EOSINT M280: a user review

This post is a review of the EOSINT M280 based on extensive, daily use of the machine. The EOSINT M280 is a 3D printing powder-bed unit used to manufacture metal parts. This production machine is based on Selective Laser Melting (SLM).

EOSINT M280 - from www.eos.info

Over the last few years and on a daily basis, I’ve been using the EOSINT M280, from EOS Gmbh, and the Concept X-Line 1000R, by Concept Laser, in order to:

• carry out systematic metal alloys parameters study;
• create metal prototypes and test design feasibility;
• build  ‘perfect’ industrial metal components tested in ‘real’ industrials trials.

Practically speaking, it's really important to know these machines pretty well: the commands, the error pop-ups, the fixes, the maintenance tips and tricks, the pros and cons, the health and safety involved, the preparation steps, the value of ‘standard’ parameters, etc…
Here, I’ll expand on the EOS M280. Together with its brothers M270 and the new-ish M400, it is one of the fastest-selling AM machine for metal components on the market. 

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General description and operation

Wet separator

The EOS M280 is an SLM production machine based on powder bed technology. Like most SLM machines, the M280’s laser source is a single CW ytterbium-fibre that radiates in the infra-red range (~1µm). The maximum processing output power available is 370W. Arguably, IR laser don’t provide efficient absorption for metal powders. The theoretical beam spot diameter at focus can be manually set via a dial from 100um up to 500um. It can’t be changed on-the-fly or during machining. The scanning speed goes up to 7000mm/s.

Typically for a powder bed AM unit, it is purchased with a wet separator. This is a vacuum-cleaner-type unit used to limit powder cloud generation during powder handling and chamber cleaning. Its water- or oil-filled tank is used to neutralise the processed powder and reactive condensates. Condensates are machined powder clusters too larges to be recycled via sieving. 

An optional, stand-alone automatic powder-sieving station can be added (price tag) and proves very useful to minimise manual operation. We have used it without any hassle for ‘heavy’ and less reactive nickel alloys powder. However, it is not advisable to use it for lighter, more reactive powders, such as aluminium or titanium alloys, as it doesn’t operate inert atmosphere. The whole system – cooler & M280 & filter cabinet - needs compressed air and argon or nitrogen supply lines to run safely and efficiently. 

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Ergomonics

At chest height, the door and chambers make it easy to load building platforms and powder.  Everyday maintenance operations (cleaning, sieving…) and manual preparation steps (inspection, change of recoaters…) are also hassle-free. The rotating control table is useful to keep an eye on what’s happening in the chamber while homing/referencing the recoater and levelling the building platform before build. You can visually make sure the blade doesn’t crash into anything! It’s also fairly easy to unload the finished components. However it can get a bit tricky to topple a full-size-chamber build over to empty it and brush the powder off before unloading while operating the wet separator. As a production unit, it is meant to be left on continuously or requires at least 6 hours to ‘warm up’ before use. This is to allow the laser source to warm up and stabilise and for the cooling unit to reach suitable coolant temperature. I haven’t used the ‘comfort package’: ie the airtight glove box. As a result, when the chamber door is open all the manipulations are carried out while wearing a mask, gloves, lab coats or protective clothing and antistatic shoes. Depending on the type of powder, an additional antistatic bracelet has to be worn. It all sounds a bit cumbersome but, in my experience, it’s actually easier than to wrestle clumsily with the glove box. It also affords greater flexibility and movement range and enables faster maintenance/preparation.

Maintenance and consumables

Screenshot of control screen

As part of the original agreement with EOS, we chose to include an (optional) bi-annual professional service carried out by a certified EOS engineer (price tag). At each visit, the engineer makes sure there’s no laser power drift, no focal spot changes (size or focal plane). He also ensures the platform heating system works properly and that the heat sensor displays the actual temperature. He does re-align the laser if necessary and carries out a test build to validate the changes he made. He also gets to change the filters (cost included in service) and to empty the filter unit’s overflow container.  These steps ensure processing parameters reliability and machining repeatability.

Over the last 2 years, we’ve had very few software issues and generally these are resolved diligently by calling or emailing the technical support. We found the build-time calculator also interfered with the process on occasions. We just didn’t use this option until a fix was found by EOS. As for the hardware, minor breakdowns occurred: the oxygen sensor malfunctioned on two occasion (half-way through critical jobs). As a precaution, we now always keep a spare one readily available. The door seal had to get changed as gas leaks prevented the building chamber to gas down efficiently and interfered intermittently with the machining.  Given the extensive use of the machine, these are typical wear-and-tear failures. 

Software updates are usually pretty straightforward. For each upgrade, however, the home-found building parameters require a complete re-programing as they can’t be read by the new version. Only ‘standard’ building parameters can be read. This can be awkward if you rely on the machine to store your components parameters for traceability and accountability…  

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To sum up

Generally speaking, both the software and hardware are fairly robust and reliable on the EOSINT M280. There still is a lot of manual operation involved and the consumables can get expensive. The (bi-) annual maintenance option is certainly worth the peace of mind. Just make sure it covers the parts costs too!