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Next gen 3D metal printing

fabric8labs.com

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Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#91

Post by AbrahamParangi »

dpain wrote: post #58
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #32

As someone who's built/designed multiple metal 3D printers before, this actually looks really cool. Every metal 3D printer requires high temperatures, inert and reducing gasses to prevent oxidation, and most of them require powdered metal, whether for something like DMLS or powder bed technologies. The accuracy is also impressive. One of the ancillary ideas that I and a few others came up with in exploring binder jet…

Yes! One of the major benefits from not using a powdered metal feedstock is that minimum feature size is no longer limited by powder size, and instead is determined by our electrode "pixel" size which is 33 microns today and will get even smaller over time. The room temperature deposition process also means we can print directly onto substrates like PCBs, ceramics or Silicon wafers to enable some very unique function…

very cool that you don’t need to worry about thermal effects, nice work!

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#92

Post by michaelt »

cpitman wrote: post #68
dpain wrote: post #55

CTO of Fabric8 here - happy to answer any questions you may have about the technology or company. As you can tell we've got a process that's quite different than other metal AM techniques with some very unique benefits that we're excited to share!

Your website mentions printing on pcbs, do you expect this to be a competitive option for pcb prototyping or manufacture?

PCB prototype manufacturing is already exceptionally cheap compared to pretty much all other forms of outsourced manufacturing.

You can get 10 PCBs for $20 including worldwide shipping. Pricing for CNC or laser cutting or 3D printing just doesn't go that low.

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#94

Post by InDubioProRubio »

Hextinium wrote: post #74
reaperman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like even in a vacuum it could still make a metal foam, but perhaps would help minimize defects?

That's just PVD or CVD, which does massively decrease defects but being a gaseous process slows down growth considerably.

Parallelization? As in you grow layers upon layers in parallel, align them and chemically bond them?

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#95

Post by ponyous »

godelski wrote: post #72
tombert wrote: post #20

I saw a video doing something like awhile ago [1], and I thought the idea of using electroplating made sense, but I know absolutely nothing about chemical engineering or material science. It's interesting to see this idea in action, though with my limited experience with electroplating it seems like it'd be absurdly slow. [1] https://youtu.be/W1d36wbx_yg

I never noticed this before but at 2:10 when he mentions the word subscribe, the subscribe button animates. How long has this been happening?

Same happens with “like” I just noticed this a couple of days ago!

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#96

Post by sesuximo »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #62
dpain wrote: post #55

CTO of Fabric8 here - happy to answer any questions you may have about the technology or company. As you can tell we've got a process that's quite different than other metal AM techniques with some very unique benefits that we're excited to share!

It’s really cool and I wish I had one of these machines. On the assumption that I couldn’t afford such a machine myself for DIY, it would be really cool to have a send-cut-send like service. It seems like the relatively gentle process and I assume predictable results with minimal post processing would lend itself to an high degree of automation. Perhaps a scale out manufacturing set up where the speed of an individua…

I’d buy some parts if there was a service! Could be a good way to get the word out

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#97

Post by ju-st »

FrostKiwi wrote: post #89
tbenst wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The high thermal conductivity of copper makes it difficult to maintain needed temperatures during SLM. Also, copper is prone to oxidation at high temperatures, further complicating (thermal based) laser melting 3D printing techniques. It’s more typical to print copper alloys than pure copper.

Those are solved issues. > oxidation at high temperatures SLM machines typically use an Argon gas chamber. DED machines use an Argon gas shield. > It’s more typical to print copper alloys than pure copper. In the context of modern SLM, it depends on your definition of "pure" and "alloy". During the process, a bit of resin to is mixed into the powder and heat treated in a final step to get to 99.9% pure copper. edit:…

Printing pure copper (99.9%) is possible since years with SLM process using lasers with an appropriate wavelength

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#99

Post by naasking »

I was interested in electrochemical 3D printing awhile back:

1. Deposition can be very precise (they say micron-level resolution here), but it's typically slow for a naive approach. That's not necessarily a problem if you need that precision. They say their approach is fast, probably by using some kind of array of nozzles (think an inkjet printer head).

2. You can also selectively run the process in reverse, so an electrochemical printer is actually a combo additive and subtractive manufacturing machine.

3. Because it's electrochemistry, I believe such a 3D printer is mostly restricted to depositing pure elemental metals and only a few alloys. This severely restricts your material selections.

Very cool to see this commercialized though, I'm curious how far they can take it.

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#100

Post by naasking »

heisenbit wrote: post #85
kragen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in general electrolytic processes are very energy-intensive, and i'm sure fabric8labs's process is no exception

Based on the graph the process is producing way less CO2 than other additive processes. Being low temperature this intuitively seems a credible claim. Maybe you are concerned about high currents which is true but since voltage is low that does not multiply to much.

It's because that chart is measuring end-to-end energy use. Other metal printing approaches require a lot of energy to make the metal powders, so when you include that the other approaches are a lot worse.
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