It's great to see 3D printing winning on cost, because this is normally a great reason to adopt a new technology. Norsk's RPD process looks to be built for high

It's great to see 3D printing winning on cost, because this is normally a great reason to adopt a new technology. Norsk's RPD process looks to be built for high speed and low cost (plasma torch, argon gas, titanium wire). I think processes like RPD, Sciaky's EBAM, and Arcam's EBM are generally going to win on price compared to traditional laser sintering like EOS DMLS in the long term, especially for big parts. They replace expensive metal powder with cheaper powder (EBM) or wire (EBAM, RPD), and expensive fiber lasers with more powerful and cheaper electron beams or plasma torches. It's hard to get fast large-scale metal deposition with a laser: the EOS M400-4 seems one of the highest power laser based solution with 4x 400W fiber lasers (Concept Laser has a 2x 1 kW model). Sounds fancy until you realize that's about as much power as a nice microwave. For comparison, Hypertherm sells 80 kW plasma torches, and Skiaky sells 42 kW electron beam welding systems. Cooling the parts being printed is a big problem since printing a big glowing puddle isn't very useful, but increasing build volume / part size helps drop the power density.