Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/241540
NUTS & BOLTS continued from page 27 3D Printing With Metal: Engineers Create DIY Welding 3D Printer for Under $1,500 A DIY 3D metal printer requires slightly more safety equipment than commercial plastic in a paper appearing in the journal IEEE Access. The primary ingredient in This isn't the first venture only real limit with this model, to meld metal and 3D printing. besides imagination, is the thick- Another 3D printer, the Mini ness of the welding wire, which printers. Chenlong Zhang the metal printer is a small com- Metal Maker, can be used to make determines the minimum resolu- Currently, the commercial 3D mercial MIG welder, which uses a small custom metal pieces, like tion of the object that the printer printing landscape is dominated special wire to maintain an electric jewelry, and will set you back just can make. by contraptions that create every- current that heats metals and $750 (unassembled) or $1,000 Given that people have thing from toys to watchbands joins them together. The team also (assembled). Instead of wire, this already been able to create plastic out of plastic. But there's another used an open-source 3D printer model prints with a blend of metal guns with 3D printers, the advent manufacturing revolution in the schematic derived from the plastic and clay. The piece is fired in a of metal 3D printers will surely making: metal 3D printing. RepRap printer. kiln afterwards, removing binders make it easier for people to fabri- and water, and leaving behind cate guns and knives at home. But Big companies like Rolls- "Anyone who has more or less Royce and GE are already working any kind of welding system can the metal. Mini Metal Maker has is that a good enough reason to on using 3D printing to make build our version of a 3D printer raised more than $21,000 so far stifle the development of metal 3D metal parts for jet engines, but and get off to the races," MTU on the crowdfunding website printing? their machines have a startup engineer Joshua Pearce said in a Indiegogo, and expects to start cost of hundreds of thousands of phone interview. shipping printer kits to backers in "I've thought a lot about this, and I've come to these conclusions: September All technology can be used for 2014. good and bad things," Pearce says. In con- "You can absolutely use this to trast, the do- make any manner of weapon, but it-yourself the potential good implications model that annihilate the bad ones." Pearce and In the developing world, colleagues having access to custom metal have put fabrication could be transforma- together is tive. People could get parts for more suited pumps, or windmills, or other to making essential machines, without having machine to pay the premium in money and parts for a time while waiting for replacement metal shop parts to be shipped out. People or a garage could print out the sprockets, gears – someplace and other parts of a bicycle, and with exten- use local materials like bamboo to sive fire create the frame. protection Pearce says he's also excited equipment and safety gear. This about the potential that 3D metal for the garage hobbyist. Now, objects from layers of steel wire, 3D metal printer prototype isn't printing affords for scientific engineers from Michigan Tech- heated and extruded through a something you want to have in the research. If scientists have access nological University in Houghton nozzle. living room. to cheaper and more customizable dollars – not exactly within reach have rigged up their version of a Their metal printer creates "We can [make] any 3D object Pearce and his colleagues 3D metal printer that can be made that could fit in a breadbox," Pearce printed out a sprocket and other with less than $1,500 of materials says – with the caveat that the parts with their prototype, and and some open-source software. object cannot have any vertical are already thinking about how They outline their process – and holes running through it, because to improve the next version of the include plans and a shopping list – of how the welding machine works. printer. They're also testing other kinds of metals besides steel. The IDA UNIVERSAL January-February 2014 tools, research can progress even faster. "What that'll do is accelerate everything," he says. ● www.ibtimes.com, Roxanne Palmer, Dec 2, 2013 Nuts and Bolts continued on page 51 39