HP Metal Jet S100

The HP Metal Jet S100 is HP's production-scale metal binder jetting system, launched as the company's entry into industrial metal additive manufacturing following the success of its Multi Jet Fusion polymer platform. Binder jetting is fundamentally different from laser powder bed fusion: instead of melting metal powder with a laser, the S100 deposits a liquid binding agent onto a powder bed layer by layer to create a "green part" which is then sintered in a conventional furnace to full density. This approach enables significantly higher throughput and lower per-part cost than LPBF for medium-to-high volume production of small-to-medium metal parts.

The S100 builds on HP's proprietary 630-nozzle per inch thermal inkjet printhead technology developed for 2D printing, applying it to metal AM with thousands of nozzles depositing binder simultaneously across the full 430 × 320 × 200 mm build volume. Layer times are measured in seconds rather than the minutes required per layer in LPBF, enabling the S100 to process several kilograms of metal powder per hour. This throughput advantage makes the S100 competitive on cost-per-part for production runs that would be uneconomical on LPBF systems. Parts are printed at ambient temperature with no thermal distortion during build, eliminating the residual stress issues common to LPBF and enabling printing of thin-wall features and complex lattice structures.

Post-processing requires a debinding and sintering cycle, typically in an atmosphere-controlled tube furnace. Sintering shrinks parts uniformly by approximately 20% in all axes — a deterministic process that HP's Metal Jet software accounts for in print preparation. Final densities above 93% are achievable with standard parameters; densities approaching 97–99% are achievable with optimized schedules. HP qualifies materials through partnerships with powder suppliers including GKN Sinter Metals and Parmatech, with 316L stainless steel and 17-4PH stainless available as production materials.

HP positions the Metal Jet S100 against conventional MIM (metal injection molding) and CNC machining for production volumes of hundreds to tens of thousands of parts per year. The economics improve with part complexity: the S100's binder jetting approach carries essentially no per-part complexity penalty, while MIM tooling amortizes poorly below ~10,000 units. For precision hardware, industrial valves, dental prosthetics, automotive powertrain components, and consumer product hardware where production volumes justify the sintering infrastructure investment, the S100 offers a compelling combination of throughput, surface finish, and part density.