Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Iro3d 3D Prints in Powdered Metal
Hackaday: Printing with plastic and even resin is getting fairly common. Metal printing, though, is still in the realm of the exotic. A company called Iro3D is aiming to change that with a steel printer that you can buy in beta for about $5000. That seems steep when you can get plastic printers for under $200, but it is sheer bargain basement for something that can print in real metal.
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We are living in a technological revolution, and we have been since the invention of sliced bread. When 3D Printers first came out, they were mostly inaccessible, mostly in beta testing, and they seemed unrealistic. Like, how would 3D printing even work? Well, here we are, years later, and they’ve changed the materials, to yet again, revolutionize every industry. If you had the program, and the money to buy a metal 3D Printer, you could simply print out a car part you were missing, or on a possibly unrealistic scale, build a metal safe, or a door handle. The benefits probably outweigh the cost provided, of course, that you can find or create the blueprints to print on the machine. The video shows the process of how the Iro3D works, which gives a clearer insight into how it is accomplished, but somehow, it still seems like that’s 100 years down the road, and yet, it’s happening today.
3D printing in metal actually works similar to the way 3D printing in ceramic/clay. Ceramic 3D printers don't create a crucible that isn't like fused together yet, but a fully formed object that needs to be fired and glazed. I'm excited that we are able to explore so many new applications of plastic mediums with the advent of 3D printers. There are so many designs that can be made of plastics and that are turning previously non-plastic materials into plastic type mediums, for example, the delicate three dimensional lattices that can be modeled in software can now be printed in plastics, in ways that molds and other plastic casting cannot achieve. For my Phipps project, I proposed that my colander be produced on a ceramic 3D printer. My design had a delicate structure that could not be produced through traditional hand building techniques, but could be modeled and printed on a 3D printer.
This is such an interesting idea for a 3-D printer. The ability to print in metals would be amazing for anyone who has tried to do any machining they would know that if a machine was able to get to a certain level of detail then it could help in the process of creating small intricate parts. This kind of printer is such a good example of a combination of proven ideas to create a solid final product. I'd never thought of using a 3-d printer in way in which it almost works as using a foundry setting in a cast that then gets put in a kiln. My only wonder with this kind of method is if calibration can really get it to within a certain degree of accuracy as the machine would possibly have difficulty with certain shapes and objects. I think this presents a really interesting idea and brings to market a great product for consumers and other inventors to play with in order to create a better and more efficient metal 3-d printer.
The thought of 3D printing with metal is incredible and the fact that we are on the verge of it being a real possibility is absolutely amazing. Being able to create and develop many of the necessary parts for any type of machinery and easily replicate it through 3D printing would be incredibly beneficial in the increasingly commercialized, consumer driven world that we are in today. It will truly revolutionize the technological industry if this becomes a widespread usage, and it will become a way to produce things faster as other forms of 3D printing. The process of 3D printing is also very interesting to me as it is something I had not previously thought about in regards to the kiln process when dealing with ceramics and potentially metals. The videos truly cleared up the way metal 3D printing, specifically Iro3D, functions and it will be interesting to see how it develops even further in the up and coming years.
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