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The European Space Agency (ESA) is showing 3D-printed metal parts made onboard the International Space Station using a printer and materials the agency sent earlier this year. While 3D printing …read more Continue reading Printed in Space: 3D-Printed Metal Parts Shown Off After Returning From the ISS
3D printing metal has been somewhat of a holy grail for the last decade in the hobby 3DP scene. We’ve seen a number of solutions, including using expensive filaments that …read more Continue reading CeraMetal Lets You Print Metal, Cheaply and Easily
We are used to dealing with warping when printing with thermoplastics like ABS, but metal printers suffer from this problem, too. The University of Michigan has a new technology, SmartScan, …read more Continue reading Reducing Warping in Metal 3D Prints
If you’ve seen both a fused filament fabrication (FFF) printer and a wire welder, you may have noticed that they work on a similar basic principle. Feedstock is supplied in filament form — aka wire — and melted to deposit on the work piece in order to build up either …read more
Last week I went to the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) and it was incredible. This is a toy store for machinists and showcases the best of industrial automation. But one of the coolest trends I found at the show are all the techniques used to 3D print in metal. The best part is that many of the huge machines on display are actually running!
It’s probably better to refer to this as additive manufacturing, because the actual methods can be significantly different from your 3D printer. Below you’ll find examples of three different approaches to this process. I had …read more
Continue reading 3D Printing in Metal: the Laser and Metal Powder Printers We Saw at IMTS
You normally think of HP as producing inkjet and laser printers. But they’ve been quietly building 3D printers aimed at commercial customers. Now they are moving out with metal printers called — predictably — the HP Metal Jet. The video (see below) is a little glitzy, but the basic idea is that print bars lay down powder on a 21-micron grid. A binding agent prints on the powder, presumably in a similar way to a conventional inkjet printer. A heat source then evaporates the liquid from the binder.
The process repeats for each layer until you remove the part and …read more
Machinists are expected to make functional items from stock material, at least hat’s the one-line job description even though it glosses over many important details. [Eclix] wanted a birthday gift for his girlfriend that wasn’t just jewelry, indeed he wanted jewelry made with his own hands. After all, nothing in his skillset prohibits him from making beautiful things. He admits there were mistakes, but in the end, he came up with a recipe for two pairs of earrings, one set with sapphires and one with diamonds.
He set the gems in sterling silver which was machined to have sockets the …read more