by MarkForged
MarkForged was founded by an aerospace engineer – the kind of person who loves pushing the envelope. After years of designing and manufacturing high-performance composite race car wings, Greg Mark realized that you could use 3D printing hardware to automate the composite layup process. Many print heads and patents later, the Mark One™ was born.
Designed to overcome the strength limitations of traditional 3D printed materials, the revolutionary Mark One™ 3D printer is the world’s first 3D printer designed to print continuous carbon fiber. Parts, tooling, and fixtures can be printed with a higher strength-to-weight ratio than 6061-T6 Aluminum.
The incredible strength of carbon fiber comes from the long, continuous strands that carry load down the entire part. Composites made with continuous reinforcing fibers exhibit substantial increases in strength and stiffness compared to similar materials using discontinuous (chopped) fibers. This is why space shuttles, rockets, and Formula 1 cars are constructed from continuous strand carbon. And it’s how we print. Don’t settle for plastic with a dash of chopped carbon fill. Longer is stronger.
Woven fabrics offer greater ease-of-use in traditional composite lay-up manufacturing processes while maintaining the desired mechanical properties. The Mark One™ does not print with a weave, it deposits layers of unidirectional composite in a user-defined orientation that can be specified by layer. In general, unidirectional composites have a higher strength-to-weight ratio in the preferred fiber orientation than composites made with woven fabrics.
The Mark One also uses a new 3D printing process we refer to as Composite Filament Fabrication™ (CFF™) in combination with traditional FFF. Parts made with CFF™ are reinforced by continuous strands of fibers embedded in a thermoplastic matrix. The parts printed on the Mark One™ are up to 20 times stiffer and 5 times stronger than similar parts 3D printed using ABS plastic. Their strength depends on the type, orientation, and volume fraction of the reinforcing fibers.
The magic is in the print head. Our special blend of thermoplastics immediately hardens during printing. CFF™ utilizes a thermoplastic matrix that solidifies immediately after extrusion. CFF™ parts are ready for use as soon as they have finished printing. No nasty chemicals. No post curing.
When you don’t need the world’s strongest material, the Mark One™ 3D prints a range of other materials to help professionals design and iterate quickly. Make super tough parts with our Nylon Filament. Or load our tried and true, low-cost PLA filament for those quick form and fit prints. And if you need the best cost-to-strength solution, crank out a print using our exclusive Fiberglass Filament that uses the same patented Continuous Filament Fabrication.
- Carbon Fiber (highest strength to weight)
- Fiberglass (Highest strength to cost)
- Nylon (Tough engineering plastic)
- PLA (Low cost and biodegradable)
Specifications
- Printing Technology: Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)/Composite Filament Fabrication™ (CFF™)
- Build Size: 305mm x 160mm x 160mm (12″ x 6.25″ x 6.25″, 486ci)
- Material Compatibility: Carbon Fiber, Fiberglass, Nylon, PLA
- Highest Layer Resolution: FFF Printing-100 microns, CFF™ Printing-200 microns
- Extruders: Dual Quick Change
- Filament Sizes: FFF: 1.75mm, CFF: MF4
- Software: Cloud Enabled
- Supported OS: Mac OS 10.7 Lion+, Win XP+, Linux*
- Supported Browser: Chrome 30+, Firefox 10+, Safari 6+*
- Supported Files: .STL, .OBJ
- Connectivity: WiFi, USB, SD Card
Features subject to change without notice. *Limited Support.
For further information about MarkForged or the Mark One™, please contact the following:
Email: printstronger@markforged.com
Twitter: @markforged
Cambridge, MA, USA
