By Darren Quick
December 3, 2013
With 3D printers dropping below the US$200 mark, the home 3D printing revolution appears to be getting into full swing, which is great ... if you want to make things out of plastic. Unfortunately, the price of commercial metal 3D printers means the ability to print metal objects has remained out of reach of most people. That could be set to change with a team from Michigan Technical University building a 3D metal printer for under $1,500. Full article here: 3D Metal Printer
Comments
I do this at work, using the large 8KW solid state laser, structural steel cutting, 5 axis gantry, I developed for them.
Only problem is the powder that works good (everything else pretty much sucks), is so damn expensive, it's not worth it :(
You can do this with any welding robot as well, with a little software, but the results are pretty bad, even with a TIG set up.
CNC machining is still more cost effective ATM
Nice idea very promising.Maybe box it in for fumes and a inert gas to stop impurities.
@ Daniel Allen
Seen a aluminum one the other day http://gajitz.com/high-tech-molten-metal-3d-printer-is-from-the-dar...
Thank you very much for sharing this TCIII! I started the Metalbot project late March as an open source project to make a 3D Metal printer, since then there are many people that are taking an interest in this technology! I really think this has incredible potential for open source UAV's, seeing these two amazing projects amalgamate would be a dream come true! In any case, check out a picture of one of their printed sprockets on my website here: http://www.metalbot.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=262
So basically its a fancy CNC MIG welder or something similar? Thats pretty sweet, if only they can do it with aluminum.
Now Santa will know what you want for Christmas:-)
TCIII Admin