OR Laser claims its 3D printing method will innovate jewellery industry

OR Laser believes the jewellery industry will be the main beneficiary of Orlas Creator

OR Laser believes it is on the cusp of further innovate the jewellery industry with the introduction of its new and accessible metal additive manufacturing system, the Orlas Creator. 

OR says its Orlas Creator offers an “economically profitable” metal system with “superior speed and productivity gains by way of its unique” circular build-platform design in combination with a proprietary, rotation-led precision coater blade that will bring new value creation opportunities for jewellery brands.

During its 30-year history, 3D printing has already caused some serious disruption within the jewellery industry by facilitating new approaches to jewellery design and manufacturing. 

This has been achieved with new digitization processes and the production of accurate casting patterns using wax and resin 3D printing processes.

More recently, direct jewellery production has often been presented as a natural fit with metal AM processes, due to its small part sizes, high added value and limited requirements for qualification standards.

However, the ubiquitous direct production of jewellery pieces in metal, particularly precious metals, has proved to be prohibitive both in terms economics and usability.

When OR Laser introduced the Orlas Creator at the Formnext exhibition in Frankfurt last month it presented an end to end additive manufacturing solution that has been designed and developed specifically to provide access to metal 3D printing for small and medium sized enterprises.

This includes a wide array of jewellers that now have the opportunity to engage with metal 3D printing for the direct production of unique and customized jewellery.

OR Laser has broken down many of the existing barriers to adoption for direct jewellery production in metal, most notably the astronomical costs, complex software and usability issues and long build times.

Priced “competitively”, according to the company, at less than half the cost of comparable machines on the market, the Orlas Creator is a high-end, comprehensive additive manufacturing solution that incorporates in-house developed software, innovative hardware and flexible process control.

By combining these features, OR Laser says it has ensured that the Orlas Creator is both safe and easy to operate and manage by jewellery companies.

Furthermore, metal jewellery designs can be realized in as little as a few hours – without the investment of time and money into casting – and produced directly from CAD data, says the company.

The production speeds of the Orlas Creator are up to 30 per cent faster than comparable metal 3D printing systems while part quality is facilitated by a high quality 250-watt fibre laser that provides exceptional beam quality and power stability. This guarantees optimum and consistent processing conditions in order to produce the highest quality jewellery pieces.