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Comment by Filligree | Hacker News Reader

Definitely not. If you as a consumer want to do so, then your best bet is printing a mold for casting.

You could almost certainly source a cylindrical body to pour the cast into for cheaper and easier than 3D printing one - of almost any dimension. The tricky part is in the coring shape (for thrust profile), not the shape of the cylinder.

That said, 3D printing an easily-removable mold for coring, such as from wax, would be amazing.

There are 3d-printers (and fairly cheap toolheads) that can handle ceramics, i.e. clay. Resolution isn't anywhere near as good as PLA, so in practice people often print a mold to make the mold from, but it's an option.

I think long term there is no reason for Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing (ECAM) to stay expensive as it uses TFT display technology which is mature and electroplating solution is widely available. Maybe patents will keep it expensive.

Does it need to be done in a non-reactive atmosphere (ie nitrogen) or anything along those lines?

If the failure cases are dangerous (magnesium fire?), then the safety precautions might keep it out of general consumer availability.

It builds on normal electroplating which is already a safe DIY activity, best not do drink it though.

This is selective electroplating by only applying electric current to pixel sized areas and building up the object layer by layer like a resin printer. It's truly amazing what it can do. It's just really new.

https://fabric8labs.com/

Cool. That looks super interesting. :)

Made a submission about it, as it looks so interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40803783

Seen this? https://youtu.be/W1d36wbx_yg

I had not, looks cool. I'm gonna wait 10 years and see if this (ECAM) gets to Bambu Labs price and quality, if not then maybe I'll DIY one.

Which would rule out any cooling channels inside the bell.

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