3D Metal Printer Projects?

You will induce mechanical stress an cause not only hardening but distortion and with some metals cracking. This is a problem encountered with welding every time you do it to a cold surface. And is seen in many of the videos relating to sls processes as they use copious supports to try and prevent distortion.

For a particular metal you will need to heat it to the point where it is at its annealing temperature. Then for maximum flexibility let cool relatively slowly. Of course it depends if the part is best suited to anneals or hardened properties.

[heattreatment.linde.com]

These are still high temperatures for steels so considerable power would be needed if the aria is to be of any size.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2013 03:20PM by Madkite.

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Make your Mendel twice as accurate.
[www.thingiverse.com]

Any more progress on the site? Tried to go to the forum link but it was down.

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Make your Mendel twice as accurate.
[www.thingiverse.com]

Hello everyone! The the Metalbot project has gone live!! www.metalbot.org

@ Madkite and everyone who has tried to access the Forum, I am sorry about that!! There were some technical difficulties with wiki which shut down the forum. The link below should work now! There is a sub forum dedicated to hypersonic deposition as well as a wiki page. I do not know much about this subject so hopefully you can document your efforts there as you like.

Here is the forum link [www.metalbot.org]

So the hard work begins now. We need to tell people about our community. I have a few forums in mind. Any chance you guys get to tell people about or link to this project would be very helpful!

Best Regards!

Jethro.

Its looking good. Very nice.

Will make an introductory post about my project next evening I have free. Probably next week.

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Make your Mendel twice as accurate.
[www.thingiverse.com]

Thank you Madkite, when you are ready there is also a wiki section.

As I sit here studying for my manufacturing final, I came across the process used for injection molding of powdered metals. A mixture containing 25 to 40 percent polymer or wax as a binder is injected into a mold then the green parts are placed in a furnace to melt out the binder and sinter the metal. The reason I bring this up is because a less powerful laser would be needed to melt the polymer in the machine described above. Alloying of two particles, one with a lower melting point can also be done, with the one particle attaching through surface tension to the other particle.

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As I sit here studying for my manufacturing final, I came across the process used for injection molding of powdered metals. A mixture containing 25 to 40 percent polymer or wax as a binder is injected into a mold then the green parts are placed in a furnace to melt out the binder and sinter the metal. The reason I bring this up is because a less powerful laser would be needed to melt the polymer in the machine described above. Alloying of two particles, one with a lower melting point can also be done, with the one particle attaching through surface tension to the other particle.

The two main issues I see with that method are:

1 - low resolution parts
2 - the requirement of post processing and a furnace

But it is certainly a viable option! Shapeways does it, it's just not ideal. Laser sintering is more of a technical challenge, but the precision and quality is well worth it.

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So far [www.metalbot.org] has had over 6,000 page view! Thanks for your support!!

Best,

Jethro.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2013 03:18AM by Hazel1919.

Just a quick update for the interested... there are some top notch ideas going around!

We have decided, for now at least, to put a "laser scanner" on the back burner and go with a Gantry. So some form of CNC software in combination with a slicer will be used.

Check out some preliminary designs for the Metalbot printer here... [www.metalbot.org]

If you have google sketchup you can download the model here... [sketchup.google.com]

Best!

Jethro.

Hey guys, new here, just wanted to add my 2 cents worth.

I was thinking the low end way to a 3d metal printer would be 3 small steps.

1. get an old plastic powder 3d printer, printer head doesn't have to work, just the powder tray and squeegee. It doesn't have to big a huge one, as the sintering lasers have size limitations at this point anyway. Now get some stainless steel powder, about half the size of your finest layer, so 10microns maybe. Don't use aluminum for diy, it could explode!

2. Grab a form1 sla 3d printer when they start going on sale. They have the rough build size we need already focused and galvo mirror controls. Mount the form 1 printer upside down over the powder bed (now filled with stainless powder) remove its resin bed and replace the laser with a stronger fiber one. replace the resin bed tilt program every layer with a powder swipe on the old plastic printer bed. so now instead of rocking the resin bed the printer will relayer the powder tray.

3. get an old fridge or other air tight cabinet and plumb it up with a purge hose to a tank of shielding gas on the outside, to protect yourself, put a video camera on the inside of the cabinet, and a monitor on the outside. Get a meter to tell you when the inside is air free after purging, close the fridge to protect your eyes and keep the shielding gas in, watch the outer monitor for progress.

yes that is over simplified but it gets us to a point where programming can make up for laser abilities, and would be pretty safe.

Any thoughts?

Those are good ideas. Finding a used SLS 3d printer will be a tough task and when you do it will be very expensive. It would be great to see under the 'skirt' of a commercial SLS machine though!

You idea of using a 'fridge' as a frame will definitely be the way to go!

You need to make sure that you will not burn through the galvos though, also it is not the cheapest way to go about making a 3D Metal Printer... very interesting suggestions though

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2013 05:46PM by Hazel1919.

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3D Metal Printing and more - visit [www.metalbot.org] !

Hello, I encourage you to check out my company, www.efesto.us

It's all about 3D metal deposition, I will be in singapore september-october and am welcome to meet with anyone who is interested in learning more. Also email me at kvarma89@gmail.com for further questions!

check out www.efesto.us

I am an employee there and will be in singapore sep-oct. Email me with further questions, kvarma89@gmail.com

specialize in 3D metal deposition, have 3 very impressive machines on the market as of right now. I can give you more details

Hi Hazel,

Been following this thread. My company, www.efesto.us sells 3 versions of 3D metal printers. Our lowest end printer uses a 400W IPG Fiber laser and out most powerful uses a 2kW IPF Fiber laser. We can print with ANY metal except Magnesium (almost set the machine on fire!) haha. Currently our machines are used to repair large scale items, like military tanks, and propeler blades from helicopter, etc..

please email me with further questions, I can educate you on how advance 3D Metal printing has actually gotten!

I will also be visiting Singapore for 2 months Mid August-Mid October. I will be willing to meet up and give a formal presentation to whomever is interested

i missed this thread oops

[youtu.be]

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

Hi kvarma!

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kvarma
please email me with further questions, I can educate you on how advance 3D Metal printing has actually gotten!

We will get in touch ASAP.

@ dissidence check out the metalbot project linked to below, it is a gold mine of information regarding 3D metal printing and laser sintering!

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3D Metal Printing and more - visit [www.metalbot.org] !

Hi everyone!

Just a quick update: It has been a few months and the Metalbot project is slowly coming together!

Check out what is going on: [www.metalbot.org]

We have had loads of great ideas and there are quite a few very interesting projects unfolding at the moment (take a look at the projects section).

We are slowly working towards a preliminary design and there are a lot of options now so if you guys have any ideas, please send them our way!

All the best,

Jethro.

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3D Metal Printing and more - visit [www.metalbot.org] !

Here is an interesting project, however there are concernes that this is just vapour-ware...

[www.vadersystems.com]

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Liquid Metal Jet Printing (LMJP) is a progressive form of 3D printing (also referred to as additive manufacturing). Using a head much like that of an ink jet on a paper printer, the machine lays down droplets in layers of molten aluminum that build up gradually. At the end of the process, an object of great complexity can be created with no labor and no energy on the part of the maker.

Unfortunately vague, and perhaps they mean it to be like that...

[3dprintingindustry.com]

The following quote sums up where they are...

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It has been awhile since the last update, and we have been hard at work on the project, just yesterday we did a full systems test, which is the first time we had all of the subsystems running together The test had some encouraging results as well as some disappointment, all of the subsystems worked as anticipated, which is a good result, we were able to fire our driving mechanism more times than before without failure, and the driver propelled metal out of the nozzle however the jet assembly failed due to a crack in the ceramic adhesive that was formed during drying which lead to the nozzle being misaligned this lead to the formation of a large pool of aluminum in front of the nozzle thus preventing us from being able to tell if we were producing droplets with the jet v9, the crack was exacerbated by the high thermal stresses incurred in the kiln plus the high jetting forces due to the driver, which lead to a full crack that sheared the assembly in two thus stopping further tests this week, we will be continuing on with low temperature gallium tests this week to try to get a better understanding of liquid metal behavior within our jet, plus we will also be trying to solve our adhesive problems before carrying the learned knowledge back over again to the high temperature aluminum tests in the coming weeks.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2013 02:50AM by Hazel1919.

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3D Metal Printing and more - visit [www.metalbot.org] !

A quick project update...

I encourage anyone who is interested in pen source 3D metal printing to check out these fantastic experiments by Member 'Masterblaster': http://www.metalbot.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=327&p=2451#p2451

Even though the results are not spectacular, he has proved that it is practical to melt metal powders using a laser diode!

Also check out Dragonator's fantastic Plan-B powder printer here! [www.metalbot.org]

The first Metalbot printer will likely resemble an almalgam of the two projects above...

All the best,

Jethro.

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3D Metal Printing and more - visit [www.metalbot.org] !

At a theoretical level, Metal Additive Manufacturing only coincides with the 3D part construction phase. In reality, in order to fully understand this technology, a series of other preprinting and postprinting activities must be considered, which constitute the entire supply chain of Additive Manufacturing, paying particular attention to the requirements of the materials and the processes necessary to obtain a high quality production.
If we limit the field of Additive Manufacturing to the single and more widespread powder bed technology Selective Laser Melting (SLM), during the entire supply chain it is essential to take care of the atmosphere that surrounds the material in all its production steps.
After 3D printing, most of the materials that can be printed with SLM technology always need a heat treatment. This heat treatment can be de-tensioning (to release most of the internal tensions accumulated in the material during the printing phase) or of another type (to try to optimize the mechanical properties of the component according to its specific application).
Prof. Gianni Nicoletto of the University of Parma & TP Engineering, wrote an intersting article on this topic:
Metal additive manufacturing and vacuum heat treatments

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I have an in-depth experience as technical writer on topics related to the world of vacuum furnaces and vacuum heat treatments.
[www.tav-vacuumfurnaces.com]
[www.linkedin.com]

... check for the date of the last post

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Yes I know, but as I landed here today and found it interesting, may be the topic is not outdated for everyone (for me not ).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2020 03:14PM by AlessiaP.

... it's something more difficult

When we started this "metal 3D printing" forums and threads at roughly 2011, there was some real enthusiasm and some interested people too, willing to participate.

But with time most of them realized, that it needs much more ressources and work, than most DIY projects (and my collaboration was in parts blocked/prohibited by NDA's) ... so it "faded away" after 2013 and the "metalbot"-forum was closed and most OS work abandoned ... only some "semi-comercial" groups tried to start their own brand or company (some are running yet).

I'm used/using metal 3D printing with comercial systems and companies ... and doing some "DIY" beside my R&D projects too, on my own ... but it's slightly problematic to disclose this work, if either used for R&D ... or in fear, that others will copy and clone it for their own (proprietary!) developments

So I've collected and developed/built all needed bits'n'bytes for different types of "metal 3D printing" with powders, wires or "chemistry" ... and waiting for a better start -- maybe with interested companies - or my retirement in roughly 8 years ... and sometimes using some of this for my own needs

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I'm quite new in this sector, I'm approaching it from a post-processing point of view, but in the last 2 years I found many companies and institutions happy to provide me materials and laboratories for articles.
For example this month we have collaborated with a company that produces 3D printers for dental applications, it was really interesting… hoping to never need one… a dental prothesis I mean.
I’d like to be more “in-process” in additive manufacturing… we’ll see in the future.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2020 03:24PM by AlessiaP.

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I have an in-depth experience as technical writer on topics related to the world of vacuum furnaces and vacuum heat treatments.
[www.tav-vacuumfurnaces.com]
[www.linkedin.com]

... I was working for/with companies too, which developed laser-sintering or CNC-milling systems for dental applications -- laser-sintering is good for really complex parts or expensive materials ... but most used systems are based on CNC-milling ... here some old milled samples:

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]