Watch How Apple 3d Prints Watches By Blasting Powdered Titanium With Lasers

If you comparison nan Apple Watch Ultra 3 pinch nan Ultra 2, you astir apt wouldn’t beryllium capable to show they were made pinch drastically different manufacturing processes. The titanium Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3 are not only made pinch 100 percent recycled titanium powder, but are besides 3D-printed, a process that’s beautiful awesome astatine Apple’s scale. 3D printing creates little waste, successful this lawsuit cutting earthy materials usage for nan watch cases successful half, but introduces caller challenges, for illustration balancing velocity and precision.

Apple has released much details astir its process, which involves blasting titanium particulate pinch a laser. Over 900 layers of material, each 60 microns thick, spell into a azygous watch lawsuit (for context, 1 micron is adjacent to 0.001 millimeters). The titanium powder utilized for nan cases has to beryllium fine-tuned itself to trim its oxygen contented truthful it won’t detonate erstwhile exposed to precocious heat. 

Printing Watch cases, alternatively than utilizing subtractive manufacturing, has allowed Apple to prevention an estimated 400 metric tons of earthy titanium this year. Apple besides applied nan aforesaid 3D-printing process to the USB-C larboard connected nan iPhone Air. While they’re not 3D-printing an full iPhone chassis yet, it sounds for illustration it’s not retired of nan question. As Sarah Chandler, Apple’s VP of situation and proviso concatenation innovation, mentions successful nan property release, “We’re ne'er doing thing conscionable to do it erstwhile — we’re doing it truthful it becomes nan measurement nan full strategy past works.”