Laser Deposition

New to me, fusing metal particles with a laser, clever way to build a model with a welding bead. Another way to sit down at the old computer and ‘Print to Laser’. :grin:

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That was very cool.

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Another one for the GF hopper. One of the interchangable heads :stuck_out_tongue:

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You should look at the video I posted over here:

More cool toys I can't afford:

DMG Mori had this machine at the 2014 IMTS show. Depositing powder and then machining it. This is what makes me excited about 3D printing (not the crappy FDM printers everyone likes to buy, no offense if you have one, I’ve just found them to be super unreliable and a waste of time to make something of lower quality in the same amount of time I could’ve spent on a mill or lathe…sure the print takes ten minutes or only a couple hours, but you have to dial in the parameters just right and make multiple prints because the print head clogged or your stepper motor skipped…the Stratasys Elite machines are awesome though…they must work on pure magic because they work perfect on each and every print…for the most time)…

…stepping off soap-box…sorry about that.

While 3D printing with powder is pretty cool, I have to think that 3D printing with wire feedstock is the future. All the energy that it takes to make the metal powder compared to the simple process of drawing down wire has to be a huge advantage on material costs.

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That was a cool video.

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The possibilities are endless!!

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Laser Additive 3D printing is very interesting (for its possibilities), but I would really need a bigger place to add a multi-axis milling machine, lathe, powder coating enclosure, and … Santa says, I have not been THAT good of boy :gift:

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There are lots of things I print that you can’t make on a mill or lathe. I own a CNC mill, and while very powerful, it has use cases just like an FDM printer. The advantage of FDM really is for the price there is no other technology that can do this, and you can print in an incredibly wide variety of materials. I print in PLA/PHA, Metal filled PLA, fiber filled PLA, various nylons, amphora, polycarbonate and TPU. Yes they are finicky, but any Mill (particularly CNC) or lathe that isn’t finicky is also extremely expensive. The “baby” tormach is $10000 when appropriately equipped. And you get a feed rate wrong, or a worn end-mill and you produce crap as well. You aren’t wrong that 3D FDM printers are tweaky, just that all the other devices are too…

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Spot on, which is why they’ve become so popular. I worked in the Student Shop at college though and I’d see folks come in wanting to print something simple instead of making it by hand on a machine. That’s part of where my frustration comes.

Yeah, and it still has interference issues with itself. Same shop bought a Tormach with tool changer and indexing head. The tool changer and spindle always crashed with each other and we had to drill holes in the casting the first day we got the machine (I forget why but it seemed like a design flaw and not just a manufacturing issue). Not impressed with them at all. We sent them a letter and are only 30 minutes from their facility and didn’t receive great customer service. I think if we had bought the bare bones from them my tune might be different (less things to go wrong and lower expectations… Happiness = Reality - Expectations)

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That’s pretty fantastic! I’ll have to keep them in mind for some projects at work. I’m curious to see what there design rules are.

This place does 3d printed ceramics. From taking to them, it seems they get very high density alumina from this process (97-98%).

I’m stealing that :grinning:

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