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Area Printing
Courtesy of Seurat Technologies · Press kit, editorial use (opens seurat.com)

Area Printing

by Seurat TechnologiesUS

PilotStage 3 of 5

Making parts for early customers; speeding up its machines.

Updated 11 Mar 2024Checked 25 Sep0 updates this week

Milestones

Next · Scale up commercial part production
  1. Scale up commercial part productionNowCurrent milestone.

Most important updates

  • 11 Mar 2024
  • Oct 2023
  • 22 Jun 2021

Current obstacles

  • Optics under strainThe light valve and lenses must survive very strong laser pulses over long builds.

Physics limits

  • Optics must survive huge pulsesThe light valve and lenses handle very high peak power; any light they absorb becomes heat that distorts or damages them. Optical heat limits how much power each pulse can carry.
  • Recoating still happens layer by layerHowever fast a layer melts, a fresh coat of powder must be spread before the next. At high melt speeds, recoating time sets the pace.
  • Fast cooling locks stress into printed metalEach tiny melt pool cools at up to a million degrees per second. The metal shrinks unevenly and traps stress that warps parts and can crack them, so parts need heat treatment and careful layouts.

How it works

3 parts
Metal parts rising out of the powder bed after a laser print: Seurat builds parts the same layer-by-layer way, but melts whole tiles per laser pulse
Metal parts rising out of the powder bed after a laser print: Seurat builds parts the same layer-by-layer way, but melts whole tiles per laser pulsePhoto: René Volfík · CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
Light valve

A laser shaped into an image

A pulsed laser passes through a light valve that works like a projector mask, forming a 2D pattern of the layer's shape.

Tiles

A whole patch per pulse

Each pulse melts a square tile of powder at once instead of tracing a dot, so speed scales with laser power rather than scanning.

Factories

Sells printed parts

Seurat runs its own printers and sells parts, aiming to compete on price with castings and forgings.

Update log

3 updates

Mon 11 Mar 2024

  • Minor: PressManufacturing

Oct 2023

  • Minor: BlogFunding

Tue 22 Jun 2021

  • Minor: BlogFunding

About Seurat Technologies

The team behind Area Printing

Seurat Technologies

Area Printing: metal printing a whole patch per laser pulse

Seurat Technologies, spun out of Lawrence Livermore National Lab research, melts a whole patch of metal powder with each laser pulse instead of tracing one dot at a time. It sells printed metal parts and raised $99M in 2023.

  • Area Printing aims to beat the speed limit of single-dot lasers by printing millions of pixels per pulse.
  • Investors include NVentures, GM Ventures, Porsche SE, Denso and Honda.
  • Plans to put printing factories next to customer sites.

seurat.com (opens seurat.com)Company profile →

Founded
201511 yrs
Headquarters
United States
Status
Private
Valuation
private
Raised
$99M1 round
Last round
Series C · $99MOct 2023
Works in
ManufacturingMetal 3D printing
Coverage
1 program · 3 updateslatest 11 Mar 2024checked 25 Sep
Lead investors
NVenturesCapricorn Technology Impact Fund
Investors
NVIDIA (NVentures)General Motors Ventures (opens gmventures.com)
People
James DeMuthCo-founder & CEO
Primer