Watch how Apple 3D prints watches by laser blasting titanium powder

If you compare Apple Watch Ultra 3 with Ultra 2you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that they were made with completely different manufacturing processes. Titanium Apple Watch Series 11 Not only is the Ultra 3 made from 100% recycled titanium powder, it’s also 3D printed, an impressive process on Apple scale. 3D printing produces less waste, in this case halving the use of raw materials for watch cases, but it introduces new challenges, such as balancing speed and precision.

Apple has More details released About its process, which involves blasting titanium dust with a laser. More than 900 layers of material, each 60 microns thick, are placed in a single watch case (for clarity, one micron equals 0.001 mm). The titanium powder used in the cans must be carefully adjusted to reduce its oxygen content so that it does not explode when exposed to high heat.

Printing watch cases, rather than using subtractive manufacturing, has allowed Apple to save an estimated 400 metric tons of raw titanium this year. Apple has also applied the same 3D printing process to USB-C port on iPhone Air. Although they haven’t 3D printed the entire iPhone case yet, it seems like it’s not out of the question. As Sarah Chandler, Apple’s vice president of Environment and Supply Chain Innovation, said in the press release, “We don’t do something just to do it once — we do it so that it becomes the way the entire system works afterward.”