Metal printing at home would be such a game changer. Let’s give it 10 years, I’m sure it will eventually reach an affordable price point.
I mean, its just a welder married to a 3D printer that we actually need.
Super cool but $150,000k USD…
Most cheap-o grade filament metal 3d printers are 10k and up, there really is no real hobbyist pricepoint for metal 3d printing. The industrial level metal 3d printers were already at 100k to million per machine. This is obviously targetting things like automotive and aerospace industry, that can easily pay those prices, not consumers. Maybe if we get more Wire DED metal 3d printers the cost might go down, or it won’t.
On top of the purchase price, I’m guessing that having something like this running in your home fab will require more safety equipment than a uv shroud and an air mover to keep things safe/non-deadly.
Yeah, like the printers using metal powder need pretty much a hazmat gear to operate.
This was also one of my concerns with the hype surrounding low cost SLS printers like Micronics, especially if they weren’t super well designed. The powder is incredibly dangerous to inhale so I wouldn’t want a home hobbyist buying that type of machine without realizing how harmful it could be. My understanding is even commercial SLS machines like HP’s MJF and FormLab’s Fuse need substantial ventilation (HEPA filters, full room ventilation, etc.) in order to be operated safely.
Metal is of course even worse. It has all the same respiratory hazards (the fine particles will likely cause all sorts of long-term lung damage) but it also presents a massive fire and explosion risk.
I can’t see these technologies making it into the home hobbyist sphere anytime soon as a result, unfortunately.
Holy fuck, 150 million?
I doubt it’ll ever be more efficient to buy than specialized machines at that price.
$150,000 thousand. Still expensive none the less
You just called it 150 million again because what you typed reads as “150 thousand thousand”
You’re right. Not sure why I wrote it that way