For a nice CGI movie on their high volume model:<p><a href="https://www.desktopmetal.com/products/production/" rel="nofollow">https://www.desktopmetal.com/products/production/</a>
Jamison Go reported that his beetleweight fighting robot, Silent Spring, used a drum weapon made using a Desktop Metal system. The drum was printed using 4140 steel, then hardened the traditional way.<p>It apparently yielded very good results, winning the beetleweight category at Bot Blast. You can search YouTube for videos of it in action.
This machine is definitely some extremely exciting stuff! Most companies I work for (I'm in the US) unfortunately does not have much of a machine shop any more. They either got closed down during the recession or the machinist had to leave for health/age reasons and the role never got fulfilled again. No one wants to have to setup a machine shop in their building since it takes a lot of money and logistics. According to management, "It's not worth it".<p>That being said, I am not sure how competitive the production unit will be. A lot of the commercial industry does not necessary care about weight reduction or aesthetics. I can't foresee that the parts made by these machines will be anymore cheaper than traditional sintering or more accurate than milling.
Sounds interesting; any details on how it works, what materials it can be used with, what are the consumables, strength, accuracy/resolution, maximum size, etc..?
Maybe im just a debbie downer but I don't see how these could possibly compete with metal sintering and traditional milling and CNC work. An inferior metal alloy with a huge price tag that will require machining anyways.
What 3D printer or service -- in any material, metal, wood, plastic, glass, anything -- can print something affordably i.e. $5 for something that's say 1" by 5" by 5" ???