3D printing coming soon(er)?

[Zathros]

The process uses sintered metal powder. The shape is held together with a bonding agent and , for a watch gear, for example, the powder fills a mold and a dye presses the shape under extreme pressure. The gear, which is held together ( but could be crushed between your fingers) is put in an oven and the metal fuses together. The same process is done with the 3D printer. When the part is made, the excess powder is cleaned off and then taken to an oven where it solidifies under great heat.

I worked in a small machine shop and banged out these gears, you would not believe how simple the process is and how many of these gears you can make in an hour. 100 or more small 1/4" inch gears a minute. These were taken by the bucket load to the oven and just spread out carefully, a little while later, you have solid perfect gears.

[Pem Tech]

Incredible.....
I'm looking forward to the day both 3D printers and laser cutters drop below a grand.

[RAFleischman]

I don't believe there is a sintering process in 3D printing. It is just layering very thin layers of molten plastic (MakerBOT uses ABS) to build up the geometry of the part.

MIM (Metal Injection Molding) uses an injection molding machine and a tool (die, not dye) to create a part. During the post molding sintering process the part will shrink quite a bit which causes nightmares for the tool designers & molding guys.

[Zathros]

Originally Posted by RAFleischman

I don't believe there is a sintering process in 3D printing. It is just layering very thin layers of molten plastic (MakerBOT uses ABS) to build up the geometry of the part.

MIM (Metal Injection Molding) uses an injection molding machine and a tool (die, not dye) to create a part. During the post molding sintering process the part will shrink quite a bit which causes nightmares for the tool designers & molding guys.

The plastic is just one method. Laser 3D printers use a sintered metal.

"A large number of competing technologies are available to do 3D printing. Their main differences are found in the way layers are built to create parts. Some methods use melting or softening material to produce the layers, e.g. selective laser sintering (SLS) and fused deposition modeling (FDM), while others lay liquid materials that are cured with different technologies. In the case of laminated object manufacturing, thin layers are cut to shape and joined together."

I put this here as Wiki is going offline for a while to protest some legislation in 9 hrs from when this post is made.


3D printing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia