DAIHEN Enters Metal AM With $460,000 ArcBuilder 3D WAAM System

DAIHEN, a Japanese heavy-electrical manufacturer with roughly $1.5 billion in annual sales, has formally entered the additive manufacturing market with the ArcBuilder 3D. The company unveiled the system on May 18, 2026 and began accepting orders on May 29. It is a wire arc directed energy deposition (DED) printer, and at $460,000, it sits firmly in the industrial end of the market. The initial sales target is 20 units in fiscal 2026, the system's first year on the market.

The ArcBuilder 3D relies on DAIHEN's proprietary AC Synchro-Feed welding process. This technology synchronizes high-speed forward and backward wire feeding with the welding current. DAIHEN says the process cuts spatter, the metal spray created during welding, by more than 98%. The built-in motion control system supports steel, stainless steel, and aluminum wire, and automatically switches welding waveforms to match the material being used. Maximum build volume is a 1.5-meter cube per side.

Work on the core WAAM technology started around 2020 inside DAIHEN's Technology Development Division. The company set up a formal business plan with market projections in fiscal 2023 and showed a pre-commercial version at the International Welding Show in Osaka in 2024. According to reporting from AM Insight Asia, the move into WAAM came from DAIHEN's R&D and business planning teams, not a top-down management decision. The team cited three factors: an addressable WAAM market growing at roughly 20% per year, the company's existing share in arc welding machines and industrial robots, and access to a global distribution network that was already in place.

The software generates toolpaths for complex CAD geometries and includes robot programming support. Operators can guide the print job through a construction-workspace-style interface. AM Insight Asia reported that the printed surfaces it examined at DAIHEN's Hyogo development site had a smoother finish and less visible layer-line texture than conventional WAAM output. The company says its process improves build efficiency by 24% over conventional welding-based deposition.

DAIHEN's initial commercial play is repair and prototyping, not mass production of new parts. In Japan, new-part manufacturing requires certification from classification societies such as NK, a higher regulatory burden than repair work faces. DAIHEN says inquiries have increased since launch, including interest from overseas defense and other sensitive sectors, where customers in Japan have expressed a preference for domestically produced equipment. The company has not outlined specific plans for ASTM or other overseas certification.

Beyond hardware, DAIHEN operates a contract manufacturing service at its Rokko plant in Kobe's Higashinada Ward, where welding and robotics specialists manage quoting, production, and delivery. The broad initial target markets are shipbuilding, energy, construction machinery, and aerospace repair. Long-term, DAIHEN is aiming for roughly $62 million in annual revenue from its combined WAAM hardware, maintenance, materials, and contract manufacturing operations by fiscal 2030, with a goal of capturing 60-70% of the domestic Japanese market.