This machine was meant for mods.

[Flavored Coffee]

Hello,

A little bit of arc welder technology added to this device, and it could print in any metal you can weld. I've just thought of this but, there are wire fed arc welders. The hot plate, would be a thing of plastic but, a graphite plate, would be the work surface with the addition of a thin foil used to start the print on. But, this thing could easily perform in a garage and literally make titanium, steel, aluminum, or even brass, silver or other precious metal. The real difference would be the hot end and how much current it carries. For some metals, a special noble gas enclosure but, really not allot of modifications would be required. The dollar factor would go up significantly but, not by as much as you might think. A 5 grand machine could do it with the right glass enclosure.

Compared to laser metal printers, a arc welder should be several times more efficient, and the real deal with the bonding of metal to metal, is keeping out the reactive gases, like oxygen, nitrogen, co2 etc.. Argon, or helium should fix the atmosphere in there. It's just that every time there's a burst of heat, the gas will expand, and you'll just need to keep feeding the container so the environment is ideal for the metal to metal bond.

[Flateric]

Tried it, not as simple as you may think from many seen and unforeseen directions.

[Flavored Coffee]

How much did you know about welding before you started? Yea, you've got this, PLA, ABS, and Nylon. You think I wouldn't consult a welder before I tackled this? I might even consult somebody else that knew more that I do on several levels. Did you consult a metallurgist, or tackle something as big as electroplating, where the list of chemicals and metals is so long, and huge that you've got three dictionaries full of how tos?

I'm sure you're aiming so high, if it works, if you do it yourself, you expect to get rich. But, it's how you don't care, and don't include anyone smarter than you on so many levels, you can't do it.

As a whole, this printer was never less than a group effort, and it works. Do you expect to run off with the gold, and leave everyone else in your dust. A simple plan of management can work better than you just searching for team players and the right educations, and you can buy the kit.

If you simply understood, you don't know it all. Allot of the problems that you face in building prototypes, constructing original ideas, might honestly fall together when you humbled yourself enough to know that you don't know everything, and it can take four years of college to get good at one thing.

[Flateric]

I am a certified welder through the CWB, Canadian welding bureau and have 8 years at that level of on the job experience. Good enough?

[Flavored Coffee]

That's welding. But, in ship building there are bigger welds. In the construction of tanks, bigger welds. Some welds are so difficult, they are left to robots, and if you are a welder, then you know, there are welds that you are incapable of preforming but, a machine can do it.

In a war of science vs skill, science will always win. Independent ventures, miss important milestones. I would say, you just didn't think of something, or figure it all out, and team work would have seen you to the finish but, something else got in your way, overconfidence?

[Captain Starfish]

[img]http://emo.simonlockwood.net/abandonthread[/img]

[Mac The Knife]

http://youtu.be/vAi3fUlMdHk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Flateric]

Who says I didn't get it to work?

Who says I gave up?

I wish you well with your project however.

[gestalt73]

Heheheh, oh my sweet 7 pound 4 ounce baby jesus, I've been giggling about this thread for several minutes now.
I knew I'd be in for a treat when I saw the thread author, and I wasn't disappointed.

For some reason I had assumed that you had been banned, but I guess not.

You know what they say: "Every village needs one..."

Firstly, I will agree with you. This machine *IS* meant for mods. It is extensible in untold numbers of ways. Many of which SeeMeCNC have anticipated, and many that they have not. It's more than a little awesome seeing what can be accomplished with it.

Alright FC, here's the deal. There *ARE* many people experimenting with various methods of printing with metal. There are several existing designs that use your *EXACT* technique, with varying degrees of success. Would an arc-welding approach work better with a delta design than cartesian? Beats me. I would have to mirror Flateric's sentiment: "I wish you well with your project." While you're not breaking new ground in any way with your unoriginal idea, you never know, maybe you've stumbled onto something that can move the technology forward in an exciting new way.

I was actually going to spend a few paragraphs taking you down a few pegs, then realized that there was nothing that I could add to that conversation that hasn't already been said.

So I'm going to appear helpful, and perform a quick google search on arc-welding 3d printers:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=3d ... arc+welder

And pull up an article from several published in December of last year, showing you exactly what your idea looks like when someone else has already taken the time to explore it:
http://hackaday.com/2013/12/07/a-rostoc ... d-printer/

And then I'm going to point out that they've accomplished basic additive manufacturing using a MIG welder, which is fixed over an inverted Rostock Type platform.

[img]http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/ ... =580&h=373[/img]

And then I'm going to point out the shortcoming of this type of application by showing you a picture of a resulting part:

[img]http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/ ... =508&h=450[/img]

And then I'm going to point out that because of the nature of the technique, the parts are very rough, uneven, and are generally not of much use without machining afterwards.

If you have any more questions about your unoriginal idea, please let me know, I'd be happy to google answers for those questions as well.

[Tinyhead]

For some reason I had assumed that you had been banned, but I guess not.

I thought the same thing. I'm still pretty certain he's a troll on here.

[Flavored Coffee]

The Government wants that Snail!

[img]http://emo.simonlockwood.net/abandonthread[/img]

[Flavored Coffee]

Who says I didn't get it to work?

Who says I gave up?

I wish you well with your project however.

Okay, now I believe you really are a welder. Even the laser machines are using alloys that are not typical. I would figure, whatever the model, it would require some sanding or fine machining to finish it, and potentially be made a little larger for the sake of fine machined parts.

If you know how to use either magnetic fields and high current pulses, low frequency, or very high voltage arcs in a annealing furnace. You can achieve forged strengths on machined parts. You're just knocking the atoms around into a denser packed state, and that's not practically measurable. There are different methods of annealing, and you can heat then quench it in an oil bath, even several times, and the machined metal, will increase in hardness each time. The surface cools quickly, shrinks, and contracts on the softer warmer internal structure packing the metal into a tighter harder configuration. Just because, it's printed, doesn't mean it can be durable for a given purpose.

The problem with welding aluminum, is typically oxygen. The stuff rather burn than melt. I've paid a welder to do some work with aluminum for me, and I paid for some holes.

[Flavored Coffee]

I can see from the hacks, there's some problems. Graphite conducts electricity pretty well but, it's a resistive semiconductor that really just handles heat well. I was rethinking it, and remembered that. Under the graphite should be a beryllium copper ground plane. If you look at the ground planes they're using thick pieces of metal. It's also obvious that they've chosen metals that are harder to work with to begin with. Brass, is easier for a braising rod, and less oxygen and nitrogen sensitive. Typically, even solder is a better medium to start with.

Even when you look at laser systems, they're using alloys, and until you're really looking at print specific alloys, I doubt quality will follow. The hacks page, was informative, and the need for a noble gas wasn't in question. Cheaper and easier than a high rate of gas flowing through the print nozzle, is a gas filled chamber, with a stable rate of flow minimizing the amount gas required. Helium would work just as well as xenon, krypton or argon. I would say, which ever was most cost effective. It will allow for mixing an cooling in a chamber vs open air or through the print nozzle. Reason being, the cold gas just gets as hot as it can coming out from the source, it expands and stays hot, no real mixing.

For it to really work, would only prove that an arc welder uses less power than an inefficient laser to print. Lasers only produce about 35% maximum in light per watt. So, you can have all of the energy per watt if it's just raw current and voltage. Precision would lean more towards the diameter of the wire and which alloy, and not how fine the powder the laser is sintering. A finer wire takes less amperes. I would examine first, wire welding machines use to weld the ends of copper wire together to make one continuous piece of wire for extra long windings.

Frankly, since I know that the laser sintering systems are using specially designed alloys, I don't expect different from an arc welder, and without a real metallurgist working on site, doubt it will happen very quickly. But, you could start off with 32 AWG bare copper wire, and dilute flux in alcohol to spray it on before the next layer and just do it with a second nozzle that's a needle jet. Just pin down a 32 AWG foil, over the graphite before you start, like we already do with the glass plate.

Getting the best form of graphite, my not even be economically feasible right now because, they only making it for brush motors. But, it's a combo of copper, or silver and graphite, and it's much more conductive but, still very heat resistant.

SeeMeCNC, should be more or less thinking about Submarine Tenders, rolled in bread crumbs and deep fat fried in a military contract because, arc welders would use allot less power at see.

I think that the videos show allot of expectations, without realizations. Overconfidence, and starting with a goal to jump too high, where, they should have been happy with the bronze.

My Grandfather and I built a Go-Cart, in the early 70s, using a briggs and stratton motor from a rototiller that he retired. We got together, and made the frame of the go cart out of some steel pipe and a bed frame. We didn't use the inflatable wheels, we used the hard rubber, and impossible to flatten cart wheels. The acid flux on every welding rod, turned into slag, that had to be hammered off of the weld, in order to expose the true bonding weld. Most of the pictures from the hack web sites, look like 3D slag. A bunch of oxides, and results of flux, and the printer is basically printing on top of slag. Slag, is crispy, full of air bubbles, flaky, brittle, and has no strength. The alloys we need, and the flux, if any, cannot produce any slag, or we need to hammer, or grind between layers. If they figured it out for lasers, there is no question that it can be done for an arc welder using a noble gas chamber. The acid flux, is combining with oxygen and nitrogen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and some metal, to produce the enemy of the print and slag.

If anything, this printer is scalable, the kits, if they always have the Rambo Unit, are stuck at 16 bits. But, there's nothing about a 64 bit motherboard, that cannot be used. So, the level of precision can be very high, with a multiple nozzle system. Ultra fine wire for edges, and thick for fills. Start with the bronze era metals and alloys and you'll have some ultra fine prints. If you want harder and stronger metals, this whole machine is scalable, and can use a much higher level of precision software. Don't piss on the military, they are here for the simple fact that we can agree to disagree and argue. If it's a pissing contest you want, I had a labrador retriever, that would aim so high, he could piss a foot over the top of his head. Dogs, think about how high they have to sniff to calculate how big the other dog is, and so when he'd bark, even the biggest dogs ran. So, if there's a moral to this story, look at where I'm pissing, and think about where that hits the pole.

[tgreening]

No dog in this fight, and little experience in the 3d print world, as envisioned here anyway, but 3D metal printing has been doable for at least the last 2 decades. So far the only thing it really lacks is any practical application. Until someone comes up with a way to do it A) accurately so the finished part is, well, finished, and B) fast, there isn't much attraction to the process other than the gee whiz factor for most people. It's really not even good enough for prototyping.

My primary welding material supplier (20 yrs ago) experimented with this as a "can it be done" exercise, and yes it could and was done. They used to "print" metal goblets from standard off the shelf weld materials. Gas shielded, no flux cover, so peening or otherwise cleaning the weld prior to the next pass was not required. And of course they didn't use a delta type apparatus to do the printing, but rather a standard run of the mill robotic arm with a standard run of the mill mig type weld gun attached. The kind pulling duty in robotic assembly lines all over the world. Pretty neat to do if you liked drinking your ale from funky looking metal goblets ala King Arthur and his Knights, but of not much use otherwise.

So, your idea is neither new or unique, like many supposedly new ideas.

[p38nut]

I'll throw a bone in here. Please checkout this article.

http://blog.cnccookbook.com/2014/08/18/ ... 8-16351585" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good luck and please continue on this bashing of each other. Mike

[Captain Starfish]

Let's separate the message from the messenger here for a minute.

No, not bashing.

On a lot of forums which are much more social than this one, people who jump on and start spouting rubbish are harmless and good fun and no-one really cares.

On forums like this with a very focussed, technical audience and a high intake of people who are just getting started, though? People jumping in and spouting utter nonsense can do a heck of a lot of damage. Because the n00bs (and we were all there, I'm still there for a lot of this stuff) listen to anyone who sounds authoritative and will spend time and money following their ideas not knowing any better.

As a result, I think it's right to initially question gently those people who join up and start making dubious claims. Just to let the n00bs know: beware, don't take this on faith.

And when their responses are particularly special and they go on to make other claims and add their special kind of crazy in a carpet bombing of the forum? Well, I don't think it would be fair on the n00bs if that kind of rubbish was allowed to be posted unchallenged.

As to the message?

Yeah, additive metal manufacturing has been around to some extent for a long time and has generally been horrible and fairly useless. But it's starting to emerge from the research labs into a real manufacturing alternative. Koenigsegg are using it for their new turbos now, and there are others around who are doing similar small production type work with it. Metal arc might be too unreliable but the gear that carries powder in the shroud gas stream for laser sintering and other, similar technologies look damned promising.

I for one cannot wait to see what's around the corner.

[Leithan]

I don’t see an advantage to using a "weld" style over the sintered powder method of additive metal printing other than the availability of cheap Mig type welding machines. I am by no means an expert welder but I am comfortable in the use of Mig, Tig and arc welding, at least at a hobbyist/shade tree mechanic level. I would think that anyone who has joined metal to metal using more metal would recognize how impractical using it as an accurate medium for 3D printing is. Molten metal does not in any way act like plastic or powder; it flows like water at the temps required to get it to stick to anything. There are just too many variables involved to get it to flow exactly and with enough precision to make an accurate and acceptable printed part that won’t require a lot of finishing. Not to mention the possibility of voids, cracks, carbon inclusions, and all kinds of nasties that would render the part useless for most applications. I just don’t see any advantages to it over something like sintered powder printing that’s all ready being used. I am pretty sure that’s what Shapeways is using for their metal prints. I ordered an antenna from them printed in brass, it was a complex skew planar antenna. It was absolutely beautiful. At least that's my two cents worth.

[Mac The Knife]

I can see it being used for replacing cast iron parts. In some instances, repairing the part by brazing or welding will not hold up to stress and they have to be final machined anyways.

[Captain Starfish]

Big difference for machining between normal metal and a weld, though - and I'd guess it would be similar with a layered print of weld beads. Super hard (goodbye tooling after half a job), brittle and with that length of bead there will be a high probability of faults.

Time wise, if I had to finish a weld-print with traditional machining, I'd rather ignore the printer and just start with a lump of billet and machine it from scratch.

[Mac The Knife]

You may have to anneal it to machine it. One of the reasons welds are hard is that they are allowed to cool down to quickly. (been in the welding construction industry for a while) .

[tgreening]

Whether a weld is hard or not has a lot to do with it's chemistry. Run of the mill off the shelf fabrication wire shouldn't be anything any machine shop worthy of the title couldn't handle in an as-welded state. Most of that stuff barely registers on the rockwell chart. Once you start adding alloys things can change dramatically, but even a lot of that can be handled with nothing more than a stress relieve required.