With the existence of CNC machines what’s with the desire of hobbyists to have a have a metal 3d printer. Wouldn’t they both be able to achieve basically the same results? If not better with the CNC machine?
With the existence of CNC machines whats with the desire of hobbyists to have a have a metal 3d printer.
>subtractive manufacturing
>printer
Shudup and stop using the current fad word and come back later when you know the difference.
I know the printer melts and reforms plastic and the machine cuts metal so they technically do different things but you would do basically the same shit in projects if not more with the CNC machine so why do you need the printer. Of course they’re not the same though
Please CNC me a hollow sphere of 4cm radius inside of a 10cm cube.
No, you may not weld two halves together.
Completely different manufacturing techniques. With additive manufacturing you can embed things like sensors and have intricate internal structures that are not possible with subtractive manufacturing.
Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Actual 3D-printing and machining instructor here. First of all: 3D-printers are CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines, so read up on the subject before asking questions like this.
Anyways, hobbyists want to make small batches of very variable stuff, possibly with the desire to make it reasonably to very strong. They have found that 3D-printers (CNC additive manufacturing) can do this, but the strength leaves much to be desired because hobbyist-grade 3D-printers only use plastics - and not the strong kind, either. So, they would want to buy something that can create meta objects.
Even for a hobbyist, a conventional subtractive manufacturing machine like a lathe or mill can be prohibitively expensive, nevermind a proper CNC controlled one. Yes, some users kludge their own (as have I), but it's too expensive for most anyways.
That means they see 3D-printing as an option, If we could only just replace the plastic with metal, we'd be golden! Right. Problem is, CNC additive manufacturing machines for metals are more expensive right now, than CNC subtractive machines (mills, lathes). You're talking about millions of dollars, not hobbyist grade.
There is one light at the end of the tunnel: plastic additive manufacturing used to be that expensive too. With scale, we might see a reduction in price in the metal 3D-printing field, like we saw with FDM. I can remember our faculty buying a 30-40K Stratasys 15 (?) years ago, while nowadays you can buy a <200 USD Ender 3 that can print acceptably for any hobbyist. Metal 3D-printing may one day be consumer grade, and I'd say sinterable filaments (e.g. BASF) have the most chance of accomplishing that.
>Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Also this.
2/2
>You can do that on any $300 3D printer with metal powder filament.
Having tried that exact BASF filament on a 200 dollar printer: no, not really.
Having tested those parts: no, they are not as strong as full metal (but they can get very, very close), but functionally speaking they are orders of magnitude stronger than plastic FDM prints. Then again, you could also consider lost PLA casting as a functional workflow to also achieve orders of magnitude higher strength (even with weaker metals such as bronze).
There are a few metal additive manufacturing methods:
>powder bed laser sintered
Needs powerful lasers, deals with fine combustable powders so needs a lot of shielding gas, rather precise but not that strong, expensive
>powder bed e-beam sintered
as above, stronger, but even more expensive
>binder jetting
same problems with fine metal powders as above, no need for laser or e-beam, but needs to be baked at high temperature to sinter together
>directed energy deposition
Needs even more powerful lasers, somewhat precise, expensive, can probably print variable alloys
>a fricking mig welder on a robot
marginally more expensive than a CNC router, requires post-processing for any precise surfaces, can probably print variable alloys
>electrochemical
in the fdm printer price range, precision depends on print head geometry, can probably print variable alloys, metal selection is limited, can combine with ECM in the same machine for ± manufacturing
I've not seen much progress in electrochemical 3D printing lately, but it seems to me like the only technology that can possibly make precision parts for a sufficiently low price for a hobbyist to consider it. The others are hard-limited by powerful lasers. Binder jetting may be possible to make for a thousand dollars or two, not including the kiln. Also metal powders are expensive. Mig welder robot is already kinda accessible (2-5 thousand dollars i guess) but not that useful without having a CNC mill/lathe already.
That exists but CNC is more expensive, and buying metal stock scares the kind of so yboy thats into 3d printing so theres not really a big crossover. Like 90% of the diy 3d printing market is making anime figurines vs. cnc is mostly for guns
Would love a small form factor cnc that didn't break the bank. I have a 3018 cnc, all aluminum I started upgrading to make it more usable. That went on hold when work wouldn't let me use a mill to make custom steel side gantry plates for installing my ballscrew assembly onto.
the ghostgunner is $2500
>https://ghostgunner.net/product/ghost-gunner-3-deposit/
I dont really know much about them but I dont think anything else even comes close in that price range
There is a big overlap of 3d printers that would want nothing more than to get a CNC but It all comes down to cost
$1500 gets you the top-end of 3d printers
$1500 into CNC gets you the accessories for your CNC mill
The cheapest CNC available also kinda glows which is another issue.
>$1500 gets you the top-end of 3d printers
Not even close. It gets you a high end consumer FDM printer, but it gets you about half a product's worth of sintering powder for some of the fancy million dollar machines.
>1500 into CNC gets you the accessories for your CNC mill
For hobby use, I've always thought that a wire EDM machine would be a better choice. If it's a hobby, who cares that the cut takes longer. The machine doesn't need to be nearly as rigid as a mill, so it doesn't need to be frickoff huge. The consumables are cheaper too.
But it just seems that no one makes a hobby grade EDM set up. If you want something hobby grade it seems you have to build it your self.
From what I've seen, the setup is actually pretty easy. The most expensive part is the PSU, you want something in the 60-120V range capable of outputting 300W+ of power. The rest is just a fair bit of low-ESR/ESL capacitance, a power transistor, and a power resistor (nichrome wire in a bucket of water, toaster, sandwich press, etc). There's a more complicated method that stores energy in an inductor instead of in capacitors, and looks like it will use less energy since it doesn't rely on resistance as much for dropping voltage once the arc is stricken, and also looks like it can get away with a lower supply voltage since the inductive spike is what gives it the kickstart. I want to do some experimentation to see if I can get it working from a simple 12V ATX PSU.
A rewound microwave oven transformer is another way of getting a high-power PSU for an EDM machine, give it enough windings for 60-120V or whatever. The main problem with this is that stranded wire has too thick an insulation to get a good number of windings, and enamel wire is too thin so you need a bunch of parallel windings. I only wanted 40 windings or so for a 48V rail, but I'd need at least 8 of these windings in parallel to handle the current, which was like $100 of enamel wire for me.
A thrift store 220-110V transformer might even be able to get you down enough (buying new is still pretty expensive), especially if you're in a 110V country and can feed 110V into the 220V side.
Actually I have heard of people using mains voltage for this, but that sounds sketchy as shit.
Aside from the PSU, non-wire EDM is a pretty simple form tool that moves about on an ender 3 or whatever in a tank with workholding in it, plus a pump for irrigation. Wire EDM is a lot more involved, I'm not sure if it's actually necessary to get precision parts. The small cutting area means you can cut through metal quicker and with less wastage, but I don't think that's relevant to a hobbyist.
>metal 3d printer
>hobbyist
Evidently you've never used a 3D printer nor have you ever machined anything for an actual practical purpose.
my company makes industrial 3d metal printers...they cost about 20 million and takes weeks to make a part close to the table size.
The new hotness is one company figured out you can use very finely milled metal injection molding powders to print with in a standard SLS machine. After that, you process parts like any other metal injection molded part (debind, sinter). That cuts the price of admission for certain kinds of metal printing from $500k+ to $20-30k, plus the debind and sintering oven.
You can do that on any $300 3D printer with metal powder filament.
it's plastic with shiny metal sand in it, you dumbo
it's slow as shit. The only tech worthy of being implemented at hobby level is EDM wire cutting, I've seen a dude making its own on YouTube but there are 0 kits available, the spark generator is expensive.
>it's plastic with shiny metal sand in it, you dumbo
Yeah, and then you sinter the shiny metal sand and then you have a metal part. That's the point.
>sinter the shiny metal
>shrinkage 20% in Z axis
>shrinkage 16% in X, Y axis
Shrinkage isn't a problem if it's constant and repeatable
>Implying there won't be voids and other defects that weaken the part.
3d metal printers are too expensive and difficult to use. The part price is gigantic that is why is not use widely.
cnc machining is not a cakewalk either.
The future of manufacturing will be growing objects in the same way that farmers grow a pumpkin. You won't need a machine to actually assemble the atoms of an object together. And I'm not talking about having bacteria shit metal onto a trellis either. I'm talking about computers, phones, and cars having a genome and literally being made of replicators. You'll just need a big pool filled with oil and various metal and petrochemical dusts, and then throw in a couple of car seeds, add light or heat, and they'll grow into cars. Where do you get car seeds: They come from a car seed seed. You think this idea sounds farfetched because it's completely beyond human intelligence to design a car seed seed, but superintelligent AI will be able to do this within a decade.
Proof that this is superior to current manufacturing techniques is because Allah uses the same method to manufacture pumpkins.
holy shit, I'm using my nuke seed seed on Tel Aviv
>The future of manufacturing will be growing objects in the same way that farmers grow a pumpkin.
That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. It's sounds futuristic and cool but it would be an actual step backwards for productivity.
>implying farmers wouldn't love to be able to mill a corn cob from a piece of corn stock in an automated assembly line all year round, instead of having to wait months and months to grow a harvest which can only be done once a year.
Well you're not thinking about the benefit of $0 tooling costs. Right now cars have "models" that change every year (meaningfully, every 5-6 years) and manufacturers only support a handful of models at a time because it's only feasible to build a car if you can build 100,000 of the exact same one. Manufacturers are limited in their ability to create one-off vehicles or test radical new ideas, and all of the cars need to share a platform to keep costs down which limits the potential of each of the models.
Once cars are grown from seed, none of these restrictions will apply. You can grow cars slightly differently in any geographical region. You can support thousands of different models or even take custom orders from the individual customer to satisfy almost any parameter for no extra cost. You can update the models on a constantly rolling basis so the cars don't even need to be the same from week to week. Even if it takes twice as long to grow a car than to build one in a factory, it's going to be a thousand times better.
Another benefit is that you'll be able to fix any damage just by putting the car back into the resource swamp. You could take a car that suffered any accident, chop off the damaged parts, and resubmerge it in the growth bath so it can regenerate the missing parts like a starfish. Imagine fixing any damage to a vehicle for the cost of the raw materials and without any specialized labor required.
I think a small ECM setup would be the best bang for the buck. Basically use the same idea as the FGC-9 guys but with a 3D printer automatically moving the cutting tool. Just needs electricity and salt water to make real, load-bearing steel parts.
people using 3D printing for manufacturing (as in mass manufacturing, that is) instead for prototyping (again in mass manufacturing) are morons.
that being said, i don't question the doings of morons.
"Printers" can generate hollow lattice structures. You might have seen a cross-section of a 3D print, imagine doing that with metal instead. You could have low-density "air steel". There is no way to do that with a mill or a lathe.
If air with humidity gets trapped inside the infill could it rust from the inside?
Look up how rust is formed before rethinking your question.
>Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture.
?
Do fires burn well inside a sealed compartment?
If they have fuel and air. Yes.
Is there a lot of fuel and air inside a solid 3d printed lattice? Do you get it yet or are you being willfully dense?
There's still everything there to create (some) rust.
I've never claimed there's enough air to oxidize all the iron. I have no idea how much volume of air you need to rust how much mass of iron.
If you're trying to tell me that you need much more air to create significant rust then just tell me that instead of playing homosexual games with me.
And provide something to back it up because your behavior hasn't given me much confidence in your expertise.
Nta but
>if you’re saying there’s not enough oxygen that might get trapped in a small pocket to seriously damage the surrounding material just say so
Exactly what I thought, you knew the answer all along but you’re doing this homosexual argumentative Reddit thing. How are you gonna b***h about not getting the exact clear answer you wanted when you’re doing the same lame shit with “?”
Because I didn't?
Only once he talked about _lot_ of air did I even get that idea.
He didn't give a single hint about quantities before that.
>low-density "air steel"
it's called aluminum
>Fatigue life
>Precipitation hardening
Call me old fashioned, but I just like steel's properties so much more.
Metal foams can do so much more than solids though. You can get composite-like performance in some properties
Plenty of gantry mills out there (newer Shapeokos, Onefinity, Langmuir) that are perfectly good for aluminum and other soft metals and will do a very good job with them.
If a hobbyist wants they can get into it for not that much money, a few thousand. It helps to have a lathe and bandsaw at least to round things out but you can buy stock or get a local business to rough cut stuff if need be.
Steel is still big money for a CNC for that.
I'd love to have a CNC lathe but can't justify the space for how few things I have in mind for it. I may as well just do manual as I'm not making massive runs of projects. I might buy a sherline and just suffer through the tiny size, biggest thing I plan to make is silencer cones and even if it takes forever, it's not like im making a lot of them.
>Steel is still big money for a CNC for that.
Could you go with a cheap DIY aluminum cutting CNC machine and then use it to produce ECM electrodes for sinking into steel?
Wouldn't a wood engraver CNC or just a cheap 3d printer already enough for that? There's frick all force involved.
The chink 3018 CNCs are like a hundred bucks.
I bought some overpriced wood lathe tools that came with a turned aluminum handle and when you put the toolshaft in the handle the fit is tight like that, and it makes an audible pop when you remove them. Fricking satisfying although I'm still not sure why I paid $160 for a bowl gouge