3720 Series Sintervac AM™

The Sintervac AM™ line of vacuum and controlled atmosphere furnaces is Centorr’s newest offering for the growing market for binder‐jetted 3D printed and Additive Manufactured parts.

Originally designed and developed in the early 1970’s for the debinding and sintering of Tungsten Carbide materials with wax or PEG binder systems, the Sintervac AM™ takes this heritage and improves on the proprietary Sweepgas™ binder removal system offering a furnace that can debind in both partial pressures or in positive pressures of Argon, Nitrogen, or Forming Gas depending on the customer’s choice of binders.

The all‐graphite furnace hot zone offers a robust and inexpensive design for processing a variety of stainless steel, tool steel, mild steels and low or high‐alloy materials. With a max temperature of 1600°C it can handle virtually all 3D printed metals on the market today. The graphite insulation is fabricated from durable rigid graphite board secured to an all‐stainless steel jail with CFC hardware in lieu of carbon felt which is more readily deteriorated in a binder‐laden environment. Heating elements use our proprietary tube‐and‐block design comprised of precision‐machined components pinned together with graphite hardware and cured and glued with high‐temperature graphite cement. The horizontal design allows for individual element tubes to be repaired and replaced in‐situ, and out‐perform lower cost designs using graphite ‘slat’ elements bolted to the phase bar which can loosen over time causing micro‐shorts and poor temperature uniformity.

In order to further protect the hot zone insulation and elements, the Sintervac AM™ furnace comes with a tight all‐graphite retort or workbox inside the hot zone which is used to compartmentalize the process offgassing that takes place (in the case of debinding), directing it out of the furnace through a delube manifold plumbed out the bottom of the chamber using our proprietary Sweepgas™ debinding system. The use of a graphite retort allows the binder‐laden gases to exit the hot zone without passing across the heating elements or insulation pack, resulting in longer service life of the hot zone components. The Sintervac® furnace line is available with an optional high‐vacuum pumping systems including a Diffusion pump with cold trap and separate holding pump. A variety of processing environments are available including high/low vacuum and partial and/or positive pressures of Ar, N2, and Forming Gas.