13 ms·

3D metal printing is about to go mainstream

391 points by phr4ts 9y ago

coredog64 9y ago
> The company has raised a ton of money in the last few months... > ...Desktop Metal's Studio machines are also a ton more practical to have in an office. > But there's a ton of metal options... I'm guilty of this too, but I think there are more ways to describe a plethora of items than "a ton". Unless, of course, there are actually 2000lbs worth.
- ClintEhrlich 9y ago
  Strictly speaking, a "plethora" should be an excessive amount of something. It still might work in this context though, if you think the company has raised too much capital...
  - Dude2018 9y ago
    We are in the superlative bubble.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      "Epic win"
  - danudey 9y ago
    Well technically, a plethora is a 'large or excessive amount of something', so I think in this case it works, though it feels a little sesquipedalian. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/plethora https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/plethora
    - ClintEhrlich 9y ago
      The entry you linked to agrees with my definition: "Strictly, a plethora is not just an abundance of something, it is an excessive amount."
- CupOfJava 9y ago
  This article coincidentally is an exception! A ton is the right order of magnitude: The US Treasury says that $1 million in $100 bills weights 22 lbs[1]. The $115 million that they raised in the last few months would weigh about 2200 lbs. [1] http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441929 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441929 edit: grammar
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    Epic win on the weight conversion :-)
- foreigner 9y ago
  Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
QAPereo 9y ago
Other than the temperature a relatively compact oven is potentially reaching, what's the breakthrough here other than the successful funding?
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  The fact that the company shipping them wants to be in the news? More seriously: the main innovation here seems like accelerating the print volumes and decreasing the per-item cost to the point that this could be used in production rather than just for prototyping. That's a kind of "mainstream", though still on the high-end business side, not consumer.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Production time. Production is always judged by how much time it takes for raw material to become finished parts. Additionally that is split between 'operator time' (person required) and 'machine time' (just the machine running). 'Operator time' is a function of how skilled the operator has to be (machinists cost a lot more than technicians). 'Machine time' is a function of operating cost and depreciation. So anything that shortens those times, or cuts those costs lowers the cost per part. Parts "have" to cost less than a threshold amount to meet the sales price of the final assembly + margin. That is all basic manufacturing. The key is that costs have typically been reached by doing things in volume with 'tooling' (investing in dies and jigs to configure the machine to easily make the one part). That essentially makes the production line 'single use' while it is tooled that way. These guys are proposing that they can make metal parts at the same cost as the tool and die folks in smaller quantity and with no setup costs. That changes several things; 1) You can make warranty/repair parts "on demand" so cut the cost of making a million widgets and storing them in a warehouse. 2) You can make 'small runs' of products for more specialized markets at a price that the market will accept. 3) You can support more variations of a given product without your spare parts inventory exploding. 4) Production can be parallelized from small scale shops so a large 'mega factory' isn't needed, instead you can get a dozen shops with this gear to work in parallel to meet your production target. If they can pull it off, it really does change a lot. If they can get the costs down further it opens the possibility of domestic delivery of parts from a certified vendor rather than a warehouse somewhere.
visarga 9y ago
Doesn't oven treatment induce slight deformations?
- brotchie 9y ago
  > Parts also shrink up to 15 percent during the debinding and sintering process – but again, that's all automatically managed by the system. Given this change in volume (which I assume would be highly nonlinear depending on design density and geometry?) I wonder what repeatability is like. Perhaps for the manufacturing (non prototyping) printer they have a closed loop feedback mechanism to build a few outputs and feed any dimensions out of tolerance back to the input stage.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    It might also be possible to model the shrinkage in software and compensate for it automatically, assuming you know what materials you are going to use. Could be a minor surprise when you check that you have a 200x200mm work area, design a 100x180mm part, and then get told that it won't fit on the build area.
    - cr0sh 9y ago
      It's not just materials, but the geometry of the part that plays a role in the shrinkage. Though I wonder if some form of finite element analysis could overcome this (that software won't be cheap).
- drewvolpe 9y ago
  The sintering process is the hard part of printing metal and where a lot of Desktop Metal's core technology is. They basically use traditional heating combined with microwave heating controlled via infrared temperature sensors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pk7Mq7ESwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pk7Mq7ESwI
- bluGill 9y ago
  I think I can safely say that the parts won't be flat to 1000 of an inch (.03mm) - or whatever your tolerance is. However this is something that any existing process can achieve with arbitrary shapes either. I think this process replaces sand casting, a process that also has many slight deformations. You just make the parts a little big and then machine the important sides to the exact side you need. The downside of sand casting is it often leaves a little bit of sand embedded in the metal which will destroy your tools. If the internal metal quality is as good as sand casting, the ease of doing arbitrary shapes and lack of sand in the metal make it a winner. That you have to have a lathe/milling machine to finish the part is not a change. If the above is right (it seems reasonable, but I don't know if it is), then beams and and flat stock will continue to be made with existing process. However odd shaped things like an engine blocks it could be a winner.
plasticchris 9y ago
4 furnaces per printer... reminds me of factorio
- Dude2018 9y ago
  This is where I learnt the word from.
ph0rque 9y ago
$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.
- georgeecollins 9y ago
  But not two orders of magnitude too expensive for a high end machine shop with a small warehouse. You can see this as something that you may dream about as a 'maker', but more importantly this could be something that allows small companies to make parts locally rather than overseas.
  - yarg 9y ago
    Even if only the price of the prototyper comes down a bit more, it'll improve things significantly. The ability to rapidly prototype in low cost, low latency iterations will be a boon across many industries - regardless of whether or not you end up outsourcing production. And of course, you may just end up outsourcing down the road.
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    I'd say the two go hand-in-hand. The holy grail of the maker movement is microfactories where individuals or small teams can produce local-scale consumer products out of their garages/basements to sell to their communities. That by definition is a small business with a small warehouse. :) From a marketing standpoint alone the ability to rapidly produce metal cases for things would give products an air of quality that you could never match with a plastic 3D printer and might cost too much to CNC. Between this and the costs of pick-and-place machines coming down I'd love the ability to design/build my own consumer electronics products and sell them out of my garage.
    - lostapathy 9y ago
      You can already get into a small-scale CNC mill for under $10k to make parts, look at the Tormach offering. For better or worse it's a long ways from "machining/printing a part" to having something ready to sell. Even just dealing with aluminum (easy to machine), you have deburring, polishing and/or tumbling, and (probably) anodizing standing in the way of selling your new consumer part. Some of that is fairly easy to get going with - small scale anodize is problematic.
steveklabnik 9y ago
I don't know much about how Desktop Metal works; how does this compare to things like ExOne?
achow 9y ago
> Each production printer can produce up to an incredible 500 cubic inches of complex parts per hour. That is 124 iPhone 6 sized solid blocks per hour. Incredible indeed!
- bdamm 9y ago
  Your sarcasm is noted and appreciated! Of course, this isn't supposed to print easily stamped iPhone backs, it's supposed to print fuel injectors, retention brackets, integrated linkages, etc. Parts that are complex and costly to produce through traditional machining but trivial to print.
sharemywin 9y ago
How does this compare to a metal CNC machine? Cost and Speed?
- bluGill 9y ago
  The two fill different rolls. I expect you will use this to create a rough part and then put it in the CNC machine for final finish.
- lostapathy 9y ago
  CNC machines will probably continue to be the king of things they can machine. The catch, though, is that you can 3d print a lot of structures you cannot machine by any means (see: SpaceX SLS's their rocket nozzles). You have to design for the manufacturing process. Parts designed for CNC machining will always feel like a square peg in a round hole for 3d printing. Once you start designing for 3d printing, though, things get more competitive quickly. You can design parts to have hard to machine shapes, or parts that would have too much waste to machine from a solid billet of material and 3d print them without the waste. Your computer case is bent up from sheet metal instead of machined from a solid block of steel for a lot of obvious reasons, and it makes no sense to compare the processes for a design like that. 3d printing will enable similar shifts of design.
1024core 9y ago
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?
- bluGill 9y ago
  good spanners are not cast and heat treated. They cast a blank which is roughly the right size, but then they forge it - much like an old fashioned blacksmith, but there are a ton of jigs involved (probably literally 2000 lbs though I first wrote that as an expression).
  - rectangletangle 9y ago
    Exactly, Heavy use metal parts are often milled/shaped into a blank, then forged. Forging involves heating the part, then hammering it into shape using specialized jigs (reverse imprint of the part). Most metals have a grain structure, similar to wood. The combination of heat and pressure bends the metal's grain structure around the contours of the part. This imparts a tremendous amount of strength compared to milling or casting. Since milling generally cuts into the grain at arbitrary angles, while casting often creates a disorganized grain structure (there are newer casting techniques which give better results). The parts are often milled again, to ensure exact dimensions. Then finish/treatments are applied.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Obligatory video of Chinese workers forging a ring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWXFhdeOjMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWXFhdeOjMY And Swedish ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEF2erBBVZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEF2erBBVZ4
- nnfy 9y ago
  The process in the article is effectively sintering. If [1] is any indication, you can get to within an order of magnitude of strength of cast/forged parts, if sintering variables are controlled for properly. Which may not be the case for a diyer, metallurgy is a complex art. 1.https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/14635/what-will-the-strength-of-a-sintered-steel-piece-be-compared-with-a-cast-piece https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/14635/what-will-...
WhitneyLand 9y ago
Any reason not to set default skepticism to high for Loz Blain and NewAtlas? >...it's going to compete with traditional mass manufacturing >...the hype is real The team, tech, results, deals already signed, all seem really impressive in their own right. No hyperbole needed to get a more views. It'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.
rrggrr 9y ago
I'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?
- bdamm 9y ago
  Aren't all metal powders explosive given sufficient dispersion in an oxidizer and a source of ignition?
  - rectangletangle 9y ago
    Not all, but many. Particularly metals that would likely be used for printing applications, e.g., iron and aluminum. However a ton of materials are explosive if made into a fine powder then dispersed, so this is more of a general fabrication issue, than something unique to 3D printing.
nmyk 9y ago
Guns for everyone!
zdmc 9y ago
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.
- KaiserPro 9y ago
  The $300k + might be a bigger impediment. a threephase supply is much cheaper.
biggerfisch 9y ago
> but the only affordable printing materials are cheap ABS plastics Not very true at all. You can get PLA for $20/1kg 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. I'm really not even sold on the idea that so many people "need" metal printers. Seems like most people would be way better off with the incredibly cheaper plastic options.
- aidenn0 9y ago
  Isn't PLA less structurally sound than ABS? I thought the reason it was used over ABS was that it could be formed at a lower temperature.
  - thatsso1999 9y ago
    Yes, PLA is somewhat weaker, but still more than strong enough for most desktop printing applications. It's also much less toxic to print with than ABS.
    - takingflac 9y ago
      Can we get a citation for the toxicity of ABS? My Google-fu is failing me as I can only find articles that say the fumes can cause minor irritation when inhaled or in contact with the eyes.
      - thatsso1999 9y ago
        "The higher temperature ABS-based printers had total UFP emission rates nearly an order of magnitude higher than the lower temperature PLA-based printers (1.8-2.0 10^11/min compared to 1.9-2.0 10^10/min)." "Primary gas-phase products of ABS thermal decomposition at very high temperatures have been shown to include carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, as well as a variety of volatile organics (Rutkowski and Levin, 1986). Exposure to thermal decomposition products from ABS has also been shown to have toxic effects in both rats (Zitting and Savolainen, 1980) and mice (Schaper et al., 1994)." from http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1352231013005086/1-s2.0-S1352231013005086-main.pdf http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1352231013005086/1-s2.0-S135223101300...
smnplk 9y ago
But could it print a CNC machine ?
- dboreham 9y ago
  First it would print a locking mechanism to prevent the humans from unplugging its power supply..
50something 9y ago
This is another Ric Fulop company, notoriously the founder of A123 Systems [1]. That company also raised "a ton" of money but ultimately blew up, filing for bankruptcy. I'm skeptical of this new endeavor because of both economics and technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems
- fudged71 9y ago
  Another huge concern is the fact that they are trying to push to market two completely separate 3D printing process technologies, and are valued at over a billion dollars before shipping a product. A few of their claims and marketing materials are too hyped and there's a lot of skepticism about their actual technology benefits. Limitless hype has been an ongoing problem in the 3D printing field, and they seem to be capitalizing on it.
Glyptodon 9y ago
Printing with improved PMC (which is what this sounds like) doesn'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't leave much to be desired.)
- fudged71 9y ago
  MiniMetalMaker was extruding a metal clay for sintering: https://www.minimetalmaker.com/ https://www.minimetalmaker.com/ mainly for jewelry etc. There is also the Markforged Metal X https://markforged.com/metal-x/ https://markforged.com/metal-x/
  - Glyptodon 9y ago
    Filamet is the Kickstarter'd filament I was thinking of. It looks like they've got a decent product, though it also looks like the campaign became a bit rocky (typical Kickstarter delays, etc.). (I didn't back, so can't speak to it beyond appearances.)
Dowwie 9y ago
I'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.
- Govindae 9y ago
  They would need to be able to create a powder with consistent grain size.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  If you're already doing this, you probably have the skills and the tools to make your own molds (3D printed in plastic even), mold a rough version, then mill it down to proper tolerances. If your molds are good enough, and your pour goes correctly, and your tolerance needs aren't that high - the part that you get might only need a minimum of cleanup (sprue removal, some filing or sanding, sand/bead blasting).
alvern 9y ago
This may bring the per part costs closer to what prototyping costs come in at for CNC machining or Metal Injection Molding. I don't see this being used with a lot of exotic materials yet, but for stainless steel this is great.
Animats 9y ago
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. Desktop Metal's big claim is that they can lay down "up to" 8200 cm³/hr of metal. The "up to" weasel words are a problem. They'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'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's not bad for casting. It's nice, but it's not clear that it's 100x, or even 10x, better than the competition. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfdO4p4SFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfdO4p4SFc [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vsaSzrhvcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vsaSzrhvcw [3] http://www.exone.com/Systems/Research-Education-Printers/Innovent http://www.exone.com/Systems/Research-Education-Printers/Inn... [4] https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/5c8aec78d82aa13cb56e05ccd8303e306ee711d2.jpg https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/5c8aec78d82aa1...
- crwalker 9y ago
  The part quality can be impressively good - the test parts I've seen match or exceed the resolution of typical FDM prints (from ~$2k FDM machines).
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  I think many of Shapeways metal offerings are castings from prints in wax, e.g. "For Silver, the minimum supported wall is determined by our ability to successfully print your product in wax and then cast it in a plaster mold. Walls that are too thin will break in the mold-making process." [1] 1: https://www.shapeways.com/materials/silver https://www.shapeways.com/materials/silver
  - Animats 9y ago
    Shapeways offers several different processes. The lost-wax stuff is for jewelry, so you can make hollow objects in expensive metals. Laser sintering is used for working parts. There's also MarkForged [1], which has their own process for 3D printing carbon fiber and metal with a sub $100K machine. It's kind of slow, but they're selling it to make dies for injection molding. [1] https://markforged.com/ https://markforged.com/
sevensor 9y ago
I don't think they make enough of this point: > 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 If this is anything like the powder-bed parts I've handled, the layers are going to be pretty rough. I wouldn't be surprised if they need some degree of post-machining. Don't sell your CNC mill just yet. Furthermore, 15% shrinkage during sintering? What's the dimensional tolerance on the finished part then? I'm guessing it's not great.
- pitaj 9y ago
  As long as the shrinkage is predicable, you could still have very good tolerances
  - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    Somehow I doubt it. The shrinkage must be dependent on geometry/density and their method of compensating can't possibly be good enough to hold tight tolerance over an entire complex part.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Forgings and castings all shrink as well, because metal shrinks substantially when it cools. The dies and molds are made oversized. I corresponded with a guy who was making his own intake manifold for his mopar. (A very cool project.) He made his own molds. I did some calculation, and said he had to make the mold about 10% oversized. He told me I didn't know what I was talking about, he couldn't believe it would shrink that much. His cast manifold wound up 10% undersized :-) Anyhow, dimensions that require tight tolerances get machined to spec after the forging/casting.
      - NegativeK 9y ago
        > Forgings and castings all shrink as well, because metal shrinks substantially when it cools. Forgings and castings also require post-op machining to bring them into tight tolerances, which isn't something that fits the mental model of a lot of people when it comes to 3d printers.
kutkloon7 9y ago
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't quite fulfilled. Like many hyped new techniques, they end up as techniques that are almost good enough to be practical.
edanm 9y ago
While (potentially) impressive, it's not clear to me that this will really replace production. I mean, it's faster than other printers, but still far away from regular production speeds.
WalterBright 9y ago
A forging is 3x the strength of a casting of the same part from the same material. That's why when upgrading the power of your muscle car, forged parts are the way to go. What's the relative strength of 3D printing?
simias 9y ago
From the video: The production system is cloud-connected Seriously, that'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? Not everything needs to be on a bloody cloud.
HugoDaniel 9y ago
\m/
chroem- 9y ago
It's like the brogrammer world just discovered powder metallurgy. This exact technology has existed for decades but hasn't seen widespread use because it has serious problems. I don'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.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
  How has it not seen widespread use? Buy just about any consumer-grade power tool today, and inside will likely be some powdered metal components. They're in some of the high-end tools, too, and can provide excellent quality with decent design. I have no clue whether these prototyping machines will produce parts of that quality, but the important observation is that 'good enough' is the key threshold. Many times you don't need the full strength of a machined steel part, just something a bit better than plastics can provide.
  - cc439 9y ago
    Those parts are produced via Metal Injection Molding (MIM). MIM parts have similar issues to printed (laser sintered) parts but injection molding is a far more efficient process for mass production.
    - tcas 9y ago
      I thought the gears are done via a simpler sintering process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6_wbBnXmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6_wbBnXmc Is that still considered MIM?
- kovrik 9y ago
  Yeah. That is a bit scary. People got used to think that plastic and wood are pretty weak and fragile materials (compared to metals). But people believe that metals have much more strength (even if in reality they don't - in case of some metals and alloys), so I wonder if they start using printed metal parts in their cars (or similar), because it is much cheaper (but "it is made of metal, so must be strong enough!"). Will this cause more accidents?
bandrami 9y ago
So, about those good manufacturing jobs...
pluio 9y ago
Ok
jkoll 9y ago
Is this an ad?
microcolonel 9y ago
The idea of an "office-friendly sintering furnace" would have been comedy a decade ago.
Iv 9y ago
The game will radically change when metal printing arrives at the point where it can print coils and make stators and rotors. Wake me up when metal printing reaches that point.
pier25 9y ago
So now anyone will be able to print a real gun with complete anonymity.
- goodplay 9y ago
  As apposed to casting and cncing one yourself? People can already build guns anonymously if they want (and many do). People can also use current 3D printers to (mostly) print unconventional guns anonymously. Do these printers also concern you? Reaction to technology should be with reason, not fear mongering.
  - pier25 9y ago
    3D printing is much more convenient than casting. Also I assume metal printing would make better weapons than plastic ones. No fear mongering, just making an observation.
tintan 9y ago
What advantage does metal printing offer over casting a 3d printed wax/resin?
nealrs 9y ago
It's been about 10 years since I left Caterpillar --- but I don't think you can weld (reliably) on PM / 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. Then again, those guys really loved to say stuff like "no, that's not how it's done." - so maybe they're wrong / tech has improved significantly.

391 points by phr4ts 9y ago

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

ClintEhrlich 9y ago
Strictly speaking, a "plethora" should be an excessive amount of something. It still might work in this context though, if you think the company has raised too much capital...
- Dude2018 9y ago
  We are in the superlative bubble.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    "Epic win"
- danudey 9y ago
  Well technically, a plethora is a 'large or excessive amount of something', so I think in this case it works, though it feels a little sesquipedalian. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/plethora https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/plethora
  - ClintEhrlich 9y ago
    The entry you linked to agrees with my definition: "Strictly, a plethora is not just an abundance of something, it is an excessive amount."
CupOfJava 9y ago
This article coincidentally is an exception! A ton is the right order of magnitude: The US Treasury says that $1 million in $100 bills weights 22 lbs[1]. The $115 million that they raised in the last few months would weigh about 2200 lbs. [1] http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441929 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=441929 edit: grammar
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Epic win on the weight conversion :-)
foreigner 9y ago
Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?

QAPereo 9y ago

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

JoshTriplett 9y ago
The fact that the company shipping them wants to be in the news? More seriously: the main innovation here seems like accelerating the print volumes and decreasing the per-item cost to the point that this could be used in production rather than just for prototyping. That's a kind of "mainstream", though still on the high-end business side, not consumer.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Production time. Production is always judged by how much time it takes for raw material to become finished parts. Additionally that is split between 'operator time' (person required) and 'machine time' (just the machine running). 'Operator time' is a function of how skilled the operator has to be (machinists cost a lot more than technicians). 'Machine time' is a function of operating cost and depreciation. So anything that shortens those times, or cuts those costs lowers the cost per part. Parts "have" to cost less than a threshold amount to meet the sales price of the final assembly + margin. That is all basic manufacturing. The key is that costs have typically been reached by doing things in volume with 'tooling' (investing in dies and jigs to configure the machine to easily make the one part). That essentially makes the production line 'single use' while it is tooled that way. These guys are proposing that they can make metal parts at the same cost as the tool and die folks in smaller quantity and with no setup costs. That changes several things; 1) You can make warranty/repair parts "on demand" so cut the cost of making a million widgets and storing them in a warehouse. 2) You can make 'small runs' of products for more specialized markets at a price that the market will accept. 3) You can support more variations of a given product without your spare parts inventory exploding. 4) Production can be parallelized from small scale shops so a large 'mega factory' isn't needed, instead you can get a dozen shops with this gear to work in parallel to meet your production target. If they can pull it off, it really does change a lot. If they can get the costs down further it opens the possibility of domestic delivery of parts from a certified vendor rather than a warehouse somewhere.

visarga 9y ago

Doesn't oven treatment induce slight deformations?

brotchie 9y ago
> Parts also shrink up to 15 percent during the debinding and sintering process – but again, that's all automatically managed by the system. Given this change in volume (which I assume would be highly nonlinear depending on design density and geometry?) I wonder what repeatability is like. Perhaps for the manufacturing (non prototyping) printer they have a closed loop feedback mechanism to build a few outputs and feed any dimensions out of tolerance back to the input stage.
- jandrese 9y ago
  It might also be possible to model the shrinkage in software and compensate for it automatically, assuming you know what materials you are going to use. Could be a minor surprise when you check that you have a 200x200mm work area, design a 100x180mm part, and then get told that it won't fit on the build area.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    It's not just materials, but the geometry of the part that plays a role in the shrinkage. Though I wonder if some form of finite element analysis could overcome this (that software won't be cheap).
drewvolpe 9y ago
The sintering process is the hard part of printing metal and where a lot of Desktop Metal's core technology is. They basically use traditional heating combined with microwave heating controlled via infrared temperature sensors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pk7Mq7ESwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pk7Mq7ESwI
bluGill 9y ago
I think I can safely say that the parts won't be flat to 1000 of an inch (.03mm) - or whatever your tolerance is. However this is something that any existing process can achieve with arbitrary shapes either. I think this process replaces sand casting, a process that also has many slight deformations. You just make the parts a little big and then machine the important sides to the exact side you need. The downside of sand casting is it often leaves a little bit of sand embedded in the metal which will destroy your tools. If the internal metal quality is as good as sand casting, the ease of doing arbitrary shapes and lack of sand in the metal make it a winner. That you have to have a lathe/milling machine to finish the part is not a change. If the above is right (it seems reasonable, but I don't know if it is), then beams and and flat stock will continue to be made with existing process. However odd shaped things like an engine blocks it could be a winner.

plasticchris 9y ago

4 furnaces per printer... reminds me of factorio

Dude2018 9y ago
This is where I learnt the word from.

ph0rque 9y ago

$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.

georgeecollins 9y ago
But not two orders of magnitude too expensive for a high end machine shop with a small warehouse. You can see this as something that you may dream about as a 'maker', but more importantly this could be something that allows small companies to make parts locally rather than overseas.
- yarg 9y ago
  Even if only the price of the prototyper comes down a bit more, it'll improve things significantly. The ability to rapidly prototype in low cost, low latency iterations will be a boon across many industries - regardless of whether or not you end up outsourcing production. And of course, you may just end up outsourcing down the road.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  I'd say the two go hand-in-hand. The holy grail of the maker movement is microfactories where individuals or small teams can produce local-scale consumer products out of their garages/basements to sell to their communities. That by definition is a small business with a small warehouse. :) From a marketing standpoint alone the ability to rapidly produce metal cases for things would give products an air of quality that you could never match with a plastic 3D printer and might cost too much to CNC. Between this and the costs of pick-and-place machines coming down I'd love the ability to design/build my own consumer electronics products and sell them out of my garage.
  - lostapathy 9y ago
    You can already get into a small-scale CNC mill for under $10k to make parts, look at the Tormach offering. For better or worse it's a long ways from "machining/printing a part" to having something ready to sell. Even just dealing with aluminum (easy to machine), you have deburring, polishing and/or tumbling, and (probably) anodizing standing in the way of selling your new consumer part. Some of that is fairly easy to get going with - small scale anodize is problematic.

steveklabnik 9y ago

I don't know much about how Desktop Metal works; how does this compare to things like ExOne?

achow 9y ago

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

bdamm 9y ago
Your sarcasm is noted and appreciated! Of course, this isn't supposed to print easily stamped iPhone backs, it's supposed to print fuel injectors, retention brackets, integrated linkages, etc. Parts that are complex and costly to produce through traditional machining but trivial to print.

sharemywin 9y ago

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

bluGill 9y ago
The two fill different rolls. I expect you will use this to create a rough part and then put it in the CNC machine for final finish.
lostapathy 9y ago
CNC machines will probably continue to be the king of things they can machine. The catch, though, is that you can 3d print a lot of structures you cannot machine by any means (see: SpaceX SLS's their rocket nozzles). You have to design for the manufacturing process. Parts designed for CNC machining will always feel like a square peg in a round hole for 3d printing. Once you start designing for 3d printing, though, things get more competitive quickly. You can design parts to have hard to machine shapes, or parts that would have too much waste to machine from a solid billet of material and 3d print them without the waste. Your computer case is bent up from sheet metal instead of machined from a solid block of steel for a lot of obvious reasons, and it makes no sense to compare the processes for a design like that. 3d printing will enable similar shifts of design.

1024core 9y ago

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?

bluGill 9y ago
good spanners are not cast and heat treated. They cast a blank which is roughly the right size, but then they forge it - much like an old fashioned blacksmith, but there are a ton of jigs involved (probably literally 2000 lbs though I first wrote that as an expression).
- rectangletangle 9y ago
  Exactly, Heavy use metal parts are often milled/shaped into a blank, then forged. Forging involves heating the part, then hammering it into shape using specialized jigs (reverse imprint of the part). Most metals have a grain structure, similar to wood. The combination of heat and pressure bends the metal's grain structure around the contours of the part. This imparts a tremendous amount of strength compared to milling or casting. Since milling generally cuts into the grain at arbitrary angles, while casting often creates a disorganized grain structure (there are newer casting techniques which give better results). The parts are often milled again, to ensure exact dimensions. Then finish/treatments are applied.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Obligatory video of Chinese workers forging a ring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWXFhdeOjMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWXFhdeOjMY And Swedish ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEF2erBBVZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEF2erBBVZ4
nnfy 9y ago
The process in the article is effectively sintering. If [1] is any indication, you can get to within an order of magnitude of strength of cast/forged parts, if sintering variables are controlled for properly. Which may not be the case for a diyer, metallurgy is a complex art. 1.https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/14635/what-will-the-strength-of-a-sintered-steel-piece-be-compared-with-a-cast-piece https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/14635/what-will-...

WhitneyLand 9y ago

Any reason not to set default skepticism to high for Loz Blain and NewAtlas? >...it's going to compete with traditional mass manufacturing >...the hype is real The team, tech, results, deals already signed, all seem really impressive in their own right. No hyperbole needed to get a more views. It'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.

rrggrr 9y ago

I'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?

bdamm 9y ago
Aren't all metal powders explosive given sufficient dispersion in an oxidizer and a source of ignition?
- rectangletangle 9y ago
  Not all, but many. Particularly metals that would likely be used for printing applications, e.g., iron and aluminum. However a ton of materials are explosive if made into a fine powder then dispersed, so this is more of a general fabrication issue, than something unique to 3D printing.

nmyk 9y ago

Guns for everyone!

zdmc 9y ago

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.

KaiserPro 9y ago
The $300k + might be a bigger impediment. a threephase supply is much cheaper.

biggerfisch 9y ago

> but the only affordable printing materials are cheap ABS plastics Not very true at all. You can get PLA for $20/1kg 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. I'm really not even sold on the idea that so many people "need" metal printers. Seems like most people would be way better off with the incredibly cheaper plastic options.

aidenn0 9y ago
Isn't PLA less structurally sound than ABS? I thought the reason it was used over ABS was that it could be formed at a lower temperature.
- thatsso1999 9y ago
  Yes, PLA is somewhat weaker, but still more than strong enough for most desktop printing applications. It's also much less toxic to print with than ABS.
  - takingflac 9y ago
    Can we get a citation for the toxicity of ABS? My Google-fu is failing me as I can only find articles that say the fumes can cause minor irritation when inhaled or in contact with the eyes.
    - thatsso1999 9y ago
      "The higher temperature ABS-based printers had total UFP emission rates nearly an order of magnitude higher than the lower temperature PLA-based printers (1.8-2.0 10^11/min compared to 1.9-2.0 10^10/min)." "Primary gas-phase products of ABS thermal decomposition at very high temperatures have been shown to include carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, as well as a variety of volatile organics (Rutkowski and Levin, 1986). Exposure to thermal decomposition products from ABS has also been shown to have toxic effects in both rats (Zitting and Savolainen, 1980) and mice (Schaper et al., 1994)." from http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1352231013005086/1-s2.0-S1352231013005086-main.pdf http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1352231013005086/1-s2.0-S135223101300...

smnplk 9y ago

But could it print a CNC machine ?

dboreham 9y ago
First it would print a locking mechanism to prevent the humans from unplugging its power supply..

50something 9y ago

This is another Ric Fulop company, notoriously the founder of A123 Systems [1]. That company also raised "a ton" of money but ultimately blew up, filing for bankruptcy. I'm skeptical of this new endeavor because of both economics and technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems

fudged71 9y ago
Another huge concern is the fact that they are trying to push to market two completely separate 3D printing process technologies, and are valued at over a billion dollars before shipping a product. A few of their claims and marketing materials are too hyped and there's a lot of skepticism about their actual technology benefits. Limitless hype has been an ongoing problem in the 3D printing field, and they seem to be capitalizing on it.

Glyptodon 9y ago

Printing with improved PMC (which is what this sounds like) doesn'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't leave much to be desired.)

fudged71 9y ago
MiniMetalMaker was extruding a metal clay for sintering: https://www.minimetalmaker.com/ https://www.minimetalmaker.com/ mainly for jewelry etc. There is also the Markforged Metal X https://markforged.com/metal-x/ https://markforged.com/metal-x/
- Glyptodon 9y ago
  Filamet is the Kickstarter'd filament I was thinking of. It looks like they've got a decent product, though it also looks like the campaign became a bit rocky (typical Kickstarter delays, etc.). (I didn't back, so can't speak to it beyond appearances.)

Dowwie 9y ago

I'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.

Govindae 9y ago
They would need to be able to create a powder with consistent grain size.
cr0sh 9y ago
If you're already doing this, you probably have the skills and the tools to make your own molds (3D printed in plastic even), mold a rough version, then mill it down to proper tolerances. If your molds are good enough, and your pour goes correctly, and your tolerance needs aren't that high - the part that you get might only need a minimum of cleanup (sprue removal, some filing or sanding, sand/bead blasting).

alvern 9y ago

This may bring the per part costs closer to what prototyping costs come in at for CNC machining or Metal Injection Molding. I don't see this being used with a lot of exotic materials yet, but for stainless steel this is great.

Animats 9y ago

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. Desktop Metal's big claim is that they can lay down "up to" 8200 cm³/hr of metal. The "up to" weasel words are a problem. They'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'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's not bad for casting. It's nice, but it's not clear that it's 100x, or even 10x, better than the competition. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfdO4p4SFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEfdO4p4SFc [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vsaSzrhvcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vsaSzrhvcw [3] http://www.exone.com/Systems/Research-Education-Printers/Innovent http://www.exone.com/Systems/Research-Education-Printers/Inn... [4] https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/5c8aec78d82aa13cb56e05ccd8303e306ee711d2.jpg https://embedwistia-a.akamaihd.net/deliveries/5c8aec78d82aa1...

crwalker 9y ago
The part quality can be impressively good - the test parts I've seen match or exceed the resolution of typical FDM prints (from ~$2k FDM machines).
blacksmith_tb 9y ago
I think many of Shapeways metal offerings are castings from prints in wax, e.g. "For Silver, the minimum supported wall is determined by our ability to successfully print your product in wax and then cast it in a plaster mold. Walls that are too thin will break in the mold-making process." [1] 1: https://www.shapeways.com/materials/silver https://www.shapeways.com/materials/silver
- Animats 9y ago
  Shapeways offers several different processes. The lost-wax stuff is for jewelry, so you can make hollow objects in expensive metals. Laser sintering is used for working parts. There's also MarkForged [1], which has their own process for 3D printing carbon fiber and metal with a sub $100K machine. It's kind of slow, but they're selling it to make dies for injection molding. [1] https://markforged.com/ https://markforged.com/

sevensor 9y ago

I don't think they make enough of this point: > 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 If this is anything like the powder-bed parts I've handled, the layers are going to be pretty rough. I wouldn't be surprised if they need some degree of post-machining. Don't sell your CNC mill just yet. Furthermore, 15% shrinkage during sintering? What's the dimensional tolerance on the finished part then? I'm guessing it's not great.

pitaj 9y ago
As long as the shrinkage is predicable, you could still have very good tolerances
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  Somehow I doubt it. The shrinkage must be dependent on geometry/density and their method of compensating can't possibly be good enough to hold tight tolerance over an entire complex part.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Forgings and castings all shrink as well, because metal shrinks substantially when it cools. The dies and molds are made oversized. I corresponded with a guy who was making his own intake manifold for his mopar. (A very cool project.) He made his own molds. I did some calculation, and said he had to make the mold about 10% oversized. He told me I didn't know what I was talking about, he couldn't believe it would shrink that much. His cast manifold wound up 10% undersized :-) Anyhow, dimensions that require tight tolerances get machined to spec after the forging/casting.
    - NegativeK 9y ago
      > Forgings and castings all shrink as well, because metal shrinks substantially when it cools. Forgings and castings also require post-op machining to bring them into tight tolerances, which isn't something that fits the mental model of a lot of people when it comes to 3d printers.

kutkloon7 9y ago

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't quite fulfilled. Like many hyped new techniques, they end up as techniques that are almost good enough to be practical.

edanm 9y ago

While (potentially) impressive, it's not clear to me that this will really replace production. I mean, it's faster than other printers, but still far away from regular production speeds.

WalterBright 9y ago

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

simias 9y ago

From the video: The production system is cloud-connected Seriously, that'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? Not everything needs to be on a bloody cloud.

HugoDaniel 9y ago

\m/

chroem- 9y ago

It's like the brogrammer world just discovered powder metallurgy. This exact technology has existed for decades but hasn't seen widespread use because it has serious problems. I don'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.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
How has it not seen widespread use? Buy just about any consumer-grade power tool today, and inside will likely be some powdered metal components. They're in some of the high-end tools, too, and can provide excellent quality with decent design. I have no clue whether these prototyping machines will produce parts of that quality, but the important observation is that 'good enough' is the key threshold. Many times you don't need the full strength of a machined steel part, just something a bit better than plastics can provide.
- cc439 9y ago
  Those parts are produced via Metal Injection Molding (MIM). MIM parts have similar issues to printed (laser sintered) parts but injection molding is a far more efficient process for mass production.
  - tcas 9y ago
    I thought the gears are done via a simpler sintering process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6_wbBnXmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6_wbBnXmc Is that still considered MIM?
kovrik 9y ago
Yeah. That is a bit scary. People got used to think that plastic and wood are pretty weak and fragile materials (compared to metals). But people believe that metals have much more strength (even if in reality they don't - in case of some metals and alloys), so I wonder if they start using printed metal parts in their cars (or similar), because it is much cheaper (but "it is made of metal, so must be strong enough!"). Will this cause more accidents?

bandrami 9y ago

So, about those good manufacturing jobs...

pluio 9y ago

jkoll 9y ago

Is this an ad?

microcolonel 9y ago

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

Iv 9y ago

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

pier25 9y ago

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

goodplay 9y ago
As apposed to casting and cncing one yourself? People can already build guns anonymously if they want (and many do). People can also use current 3D printers to (mostly) print unconventional guns anonymously. Do these printers also concern you? Reaction to technology should be with reason, not fear mongering.
- pier25 9y ago
  3D printing is much more convenient than casting. Also I assume metal printing would make better weapons than plastic ones. No fear mongering, just making an observation.

tintan 9y ago

What advantage does metal printing offer over casting a 3d printed wax/resin?

nealrs 9y ago

It's been about 10 years since I left Caterpillar --- but I don't think you can weld (reliably) on PM / 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. Then again, those guys really loved to say stuff like "no, that's not how it's done." - so maybe they're wrong / tech has improved significantly.