3D metal printing is about to go mainstream

There are many services printing metal parts. Shapeways has been doing it since 2009. There are several workable processes. [1][2] This new machine competes with the ExOne Innovent.[3] That uses a single-step process (no oven needed) but is slower.<p>Desktop Metal&#x27;s big claim is that they can lay down &quot;up to&quot; 8200 cm³&#x2F;hr of metal. The &quot;up to&quot; weasel words are a problem. They&#x27;re vague about the layer thickness. 3D printing has a basic trade-off between speed and precision. Most of the commercial vendors go for high enough precision that you can make working parts. Desktop Metal doesn&#x27;t offer many pictures of their finished parts, but I did find one.[4] That looks like it was made with layers of about 0.5mm. The furnace step provides some surface smoothing. That&#x27;s not bad for casting.<p>It&#x27;s nice, but it&#x27;s not clear that it&#x27;s 100x, or even 10x, better than the competition.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=rEfdO4p4SFc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=rEfdO4p4SFc</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2vsaSzrhvcw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2vsaSzrhvcw</a> [3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.exone.com&#x2F;Systems&#x2F;Research-Education-Printers&#x2F;Innovent" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.exone.com&#x2F;Systems&#x2F;Research-Education-Printers&#x2F;Inn...</a> [4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net&#x2F;deliveries&#x2F;5c8aec78d82aa13cb56e05ccd8303e306ee711d2.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net&#x2F;deliveries&#x2F;5c8aec78d82aa1...</a>

It&#x27;s like the brogrammer world just discovered powder metallurgy.<p>This exact technology has existed for decades but hasn&#x27;t seen widespread use because it has serious problems. I don&#x27;t see any evidence that Desktop Metal solved these issues either. The resulting parts have high shrinkage, poor dimensional tolerance, and poor mechanical properties. The sintering process leaves voids inside the material that serve as stress concentrations, causing the material to fail well below its rated strength. Also sintered parts tend to fail catastrophically rather than yielding since the adhesion between particles is much weaker than the yield strength of the metal.

$120k for the prototype printer, $360k for the production printer... still about two orders of magnitude away from being practical for me to set up a microfactory in my garage. Maybe by the time my car is self-driving and earning me money instead of sitting in my garage, I can get that microfactory set up affordably.

This is another Ric Fulop company, notoriously the founder of A123 Systems [1]. That company also raised &quot;a ton&quot; of money but ultimately blew up, filing for bankruptcy. I&#x27;m skeptical of this new endeavor because of both economics and technology.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;A123_Systems" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;A123_Systems</a>

&gt; The company has raised a ton of money in the last few months...<p>&gt; ...Desktop Metal&#x27;s Studio machines are also a ton more practical to have in an office.<p>&gt; But there&#x27;s a ton of metal options...<p>I&#x27;m guilty of this too, but I think there are more ways to describe a plethora of items than &quot;a ton&quot;. Unless, of course, there are actually 2000lbs worth.

I don&#x27;t think they make enough of this point:<p>&gt; Depending on the nature of the part, it might be necessary to do some post-print surface finishing like sanding or bead blasting to smooth out the layered surfaces<p>If this is anything like the powder-bed parts I&#x27;ve handled, the layers are going to be pretty rough. I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if they need some degree of post-machining. Don&#x27;t sell your CNC mill just yet.<p>Furthermore, 15% shrinkage during sintering? What&#x27;s the dimensional tolerance on the finished part then? I&#x27;m guessing it&#x27;s not great.

What is the strength of such a part, compared to a regular cast part? Say I 3-D print a spanner. How well will it hold up against a spanner that was cast and heat treated?

From the video:<p><i>The production system is cloud-connected</i><p>Seriously, that&#x27;s a selling point nowadays? I have to buy a hyper expensive piece of hardware and if the company goes under I might not even be able to use it anymore?<p>Not everything needs to be on a bloody cloud.

&gt; but the only affordable printing materials are cheap ABS plastics<p>Not very true at all. You can get PLA for $20&#x2F;1kg or less. Even resin for SLA printers is often possible to find for affordable prices, especially considering that you can sometimes use less material without the need for infill.<p>I&#x27;m really not even sold on the idea that so many people &quot;need&quot; metal printers. Seems like most people would be way better off with the incredibly cheaper plastic options.

Any reason not to set default skepticism to high for Loz Blain and NewAtlas?<p>&gt;...it&#x27;s going to compete with traditional mass manufacturing<p>&gt;...the hype is real<p>The team, tech, results, deals already signed, all seem really impressive in their own right. No hyperbole needed to get a more views.<p>It&#x27;s not my area, if someone tells me this really has a shot at competing with mass manufacturing in the next 5 years I retract everything.

A forging is 3x the strength of a casting of the same part from the same material. That&#x27;s why when upgrading the power of your muscle car, forged parts are the way to go.<p>What&#x27;s the relative strength of 3D printing?

I&#x27;m told the metal powders are still more expensive than equivalent traditional materials, and that in some cases (Ti) can be explosive. Anyone know what the real economics are in terms of materials and energy costs?

Other than the temperature a relatively compact oven is potentially reaching, what&#x27;s the breakthrough here other than the successful funding?

As a layman, I am skeptical. This is very similar to the promises that were made regarding 3d printing of other materials, and those weren&#x27;t quite fulfilled.<p>Like many hyped new techniques, they end up as techniques that are almost good enough to be practical.

4 furnaces per printer... reminds me of factorio

While (potentially) impressive, it&#x27;s not clear to me that this will really replace production. I mean, it&#x27;s faster than other <i>printers</i>, but still far away from regular production speeds.

I&#x27;ve watched a few DIY foundry videos on YouTube where makers melt down aluminum cans and scrap metal into chunks of metal, ready for re-use. I wonder if these 3d printers will be able to use reclaimed metal created from a similar type of process.

Printing with improved PMC (which is what this sounds like) doesn&#x27;t seem that revolutionary to me... I know there was a Kickstarter a while back for metal-based PMC-like filament to use in regular 3-D printers (for kiln firing later), and I think somebody already makes a device to print using PMC itself. While doing so precisely, strongly, and cleanly enough for mechanical applications, and with a much broader spectrum of metals, is great, the prices seem rather far from the headline hype. (Not that the current options I mentioned don&#x27;t leave much to be desired.)

It&#x27;s been about 10 years since I left Caterpillar --- but I don&#x27;t think you can weld (reliably) on PM &#x2F; sintered parts. This was one of the concerns the crotchety old manufacturing engineers brought up when I proposed replacing some expensive machined bosses with a much cheaper PM part.<p>Then again, those guys really loved to say stuff like &quot;no, that&#x27;s not how it&#x27;s done.&quot; - so maybe they&#x27;re wrong &#x2F; tech has improved significantly.

&gt; Each production printer can produce up to an incredible 500 cubic inches of complex parts per hour.<p>That is 124 iPhone 6 sized solid blocks per hour. Incredible indeed!

I don&#x27;t know much about how Desktop Metal works; how does this compare to things like ExOne?

In case anyone else was wondering about the power requirement for the sintering furnace: 208V 3-phase, 30A. The 3-phase requirement may be an impediment to some hobbyists; they should probably offer it with a buying option of their own branded inverter.

But could it print a CNC machine ?

This may bring the per part costs closer to what prototyping costs come in at for CNC machining or Metal Injection Molding.<p>I don&#x27;t see this being used with a lot of exotic materials yet, but for stainless steel this is great.

Doesn&#x27;t oven treatment induce slight deformations?

The idea of an &quot;office-friendly sintering furnace&quot; would have been comedy a decade ago.

What advantage does metal printing offer over casting a 3d printed wax&#x2F;resin?

How does this compare to a metal CNC machine? Cost and Speed?

The game will radically change when metal printing arrives at the point where it can print coils and make stators and rotors.<p>Wake me up when metal printing reaches that point.

So, about those good manufacturing jobs...

So now anyone will be able to print a real gun with complete anonymity.

Is this an ad?

Ok

Guns for everyone!

\m&#x2F;