Sharebot Snow White² - SLS 3D Printer

The Sharebot Snow White² is a professional 3D printer created by the experienced Italian company Sharebot. This 3D printer uses SLS technology (Selective Laser Sintering), based on the sintering of thermoplastic powders by means of a 14 W CO2 laser. The manufacture of the pieces is layer by layer, which allows creating objects freely and with great ease. This means that the Sharebot Snow White² manufactures any piece, regardless of the geometric complexity and without the need for supports as in other technologies such as FDM or SLA. Another advantage of this SLS technology 3D printer is that the material left over from one print can be used again.

Video 1: The Snow White² printer. Source: Sharebot.

Thanks to its CO2 laser, this 3D SLS printer can use a wide range of professional thermoplastic materials (powder) very common in the industrial sector, such as PA12, PA11 or TPU. In addition, in particular and special cases, where higher mechanical properties are needed, the Sharebot Snow White² allows to use powders modified with resistant particles (glass, carbon or aluminum).

Image 1: The build chamber of the Snow White² printer. Source: Sharebot.

These powders can be from any manufacturer on the market, because Sharebot has joined the open philosophy to give users the freedom to use and test new materials (polymers) valid for sintering technology. With this philosophy any user can modify and search their own printing parameters to get the best properties, both mechanical and finishing.

Image 2: Parts 3D printed with the Snow White² printer. Source: Sharebot.

The Sharebot Snow White² is very simple to use, so simple that once you have prepared the print file and loaded the desired material into the printer, you only need a "click" to start the printing process completely automatically. Compared with other 3D printers in the same category, the first layer start time is only 10 minutes. This, together with needing 300 gr of powder to start working, means that the time before the first layer is greatly reduced. As far as printing parameters, Snow White² offers an XY resolution of 100 microns, Z resolution of 50 microns, a building speed of up to 35 mm/h, and a scan speed of up to 3500 mm/s. 

Video 2: Starting a printing job with the Snow White² printer. Source: Sharebot.

The Snow White² is equipped with a galvanometer with f-Theta lens. This combination ensures stable and linear scanning characteristics, and a very high scanning rate. To make the Snow White² 3D printer even more versatile and adaptable to any project, optional features can be added. One of them is an inhert atmoshpere for untreated powders and the other optional feature allows the printer to operate in single tank mode for multi-material SLS printing. This extra feature gives researchers the capability to oversee and manage the recoater's motion as well as the individual powder distribution tanks using straightforward and user-friendly commands.

Image 3: Different materials printed with the Snow White² printer. Source: Sharebot.

Furthermore, the Snow White² allows for full powder and environment heat control (heated chamber up to 190 ºC), as well as exchanging the powder distributor to meet the needs of specific 3D printing projects. The standard powder distributor (100x100x100 mmm build area) can be substituted with a reduced powder distributor (20x40x60mm build area) for small parts or speciments or a roller powder distributor (100x100x100 mm build area) with modifiable rotation speed and rolling directions.

Image 4: The different powder distributors available for the Snow White² printer. Source: Sharebot.

Upon purchase, the user can choose to have more than one distributor, for example a standard one and a roller distributor for testing powders for various kinds of industrial machines. Tips on how to exchange the distributor are given in the Usage Tips section.

The Ethernet connectivity allow the user to see the progress of the printing job, stop the printing process, access the log file of every job and the pictures taken before and after each layer, as well as control the printer remotely through the Sharebox software.

This 3D printer is developed to enable universities, research centers, small or medium manufacturing companies or technical laboratories, to manufacture parts economically, easily and efficiently combined with a professional and high quality finish. When older, the new materials development centers will be able to evaluate their materials, modifying the printing parameters to their liking.

Uniting all the above, the Sharebot Snow White² is the ideal 3D printer to get started in sintering technology (SLS), manufacture of medium-sized parts and the development of new materials.