3 ms·

Do you work in this field or are you just reading that? I’ve been out of the game for over five years now, but as far as I can tell from people I know still in

Do you work in this field or are you just reading that? I’ve been out of the game for over five years now, but as far as I can tell from people I know still in that world, if you’re going to make more than like … 3 of a part, casting is going to be much cheaper. And while you can do some prototyping on 3d prints, the nature of the material winds up different from a cast part.

random3 2mo ago
I'm not building molds, but I'm actively researching the field in conjunction with my work. Based on what I'm seeing and reading things have changed in the last few years dramatically. Concretely in the selective laser sintering (SLS) Formlabs is redefining small-scale manufacturing. But don't get distracted by the "small-scale". It's a bit like how small servers replaced mainframes. Production lines are getting replaced by much more versatile alternatives. Formlabs recently launched a $80K industrial-grade machine that works better than it's $500K alternatives. https://formlabs.com/blog/announcing-fuse-x1-industrial-sls/ https://formlabs.com/blog/announcing-fuse-x1-industrial-sls/ https://formlabs.com/blog/diy-injection-molding/ https://formlabs.com/blog/diy-injection-molding/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TvjUVdn3YQ&t=2586s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TvjUVdn3YQ&t=2586s Formlabs is used by Tesla to print car parts to Ukraine to print drones. The thing about SLS is that it works with metal too. So you have startups like Divergent (recently raised $290M) in LA printing car engines https://www.latimes.com/b2b/space-tech/story/2026-06-23/divergent-factory-long-beach-monolith-one https://www.latimes.com/b2b/space-tech/story/2026-06-23/dive... Note that rocket engines are 3d printed too from SpaceX to India's Sky Roots https://www.selfcad.com/blog/how-spacex-uses-additive-manufacturing-for-rocket-engine-production https://www.selfcad.com/blog/how-spacex-uses-additive-manufa... https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/skyroots-vikram-1-reaches-orbit-on-indias-first-fully-3d-printed-rocket-engine-253353/ https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/skyroots-vikram-1-reache... So is injection molding more effective than additive manufacturing? This question is a bit like "no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim". But while you have metal at industrial scale you have "desktop" metal printers for ~$10K https://all3dp.com/4/first-look-at-the-scrap-1-desktop-metal-printing-for-under-10k/ https://all3dp.com/4/first-look-at-the-scrap-1-desktop-metal...
naasking 2mo ago
You'd need hundreds, if not thousands, of parts to justify a mold for casting. And even then, by the time you got the mold made you could have already printed hundreds of parts on a print farm, so you're losing time too.

random3 2mo ago

I'm not building molds, but I'm actively researching the field in conjunction with my work. Based on what I'm seeing and reading things have changed in the last few years dramatically. Concretely in the selective laser sintering (SLS) Formlabs is redefining small-scale manufacturing. But don't get distracted by the "small-scale". It's a bit like how small servers replaced mainframes. Production lines are getting replaced by much more versatile alternatives. Formlabs recently launched a $80K industrial-grade machine that works better than it's $500K alternatives. https://formlabs.com/blog/announcing-fuse-x1-industrial-sls/ https://formlabs.com/blog/announcing-fuse-x1-industrial-sls/ https://formlabs.com/blog/diy-injection-molding/ https://formlabs.com/blog/diy-injection-molding/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TvjUVdn3YQ&t=2586s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TvjUVdn3YQ&t=2586s Formlabs is used by Tesla to print car parts to Ukraine to print drones. The thing about SLS is that it works with metal too. So you have startups like Divergent (recently raised $290M) in LA printing car engines https://www.latimes.com/b2b/space-tech/story/2026-06-23/divergent-factory-long-beach-monolith-one https://www.latimes.com/b2b/space-tech/story/2026-06-23/dive... Note that rocket engines are 3d printed too from SpaceX to India's Sky Roots https://www.selfcad.com/blog/how-spacex-uses-additive-manufacturing-for-rocket-engine-production https://www.selfcad.com/blog/how-spacex-uses-additive-manufa... https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/skyroots-vikram-1-reaches-orbit-on-indias-first-fully-3d-printed-rocket-engine-253353/ https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/skyroots-vikram-1-reache... So is injection molding more effective than additive manufacturing? This question is a bit like "no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim". But while you have metal at industrial scale you have "desktop" metal printers for ~$10K https://all3dp.com/4/first-look-at-the-scrap-1-desktop-metal-printing-for-under-10k/ https://all3dp.com/4/first-look-at-the-scrap-1-desktop-metal...

naasking 2mo ago

You'd need hundreds, if not thousands, of parts to justify a mold for casting. And even then, by the time you got the mold made you could have already printed hundreds of parts on a print farm, so you're losing time too.