516 Mpa
Elongation at Break
Hardness
HV 160
* These values are meant to give a general idea of the material. Actual values may vary according to chosen material brand, 3D print service and build condition. Please refer to the Beamler online quoting platform for actual technical data of each material brand.
High performance materials for 3D printing
May 29, 2020
High performance materials for 3D printing are materials that have unique mechanical properties that make them ideal for special end-use applications of high quality.
Polymers
Read More »
Industrial FDM printing with pure copper
May 4, 2020
Industrial FDM 3D printing with pure copper, yes you read that right. American 3D printing machine and material manufacturer Markforged has introduced a pure copper
Read More »
3D Printing with Copper
May 6, 2019
Copper is widely used in industry thanks to its excellent thermal and electrical properties. Recent developments in additive manufacturing of copper made it available for
Read More »
Get a quote to 3D print your part(s) with Beamler.
It's free and easy.
All uploaded files are secure and confidential.
Copper 3D Printing - Complete Guide
Copper is one of the newest and most promising areas of metal 3D printing for everything from electric motors to heat sinks.
Previously, copper 3D printing was a challenge due to the metal's reflectivity and high thermal conductivity, but advances in printers and materials have largely resolved these early problems.
Today, 3D printed copper propulsion systems send rockets into space, 3D printed copper heatsinks cool processors, and 3D printed copper coils boost the performance of electric motors.
3D printed copper parts (Source: Trumpf)
Why 3D print copper?
Copper has always been a very useful metal due to its ability to conduct heat and electricity, resist corrosion and even kill bacteria and viruses. Demand for complex copper parts is on the rise as 3D printing opens up even more uses and possibilities for this metal.
3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) enables the creation of exceptionally complex shapes, fine details, internal structures and lattice inserts that are not possible with any other form of metal fabrication. These capabilities reduce weight, increase efficiency, and reduce fabrication and assembly times, as multi-component assemblies can be 3D printed as a single unit.
Additive Metallurgy
3D printing also makes it possible to produce this relatively expensive metal more efficiently, reducing waste because only the amount of material needed is used to make each part.
For companies interested in copper 3D printing, reducing raw material costs is critical.
If you already produce custom copper parts, 3D printing can significantly reduce your production costs while optimizing part performance.
Markforged 3D printed copper heatsink (Source: Markforged)
Although there aren't many 3D printers that can print copper, there is still a wide variety of printing technologies and prices.
FDM printers using copper-filled plastic filament can produce copper jewelry, decorative items, and other parts that are almost 100% copper. While for more advanced production, 3D printers using copper powder, rods or copper polymer slurry produce industrial parts with excellent mechanical and conductive properties, which can meet international standards such as IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard).
Let's look at what types of printers can work with copper today.
Trumpf's TruPrint 1000 Green Edition 3D printer
several equipment manufacturers have recently included copper in their material list.
Since copper is highly reflective, laser processing of the powder has been a hurdle for manufacturers. However, this technology and materials have evolved to solve this problem.
3D printer manufacturer Trumpf, for example, has developed an industrial green laser that can 3D print materials such as copper, copper alloys, and precious metals that are difficult to process with infrared waves.
Two powder layer technologies for metal 3D printing, DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) and EBM (Electron Beam Melting), work by depositing a thin layer of copper powder onto a platform inside the printer. The powder heats up while lasers or electron beams draw the first layer of the part. When the particles in the layer fuse, the platform is lowered slightly into the assembly chamber, and fresh powder is poured on top, and the process is repeated. Some of the copper powder left over from the process can be recycled for use in the next print.
Copper additive manufacturing powder from GNK Powder Metallurgy (Source: GNK)
Copper-bonded 3D inkjet printers
Copper powder bonded with a liquid binder and sintered in a furnace is a 3D printing technique known as binder inkjet printing that allows parts to be obtained without the use of an auxiliary material.
Bond jetting is a no-heat process in which a bonding layer is sprayed between each layer of metal; the binder is then removed during the sintering process.
Binder blasting is a popular additive manufacturing method for high volume metal parts.
Featured image of
Metal-on-Copper FDM Blasting Bet
Metal-on-Copper Printed Copper Parts The most economical approach to 3D printing copper parts is to use machines that extrude the filament. Metal filament for printing metal parts consists of a plastic base with metal particles evenly interspersed in it. Copper interspersed filament for copper parts is a unique type of composite filament that, when used correctly, produces strong, chemically resistant, and near-solid metal parts. Virtually any Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printer can print near-solid metal parts using copper-filled polymer filament. Currently, there is only one option on the market - from the manufacturer of threads The Virtual Foundry. Other types of copper thread contain enough real copper particles to be polished and given a metal-like weight, but are for decorative purposes. A company in Chile called Copper3D produces a copper-filled filament that produces parts that do not have metal parts, but parts that have the antibacterial and antimicrobial properties of copper. NASA is even testing the filament for use in "interplanetary microbial contamination," according to the company. In addition to the mainstream FDM printers, two other filament-extruding printers also offer copper, but they use their own proprietary materials. Desktop Metal uses a bonded metal filament, while Markforged uses a similar metal powder bonded into a plastic matrix. Cold spray and DED copper 3D printers WarpSpee3D cold spray 3D printer (Source: Spee3D) Although these two methods of metal 3D printing are not usually combined together, we are combining them here due to their general application for coating metal parts with another metal and for layering metal parts with metal powder. Directed Energy Deposition (DED) is a system developed by Optomec of New Mexico to create, improve and repair metal parts. Like SLS, in DED, high-power lasers build up 3D structures in layers, creating parts with high density and strength, ideal for mechanical applications. In 2019Optomec developed a new copper DED process to produce heat exchangers for use in the aerospace, chemical and other industries. Spee3D's WarpSpee3D process is unique in its use of supersonic 3D deposition to produce parts from a range of metal powder materials, including copper and aluminum. Cold spray is an additive manufacturing technique in which metal powder is injected into a supersonic pressurized gas stream. Instead of melting the metal, cold spraying holds it together in a process called plastic deformation. Companies such as Spee3D are using cold spray technology to apply an antimicrobial copper coating to doors, handrails and touch panels intended for use in hospitals, schools and other public places. Cold spray is also the fastest metal 3D printing method. Spee3D printed a 17.9kg (17.9kg) pure copper aerospace rocket nozzle lining (pictured below) on WarpSpee3D in about three hours at a cost of just $716, according to the company. Parts like this are usually made from solid forged copper, which takes weeks and costs tens of thousands of dollars. One of the disadvantages of DED and cold spray is that they are limited in the production of complex geometries. Rocket nozzle copper plating, engineer spark-free copper hammer and copper cable clamp, 3D printed by Spee3D (Source: Spee3D) Photopolymerization Holo) Metal DLP 3D printing is similar to resin 3D printing in that it uses UV light projected onto a photosensitive slurry to cure layer by layer. California startup Holo recently completed a facility where it plans to 3D print pure copper parts on its proprietary 3D printers that are not for sale. Holo will specialize in 3D printed copper cooling solutions for high performance computers, electric vehicles, RF antennas and heat exchangers. Admatec, a Dutch manufacturer of 3D printers, offers printers that also use copper slurry to produce highly detailed copper parts. Copper slurry material for 3D printing (Source: Admatec) Share article: 
The company claims that its copper filament is suitable for printing on any filament 3D printer with a hardened nozzle and a hot end that can reach temperatures of up to 225ºC. However, the parts do not become metal immediately after printing and require additional post-printing steps to melt the resin binder and leave only the metal. 
The printers from these manufacturers produce all-metal parts designed for industrial use, such as machine tools, induction coils, heat sinks, and functional prototypes. 
Instead of resin, metal DLP printers use a liquid polymer filled with metal powder and a small amount of binder. After the parts are printed, they have to go through several more stages before they become the final metal parts. Metallic DLP printing is valued for fine detail.
3D Printing copper products
14 But did you know that you can 3D print it? Check out this article to find out more.
What is this?
Even coins can be 3D printed (but they are not legal tender).
(Source: i.materialise.com)
Although metal printing in general is still quite difficult at home. However, there have been significant advances in professional metal printing over the past few years. This is now commonplace in some industries, such as the automotive industry.
Method 1: FDM Printing
This Filamet copper engine block was printed on a standard FDM printer. (Source: hackaday.com)
In terms of FDM printing, the only real option is to use copper filament. Many try to produce it, but only one company, The Virtual Foundry, achieves 90% metal in their PLA hybrid filaments. The idea behind the filament is that once an object has been printed, it can be fired in a sintering oven to achieve a 100% copper composition.
Of course, one of the big drawbacks of this method is that the loss of the PLA binder causes the part to shrink by 15-20%. However, most details can be adjusted before printing.
After firing the material in a furnace, it retains all the properties of copper, incl. high electrical conductivity.
Of course, this thread does not come cheap. One kilo costs $121, and because of the much higher density of copper, you end up with a lot less filament than you'd expect than if it were 100% PLA.
Unlike conventional PLA, Filamet must be preheated and hung on a low friction spool holder to prevent filament breakage during printing. Also, Virtual Foundry recommends printing slowly (less than 30mm/s) at first.
In terms of performance, the filament can print layers up to 100 microns thick.
Method 2: Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS)
Parts manufactured using DMLS. (Source: proto3000.com)
DMLS is a laser-assisted process that fuses metal powder into a fully functional 3D part. The powder is deposited and the product is built up layer by layer. After building the part, excess powder must be removed using compressed air in a closed chamber.
This process is quite messy and requires tools similar to those that will be used for a sandblasting system. Health issues should also be taken into account, as it is dangerous to breathe small metal particles.
Buying your own DMLS machine is not an option for most people as these machines typically cost over $100,000. However, various 3D printing companies can print your parts on demand. Despite this low availability, DMLS has many uses, depending on the type of metal used. For example, NASA is investigating DMLS to produce printed rocket parts.
Price: Depends on the complexity of the part and the amount of metal used, but generally over $1,000 per kilo.
Availability. The availability of DMLS technology is essentially zero for a person who wants to purchase their own machine, but it is possible that a 3D printing service will print your part for you.
Performance: The layer thickness is about 38 microns, and the finished metal part has the same properties (conductivity, density, etc.
) as the cast metal part.
Method 3: Investment casting
Cast metal part. (Source: 3D systems)
Wax casting
Lost wax casting is the process by which an original object created in wax can be turned into a mold to create a part from another material (usually metal). The steps to achieve this goal are as follows:
1. Create an object in wax.
2. Pour plaster around the wax part to create a plaster mold.
3. Place the plaster mold in the oven to burn the wax out of the inside of the mold.
4. Pour molten metal into a plaster mold to create a cast object.
5. Clean the part from the plaster mold.
It should be noted that this investment casting process results in the loss of small parts and results in a finished part smaller than the original wax cast. Therefore, exact dimensions compared to the original part should not be expected without careful consideration of material shrinkage.
PLA Casting
Lost wax casting is done in the same vein with 3D printing, but it is a faster process. You need to follow a few simple steps.
1. 3D printed object in PLA. During the design process, access channels can be designed in detail to make it easier to pour the copper into the mold after it has been created.
2. Create a plaster mold around the 3D printed object.
3. Burn the PLA from the inside of the mold.
4. Pour molten metal into an empty plaster mold to create a cast object.
5. Clean the finished part.
In terms of cost, printing an object will cost no more than a few dollars (depending on the size of your print). The price of melting PLA depends on whether you are using an existing oven or decide to build your own. Furnaces can cost anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars, depending on the size and thermal performance desired. Gypsum and sand can be purchased for less than $50, depending on the quantity needed.
