woodssj wrote on May 25
th, 2018 at 1:18pm:
Interesting. With it being hailed as the next big thing to reduce costs and make whatever needed wherever it was required, I figured it might be a good shot. Evidentially not when working with metal...
So, I guess I'll return to this if I have a need for extremely fast prototyping or the unreasonably specialized... And I win the lottery.
Thanks!
It's swings and roundabouts.
I can make 1-100 custom plastic 'things'. and maybe charge a few hundred quid.
If you were to get an injection mould made - the mould might cost you a few thousand pounds. BUT each widget you then made would only cost a few pence.
With 3d printing there is no tooling or moulds to make or change. So small runs of cutom items is very cost effective. And with almost no turn around time to make something else, if you only want a few of something - then it's a good idea.
The problem(s) with metal printers are two fold.
1) it all has to take place in an inert atmosphere otherwise the lasers melting the metal will simply burn it.
2) it has to be able to handle really really fine metal powders. So the filter system would make a nuclear bunker appear porous.
There are various different types of metal printers from direct deposit, to powder systems with lasers and electron beams all the way down to printing with metal infused plastic printers and sintering the print in a forge.
They are all stupidly expensive and all come with their own issues.
Also the finely graded metal powders aren't exactly cheap either.
nooneofconsequence's idea is a good one. you can actualy buy special wax filament to use in the lost wax forging process. And various people have had success with normal pla as well.
But direct metal printing is currently primarily for high end products.