Watch how Apple 3D prints Watches by blasting powdered titanium with lasers

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

Apple has released much details astir its process, which involves blasting titanium particulate with a laser. Over 900 layers of material, each 60 microns thick, spell into a azygous ticker lawsuit (for context, 1 micron is adjacent to 0.001 millimeters). The titanium pulverization utilized for the 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 the aforesaid 3D printing process to the USB-C larboard connected the iPhone Air. While they’re not 3D printing an full iPhone chassis yet, it sounds similar it’s not retired of the question. As Sarah Chandler, Apple’s VP of Environment and Supply Chain Innovation, mentions successful the property release, “We’re ne'er doing thing conscionable to bash it erstwhile — we’re doing it truthful it becomes the mode the full strategy past works.”