Amaze project aims to take 3D printing 'into metal age' | Hacker News Reader

Amaze project aims to take 3D printing 'into metal age'

bbc.co.uk

24 pointsximeng8 comments

There are tons of commercial solutions that allow 3D printing of full-metal parts, the 'metal age' for 3D printing happened a long time ago.

It's mostly a matter of price point, can you do it cheaply enough to compete with other processes (small scale casting is expensive too). Large volume metal parts are as a rule cast (which technically is an additive process too) and then the rough part is reworked a bit.

The niche for 3D printed metal parts is an interesting intersection between turn around time, strength of the resulting part, precision and capital investment to buy a printer (or to be able to rent one). In the end it's all economics.

"Additive manufacturing (or "3D printing") has already revolutionised the design of plastic products."

Well additive metal manufacturing is not new [1] and already revolutionized the design of metal products. The Amaze project is just joining forces to think out new designed components.

[1] Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zApmGFDA6ow

Edit: There are 3 methods (I know of) for 3D metal printing:

  Metal powder is fused with a laser, layer by layer.
  Metal powder is sprayed at the focal point of a laser and fused / added to the object.
  A ceramic mold is 3D printed and molten metal is cast into the mold.

yes I recall covering sintering back when I did my mech eng BTECH hem hem decades ago

You can also use "lost wax" casting (or variations on same) with 3D printing: build the positive model in wax or similar material, plaster/sand around model, melt/vaporize positive material in furnace, and then cast into mold.

Because a plastic 3d printed gun wasn't dangerous enough...

This would be really cool but kind of goes with the point made by the author of

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6551278

Guns are not hard to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDgHi_9_LX0

What is this announcement about, exactly? 3D printing with metal has been around for quite a while.

The porosity problems mentioned in the article have been solved. The machines from EOS are good enough to print small rocket chambers.

Using traditional casting techniques often wastes precious source material. Additive manufacturing - building parts up layer-on-layer from 3D digital data - produces almost "zero waste". "To produce one kilo of metal, you use one kilo of metal - not 20 kilos," says Esa's Franco Ongaro.

I don't understand. What traditional casting technique makes 95% of your metal unusable?

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