Scrap Labs unveils $9,600 workbench-sized metal 3D printer for labs

A $9,600 kit for metal 3D printing on a workbench is the kind of price that makes advanced manufacturing feel suddenly less sealed off. Scrap Labs’ Scrap 1 is a laser powder bed fusion, or LPBF, machine aimed at labs, schools, small shops and small production spaces, and its pitch is blunt: metal printing without buying a six-figure industrial system.

The catch is that LPBF is not filament printing with a shinier nozzle. You are still dealing with metal powder handling, the safety gear and cleanup that come with that, and post-processing before a part is ready to trust. The machine may be compact, but the workflow is still industrial in the ways that matter, which is why the headline price is only part of the story.

Scrap Labs says Scrap 1 packs a 100 x 100 x 100 mm build volume, a 200W laser at 915 nm, a spot size of about 135 microns, layer heights from 20 to 100 microns and scan speeds up to 1,500 mm/s. The company is targeting a density above 99% and lists stainless steel, tool steel, copper, nickel alloy and CoCr among supported materials. At about 30 kg, the machine runs on single-phase 100-240V AC power, with 500W maximum draw and 250W average consumption.

The software and connectivity story is aimed squarely at makers who already know their way around digital fabrication tools. Scrap Labs says Scrap 1 works with ScrapSlicer, PrusaSlicer and OrcaSlicer workflows, and it adds browser-based control plus Ethernet, Wi-Fi and USB connectivity. The $9,600 figure is an early-bird kit price and, according to Scrap Labs, it is limited-time; fully assembled, tested units will cost more, and shipments are estimated to begin in early 2027.

Scrap Labs, based in Boulder, Colorado, showed Scrap 1 at the Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival in Loveland, Colorado, on April 18-19, 2026, a fitting stage for a machine trying to drag metal additive manufacturing closer to the desktop crowd. Founder and CEO Matt Woods said the goal is to put metal printing into shops, labs and small production spaces without requiring a six-figure machine to get started. Woods brings more than a decade in metal additive hardware, including earlier founding roles at XMP and Xact Metal, and he has also printed production rocket components at SpaceX.

That is the real read on Scrap 1: not a toy, not a miracle, but a lab-friendly LPBF machine with hobbyist-friendly language and a price that forces the category to look a little less untouchable.