3D printing with titanium

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I tried additive fabrication of aluminum with a TIG torch. I could pile up a column about 1/4" diameter and 2" high before my wrist lost the steadying support of the table. It was at night school so I couldn't find a firebrick to try carving and filling a mold.

-jsw

Gosh I wish my 3D printer was that good that it would do metal also.

The company I bought from has a metal one with like specs.

I move vertically by 70 microns. print in ABS, PLA, Nylon.

Still learning but works nicely I have 3 colors. :-)

Martin E

Very interesting. Watch out for one thing in these discussions of EB and laser production of 3D additive metal parts: a lot of the people writing about it mix up the terms "sintering" and "melting."

This one gets it right, although there is a contradiction in the description that I'd like to ask them about. How do you HIP a complex part? The answer to that is the important part of the technology.

================ As the filiment [thermoplastic] printers are essentially computer controlled hot melt glue guns, would it be possible for someone to rig up a wire feed mig/tig torch and print with metal, possibly using a graphite platten to both conduct the current and release the part?

What technology is out there to accurately position molten metal micro dots/pixels? How small do flame spray plasma units go and how small a bead can they deposit?

There was an article in the past year or so on someone doing exactly that, building a larger 3D printer with a MIG welder and getting decent POC results. I'm not sure if anyone has taken it beyond that initial POC, but I expect someone is fiddling with it.

Nanites!

Actually, the standard method is tin cans. No joke. It's used a lot on aerospace parts and the advanced powder-metallurgy tool steels, like CPM Rex 121.

But you can't get those tin cans around a complex part. So I'm curious. Something new may have come about since I was last writing about these materials.

It is made under foundry sand. Nozzles are deep in the sand and when done, the user reaches in and grabs the item and then the fun begins - getting rid of the sand...

They also have Food and another Candy. And so on - they invented the process and have a wide range of units. Not cheap but good.

Martin

Martin

Laser Sintering (SLS) and direct metal Printing (DMP)

Lots of frontiers are being blasting open.

Martin

Sounds like a good market for the raw material suppliers, kinda the same as the suppliers of plastic filament. Way overpriced for the material being provided. Oversized fishing line, pretty much the same process to make.

I imagine the meetings went kinda like, "Hey, let's promote a new printer, and follow the inkjet model of low machine cost, high consumable cost."