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lawlhwut
I was wondering how scalable the current DIY FFF 3D printers are. From what I understand, the DMLS printer is only different in the sense that it uses a different method for development, and the actual mechanics behind graphing should be the same. Am I correct?
I think that is vastly oversimplifying the differences. Yes the mechancis of moving things in a cartesian method would be similar, but there's a big leap from a 40 watt heater melting some plastic filiment and a 200 watt laser melting metal that has to be scraped across the part.
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If so, I'm thinking of spending my time and money building a FFF printer and later on replacing a few parts here and there for the DMLS capability once it gets cheaper with current (hogwash) patents expiring this year.
My final goal is to print my own parts for my DIY projects but want to be able to print in alloy instead of plastic.
There are other attempts at making all-in-one type machines that can, in some combination, print, lase, mill/route, etc. Generally speaking, design choices that optimize one production technique come at a hinderance for another. I'm presuming this would be your first build so I'd start with building just a regular FFF printer. Don't worry about design choices now for what a DMLS will need later. Once you get your feet wet and see how much goes in to building a machine, then you can apply your knowledge in building a DMLS-specific machine. Unless you severely overbuild your 3d printer, the cost for the laser required for DMLS will dwarf most everything else required combined.
