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Text: James Woodcock
Divergent Technologies has built its own laser powder bed fusion machine with some striking numbers attached. The Monolith One carries twelve 2kW lasers for 24kW of total laser power, a 700 x 700 x 835 mm build volume and a frame standing over eight metres tall. It runs aluminium, nickel, steel and titanium alloys.
The intent is obviously to facilitate serious levels of throughput. Beam-shaping optics and 4-axis scanners with spot-size zoom place energy precisely at speed, backed by integrated powder recovery and recirculation, a gas-flow system up to 1,700 cubic meters per hour, and active thermal control to 200 degrees C for long, stable runs. Divergent claims roughly double the throughput of the legacy machines it previously used. Developed in-house over 28 months, the Monolith One is the centerpiece of the company's DAPS software-defined production platform.
Two points for readers here. The machine is not sold or licensed separately; it exists solely to feed Divergent's own factories, with six already running in Torrance and 64 more planned for a new Long Beach site. And Divergent is explicit that this is an American machine with an American supply chain, aimed first at high-volume defense and aerospace production alongside commercial and automotive work.
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