3D printing with metal: The final frontier of additive manufacturing

The holidays are a great time to sit back, relax, and watch the world happen around you. Few areas of technology have seen as much development in one year as that of 3D printing. Undoubtedly, the most dramatic and challenging has been printing with metal. The first attempts to print with metal can be traced back to the 1880s when the first welders used carbon electrode arcs to fuse two pieces of metal. The real breakthrough that has enabled 3D printing for the masses has been the laser. NASA recently used a technique called selective metal melting (SLM) with great success to build rocket motor components out of steel. To compete with modern manufacturing methods, perhaps the fastest method of metal printing is to deposit a powder metal matrix that contains binders. One of the premier organizations to capture public attention is Shapeways, which has streamlined the process to be able to provide a (metal or plastic) printed part in the shortest time possible.

MiniMetalMaker - A small 3D printer that fabricates with precious metal clay. Please stay tuned as we make progress in the development of the Mini Metal Maker-David Hartkop The Mini Metal Maker is very exciting to me because it is a unique combination of an artistic material with the field of 3D printing. The Mini Metal Maker prints 3D objects from digital files directly in metal clay, rather than in plastic. Once these clay objects air-dry, they are fired in a kiln to produce beautiful solid metal objects of high purity and precision. Using metal clay essentially replaces the entire wax-casting or lost-wax process ordinarily needed to do this. With your help Your contribution will help us turn our working prototype into a mass-produced product. Monies raised We aim to raise $10,000 for materials to refine and package our technology into a producible product. If we do not reach the entire goal This project has been carried this far through incremental progress, and we will continue moving toward our goal: A mass produced and available Mini Metal Maker. The impact

New low cost affordable 3D printer unveiled A step towards making 3D printing affordable has been made at Michigan Technological University, which presented an open-source 3D metal printer for only $1,500. Detailed plans and software are all open-source and freely available, too. So far affordable 3D printing has been more about using polymers. Yet we all know that the ‘real thing’ must be made of metal. Now Professor Joshua Pearce and his team of 3D apostles from Michigan Technological University are proclaiming the era of Open Access 3D Printing, having published their “A Low-Cost, Open-Source Metal 3-D Printer,” article in the journal, IEEE Access. The team admits that this is only a beginning. Joshua Pearce believes this pioneering printer, which now costs even less than a commercial 3D polymer printer, has a bright future once it goes viral. “This is not something for everybody’s house,” he said. “Every single technology humanity has ever developed, we have found a way to abuse,” Pearce said.

Hephaestus SLM 3D Printer Short Summary We are a group of high school seniors at The Bay School of San Francisco. Each Bay senior completes a Senior Signature Project, which is a project chosen by the senior and is similar in scope to an undergraduate thesis. For the past year or so, we've been researching 3D printing technologies and have noticed a gaping hole in the current industry. To do this, we will design and build an SLM 3D printer specifically designed to be easy to reproduce and use. What We Need & What You Get We need about $5000 in funding in order to build our prototype. As a gift for donating, we will allow you to submit your 3D models for us to print. No hollow cavities. If you need inspiration for things to print, we have a large list of ideas here. The Impact SLM 3D printers have the potential to revolutionize the way we view consumer products. That's what this project is seeking to change. Currently, most consumer products are made and distributed through manufacturing firms.

Vader 3D Printer Creates Objects with Molten Metal Father and son inventors Scott and Zackery Vader have created a revolutionary 3D printer that can create designs out of molten metal! The Vader 3D printer uses molten aluminum in place of plastic, and it can easily create complex forms without the need for lasers or fancy anodizing processes. The Vader printer uses a thermal chamber to melt aluminum, and then it uses magnetism to extrude the metal onto the printing bed. The metal shoots out in quick jets, forming a solid object in the same way an inkjet printer creates an image on paper. The printer has a maximum build volume of 250mm (or nearly 10-inches) cubed. The printer itself is massive. Vader Systems is seven months into development, and the family expects to have a final product on the market for around $10,000 sometime in 2014. + Vader Systems Via Springwise Images © Kevin Lee for Inhabitat

MX3D-Metal 3D Printer Creates Complex Metal Objects in Mid-Air Amsterdam-based Joris Laarman Lab teamed up with the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) to design a 3D printer that can produce complex metal objects in thin air. MX3D-Metal is a combination of a 3D printer and a welding machine that can print lines of steel, stainless steel, aluminium, bronze or copper. The device made its debut at the Fabricate2014 Digital Fabrication Conference in Zurich, Switzerland. The MX3C-Metal 3D printer can manufacture complex metal forms that include irregular and non-horizontal surfaces. The device will have to use an interface that will allow the user to print directly from CAD. + Joris Laarman Lab + Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) + Fabricate2014 Via Core77