Home / 3D Printer Hardware / Vandad Sanat launches Iran-made DED metal 3D printer 3D Printer Hardware 3D Printing Processes Wire-based metal AM Vandad Sanat launches Iran-made DED metal 3D printer The P240-A represents a response to the high cost and reduced-availability of buying AM systems from abroad Davide Sher August 6, 2026 2 minutes read Stay up to date with everything that is happening in the wonderful world of AM via our LinkedIn community. Iranian company Vandad Sanat has launched the DED P240-A, a wire-fed metal 3D printer described as the first machine of its kind built in the Middle East. Vandad Sanat, founded in 2018 under Iran’s state “knowledge-based company” program, markets the P240-A as a locally developed alternative to imported directed energy deposition systems for aerospace, oil and gas, automotive, and medical applications. The P240-A feeds metal wire, in stainless steel, titanium, aluminum, and nickel alloys, into a 2 kW fiber laser melt pool inside a build envelope of 1150 x 800 x 2050 mm, depositing material layer by layer at 2 to 4 kg per hour. The company states a machine accuracy of 5 microns, controlled through a 5-axis CNC system, automatic wire feeding, and closed-loop monitoring, with direct file import from AutoCAD and SolidWorks. Vandad Sanat claims the system meets ISO 9001, CE, ASME, and ASTM requirements, though VoxelMatters could not independently verify the certifications or the “first in the Middle East” claim. Vandad Sanat’s managing director, Barzin Ghafari, has previously said that Iranian-made metal 3D printers can be produced for a fraction of the 350,000 to 3 million euro price of imported foreign systems, framing indigenous production partly as a response to the cost and availability of buying from abroad. That framing points to the sanctions context around the launch. Iran has been barred from directly importing Western metal 3D printers for over a decade. The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026 added a new Section 849 that bars the Department of Defense from procuring additive manufacturing machines made in, or networked through, China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, formally naming Iran as a “covered nation” for AM equipment. A domestically built system like the P240-A has no path into a Western, and particularly a US defense-linked, supply chain, whatever its actual specifications may be. At the same time, Iran’s ability to build a machine like the P240-A at all reflects the parallel supply lines that have grown up around, rather than despite, sanctions. Atlantic Council researchers have documented what they call an “Axis of Evasion,” in which Chinese procurement channels and Russian manufacturing capacity increasingly substitute for the Western technology Iran cannot buy directly. This pattern is most visible in the machine tool sector, where analysts estimate that China supplies roughly 80% of the CNC machines Russia imports.