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Next gen 3D metal printing

fabric8labs.com

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Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#111

Post by cjbgkagh »

Tossrock wrote: post #109
cjbgkagh wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there is a huge gamut of prices from aerospace to just above material costs. On the expensive side I would use it judiciously, on the economical side I would use it for just about everything and so would many others. I do a bit of DIY and a large amount of the design work is to work around limitations of cheaper materials and cheaper processes. Most of what I make is onesie-twosie where the design costs dominat…

> If I could just list designs somewhere and customers have them printed on demand, either via Amazon or some drop-ship, I could recoup a lot of the design costs so I could spend more time designing things - maybe even make a career out of it. This is literally what Shapeways does: https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace

What I meant with 'amenable to mass manufacturing' is that it would be low cost, shapeways metal printing is too expensive to be used for most things.

I specifically called out that ECAM should be amenable to low cost mass manufacturing in a way that metal SLS is not.

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#112

Post by ju-st »

tbenst wrote: post #102
ju-st wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Any references for 99.9% density with SLM copper? My understanding is that pure copper SLM printing is less frequently done as doesn’t work well with the infrared lasers on most machines, requires high heat & speed, and has more porosity than other alloys. It’s also hard to print so that it’s strong, conductive and heat stable. I think there’s still quite active research in the area, though, and no doubt there’s a lo…

Sorry I wasn't talking about density but the copper content of a powder which is printable. Googling a bit I found this presentation from 2022 showing that a density of 99.5% for pure copper is possible although at half the productivity of a copper alloy https://www.coppercouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/TS2...

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#113

Post by dpain »

darksaints wrote: post #108
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!

A couple of questions: 1) can you print on oxide, nitride, or carbide ceramics? 2) can you print on shaped materials? Like for example, printing a pcb directly onto the inner side of a rigid shell for an aerofoil/wing? 3) what sort of material restrictions come with electrochemical printing? Can you do aluminum? Titanium? 4) what is the minimum feature size? Could this, for example, print a controlled porous/wick str…

1 - Yes, we are currently doing this 2 - Right now our focus is on flat substrates, curved surfaces are a little trickier 3 - Any pure metal or alloy system that can be electroplated would be compatible with our approach. Aluminum and Titanium are difficult but not impossible. We're focused on copper as our first commercial material but have other material systems in development. 4 - Our current pixel size is 33 microns, ~50micron negative features should be doable. Controlled wick structures are actually a really good application of the technology 5 - Our primary business model actually is to offer print services to our customers. Feel free to reach out to me via email in profile if there's an application you'd like to explore

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#114

Post by Nathanael_M »

dpain wrote: post #63
Nathanael_M wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this fall on the hazardous/toxicity scale? What kind of off-gassing/risks are there, especially compared to existing high resolution powder based systems? Disclaimer: I don’t know much about this field, this may be a dumb question.

Much safer than existing powder-based systems. The feedstock is effectively water based so none of the flammability risks of metal powder. No special gases required, no high powered lasers or thermal processing sytems. That being said it still is an industrial process and requires responsible handling of the feedstock and equipment to ensure safety to personnel and the environment.

Thanks for the response!

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#115

Post by kragen »

petermcneeley wrote: post #51
kragen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, i've been thinking about that too. how did you model the field?

I dont think there was any rigor in modeling of the field. I did this entire project as one semester as one of my last undergrad courses. I wish I had more time and resources for the project but by then I knew I was headed outside the university into software development. https://darkcephas.github.io/MELED_paper/MELED_paper.pdf From what I heard the state of the art was to move away from electrodes and to use lasers.…

(another issue about lasers is that laser focal spots are pretty big)

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#116

Post by FrostKiwi »

tbenst wrote: post #102
ju-st wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Any references for 99.9% density with SLM copper? My understanding is that pure copper SLM printing is less frequently done as doesn’t work well with the infrared lasers on most machines, requires high heat & speed, and has more porosity than other alloys. It’s also hard to print so that it’s strong, conductive and heat stable. I think there’s still quite active research in the area, though, and no doubt there’s a lo…

> doesn’t work well with the infrared lasers

The copper use-case is what kick-ed off an industry-wide race towards offering blue laser as an option. There is more than just wavelength that goes into printing good copper results, but that is a major factor.

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#117

Post by justinclift »

kragen wrote: post #53
petermcneeley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think there was any rigor in modeling of the field. I did this entire project as one semester as one of my last undergrad courses. I wish I had more time and resources for the project but by then I knew I was headed outside the university into software development. https://darkcephas.github.io/MELED_paper/MELED_paper.pdf From what I heard the state of the art was to move away from electrodes and to use lasers.…

neat! i was wondering if that would work last week i feel like it's probably easier to have 1000 electrodes than 1000 lasers tho

Wonder if using the same approach that resin printers use would work?

• SLA resin printers use a superfast/accurate motorised mirror to direct the laser where its wanted

• mSLA resin printers use a strong light source instead of a laser + an LCD to mask the area they don't want exposed

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#118

Post by john_minsk »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #103
Tossrock wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get on-demand metal printing from Shapeways. Somewhat expensive compared to sendcutsend, but still far below aerospace.

Sure, there is a huge gamut of prices from aerospace to just above material costs. On the expensive side I would use it judiciously, on the economical side I would use it for just about everything and so would many others. I do a bit of DIY and a large amount of the design work is to work around limitations of cheaper materials and cheaper processes. Most of what I make is onesie-twosie where the design costs dominat…

Very detailed description. Would it be a bad idea for your customers to take your design document and test it in virtual environment and once tests are passed - you would go to production right away?

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#119

Post by cjbgkagh »

john_minsk wrote: post #118
cjbgkagh wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there is a huge gamut of prices from aerospace to just above material costs. On the expensive side I would use it judiciously, on the economical side I would use it for just about everything and so would many others. I do a bit of DIY and a large amount of the design work is to work around limitations of cheaper materials and cheaper processes. Most of what I make is onesie-twosie where the design costs dominat…

Very detailed description. Would it be a bad idea for your customers to take your design document and test it in virtual environment and once tests are passed - you would go to production right away?

Not sure on the question. I'm primarily a software guy so I'd prefer to not interact with customers at all so it could be a commission type set up. It's unlikely that I could make as much money from hardware as I do from software so while being a hardware designer sounds like fun it will likely just be in support of my software work. I do ML and water cool my GPUs to get an extra 30% perf out of them but getting water cooling blocks can be a pain with slow and unreliable supply. EKWB is currently having issues because they buy in bulk from wholesalers and push product on to vendors who then try to sell to customers so when the market dips there are cashflow problems. I would prefer to be able to buy a GPU, measure the geometry, whip up some CAD and send it off for production. It really simplifies things.

Re: Next gen 3D metal printing

#120

Post by john_minsk »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #119
john_minsk wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very detailed description. Would it be a bad idea for your customers to take your design document and test it in virtual environment and once tests are passed - you would go to production right away?

Not sure on the question. I'm primarily a software guy so I'd prefer to not interact with customers at all so it could be a commission type set up. It's unlikely that I could make as much money from hardware as I do from software so while being a hardware designer sounds like fun it will likely just be in support of my software work. I do ML and water cool my GPUs to get an extra 30% perf out of them but getting wate…

If I understand correctly: you want to create your own design of a water cooling for your GPU (let's say RTX4090) - test it to make sure it will work in the real world - and once test is successful send your CAD to factory and they can produce and assemble all components?

Are you doing it for the whole cooling unit from scratch or just 1 part? (like a fan or some holder)?

What is the most common reason you would order v2 from the manufacturer after you receive v1 and test it in the real world?

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