7 ms·
Desktop Metal gets $115M in funding to deliver metal 3D printing
- mrfusion 9y agoAnyone know how it works?
- elihu 9y agoSounds interesting; any details on how it works, what materials it can be used with, what are the consumables, strength, accuracy/resolution, maximum size, etc..?
- jtraffic 9y agoHere is an Economist article that explains it much more detail: https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21724368-recent-advances-make-3d-printing-powerful-competitor-conventional-mass-production-3d https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21724368-recent-adva... Or if you want the relevant portion quoted, see this article: (halfway down, below the graphene motorcycle helmet): https://hackernoon.com/an-innovation-taxonomy-d1ed0751b92b https://hackernoon.com/an-innovation-taxonomy-d1ed0751b92b
- zwieback 9y agoHere's a little more detail: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/26/15440744/desktop-metal-studio-printer-3d-printing-manufacturers https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/26/15440744/d... The important thing to remember is that the 3D printing doesn't generate the final part, the plastic binder in the filament has to be burned out and then the part has to "densify", e.g. the actual sintering where the metal particles fuse together creates the final material properties of the part. The final part will be a lot smaller than the thing coming out of the 3D printer, controlling uniform shrinkage is probably a lot of the secret sauce.
- dogma1138 9y agoDoes it actually has to go trough forging and tempering? They don't have a fusing element in the head?
- zwieback 9y agoIt goes through two additional steps: burning out the plastic and then putting the part into a furnace to get the metal particles to "fuse" together more closely, aka sintering. The printing part just forms a "green" part, it's basically like you would make pottery, the actual strengthening of the part happens in a high-temperature furnace.
- dogma1138 9y agoLooks like fused jet deposited powdered metal printing. Strong but not nearly as strong as casting (especially without secondary processing), as for materials powdered metal printing is usually either ferrite alloys or nobel metals the former is much more common. Resolution is in single digit microns or finer. This is based on similar products not this specific one, it might be faster which is important but there is only that much you can improve on the process. The speed also to me looks like a result of very limited market in terms of competitiveness. Existing products are few and they rather sell you more machines than drastically improve the printing speed by making it much smaller and focusing on smaller parts. I don't know if they use induction or optical fusing based on the size I would go for optical so they might have found a good laser or a absorption facilitating epoxy/flux to go with the powder. Edit: based on a comment here it looks like they don't do fusing as part of the print. In this case its metal powder with a chemical binder (glue) which usually contains flux and vaporizes at a fairly low temperature. After the printing the parts go into an oven (usually encased in sand for temperature control) The oven brings the part to a high enough temperature for the crystal formation but not close to the melting point. In this process larger crystals can form but not nearly as large as with cast forging.
- ortusdux 9y agoI don't see the advantages to this over lost-PLA casting. Am I missing something?
- Animats 9y agoThat's what I was wondering. Shapeways makes metal parts by a similar process as a service. See their 2009 video.[1] There's a mini-industry making metal jewelry that way. I notice that Desktop Metal doesn't show their oven in the video. That's the big, expensive, somewhat hazardous unit. "Easily swappable aluminum gas canisters ... safe to use on the shop floor" says the data sheet.[2] Wazer, the low-end water jet cutter that's still stuck at "pre-order", has a similar problem. They're trying to make a somewhat messy industrial process less messy. There's some hand-waving involved. You end up with a sludge that's a mixture of water, shattered garnet, and whatever you're cutting. They gloss over what you have to do to dispose of that. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg [2] https://desktopmetal.s3.amazonaws.com/Studio-office_friendly.pdf https://desktopmetal.s3.amazonaws.com/Studio-office_friendly...
- enahs-sf 9y agofeature request: T1000.
- squarefoot 9y agoWaiting for the day that printer will be able to print copies of itself.
- digikata 9y agoEven if you can print all the structural portions, there's a big problem printing electrical components e.g. motors, and then an even bigger problem printing control electronics... Although, I think if they end up able to print robust, ready-to-use metal components with reasonable strength (say strong enough for a bicycle frame), that would be a pretty good leap forward. The base tech of what you can do on a desktop doesn't seem like it would quite get there today though.
- glenneroo 9y agoI would think the next logical step (after metal printing comes down in price) will be to start printing mixtures of metals and plastics, which would eventually lead to being able to print more complicated things such as motors.
- cma 9y agoBearings and round cylinder things need to be really precise.
- DenisM 9y agoMaybe just a robot that keeps ordering copies of itself from Amazon? That seems more attainable.
- sillysaurus3 9y agoThis is an amazing idea. I want one.
- gvb 9y ago"Alexa, Simon Says Alexa, order an echo."
- icefox 9y agoAnyone know who the primary customers for these will be?
- ganoushoreilly 9y agoAny engineering shop that's prototyping and possible creating production products. I got to see the prints first hand, pretty solid stuff. Sadly they hadn't printed a T-800 terminator yet, but give it time. Skynet is alive!
- icefox 9y agoWould their be a market to be a middle man that owns the printer and does the work to coordinate low volume runs from shops that need some prints, but not enough for full volume or enough to own/maintain the printer?
- mitchty 9y agoThat already exists. https://www.shapeways.com/materials/steel https://www.shapeways.com/materials/steel
- 086421357909764 9y agoIt's more for proto-labs
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Nanite 9y agoFor a nice CGI movie on their high volume model: https://www.desktopmetal.com/products/production/ https://www.desktopmetal.com/products/production/
- JoshTriplett 9y agoVery impressive video. Questions that page completely doesn't answer, though: How much does the system cost? ($5k to "reserve", but what's the final cost? Their "downloads" page, of all places, has a price sheet for the "studio" system, but not the "production" system.) What does the software workflow involve, from CAD software to printing? Also disappointing that, despite having an innovative piece of hardware, they still treat the software as heavily proprietary as well.
- Jedd 9y ago> How much does the system cost? Follow the reserve page through two more clicks. Studio system is $120,000 Production system is $360,000 The first is printer, debinder and furnace combined. So close to a total cost. The latter is printer only, so think of that figure as a secondary deposit.
- Const-me 9y ago> despite having an innovative piece of hardware, they still treat the software as heavily proprietary as well. My client created an innovative piece of hardware without investing in proprietary software. In a couple of months, he found cheaper clones offered on aliexpress and taobao. While the design was good, the product failed commercially. Then the company found me, I’ve created heavily proprietary software for the next version of their hardware. The product sells OK so far. In addition, creating software from scratch specifically for the given hardware delivers better overall value for the end users.
- thisisit 9y agoIf I may, what was the product and what is within the proprietary software which differs it from the clones? Because given China manufacturing scale it is given that every other thing will have a clone on aliexpress or taobao.
- chromaton 9y agoJamison 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. It apparently yielded very good results, winning the beetleweight category at Bot Blast. You can search YouTube for videos of it in action.
- lordvon 9y agoI am really surprised to see Jamison being mentioned here as if he were a household name. I remember him from the Invention Studio at Georgia Tech.
- theWatcher37 9y agoThat's a great place to get stuff done.
- chromaton 9y agoHe's well known among people who are into that sort of thing.
- teamtestbot 9y agoi <3 jamison hes so dreamy
- sytse 9y agoVideo of Silent Spring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRLupZvjcrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRLupZvjcrk
- theprop 9y agoWhat 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" ???
- Hydraulix989 9y agoSo where are they at right now in terms of progress? R&D? Prototype built? Why didn't somebody already build something like this?
- GlobalServices 9y agoI wonder if they can stop casting porosity. There's a potential to save millions.
- syntaxing 9y agoThis 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". 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.
- AngryData 9y agoMaybe 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.