What metals/alloys would you make use of and why?

Hey all!

If you could pick a few metals and/or alloys to be able to print with what would they be and why? It may be wise to consider the material cost, the range of applications it would be useful for, and other factors (what do you find important?). Assume the printer could also print plastics and switch materials automatically during printing.

Maybe copper for circuitry/wiring printed directly into your object? Or perhaps aluminum for an all-around-useful metal? Maybe you are looking for a particularly useful titanium alloy? Ah, but what about the strength of carbon steel?

I look forward to your ideas!

~11010broaddway

@11010broadway:

This question has been asked before, search the forums.

Read the FAQ at the top of this forum:

Has anyone thought about 3D printing metal?
Yes. There are many established technologies for 3D printing metal parts, but most of these are beyond the reach of individual experimenters. There are many groups working on accessible low-cost technologies for 3D printing metal. Please see these working examples: A new approach to printing metals, Metal printing on a Lulzbot, Fused Deposition Modeling of Metals, Metal Delta RepRap v1.0, and these forum threads: Metal FDM thread, Metal-print Reprap, 3D Metal Printer Projects?, Induction Heated Nozzle, 3D Electroplating?, and these other resources: Metalbot.org, and MetalicaRap.
[forums.reprap.org]

Here are two links to get you started:

Metal-print Reprap
[forums.reprap.org]

MetalicaRap
[forums.reprap.org]

To answer your question, Aluminum, Glass, Copper, Iron, Acrylic, Glass filled Nylon, PET, PU,
low melt flow ABS, HDPE, any plastic that has a high glass transition temperature.

Because this is your very first post, I'm curious of your intent, lot's of trolls, and starry eyed noobs visit these forums.
Do you even have a clue as to where to begin, or are you trying to do some marketing research to refine your existing product?
What are your qualifications (e.g. degree, work experience),
what type of equipment do you have on hand to manufacture a 3d metal printer,
how serious are you, (e.g. you already have a working metal printer, you worked out the math, and physics, etc.), do you have the money to fund this?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 07:47AM by A2.

@A2

I appreciate your response.

I did a search and didn't come across a similar thread. I did find plenty of discussion about metal printers. They have been around for a long time, of course. It is clear there is a lot of interest and a lot of discussion about specific techniques, specific material requests, etc. I am trying to look at this from a different angle. Instead of starting with a printer and seeing what materials it can print I would rather start with the most useful materials and build a printer around that.

With regard to your probing:

I am a physicist with access to lasers. I am in the process of some basic cost-benefit analysis with regard to delivery energies vs a size/cost function. That includes theoretical vs actual output, dot size, loss to radiation, oxidation issues, and a number of other factors. This is all on paper for now which is how I start all my projects due to limited resources. I am also biased towards this method due to conditioning by my background.

I do not have a commercial printer nor have I finished a 3D printer even for my own use. On the other hand I do have experience with 2D printer mechanics, programming, and electronics. Ultimately I have a strong background in hardware hacking and would consider myself an experienced maker/DIY'er. I am a member of a local hacker space.

Although glass would be a very interesting printing medium it didn't make it through my initial filter due to the low conductivity/high melting point. A similar downside regarding ceramics in general is the assumed requirement of further curing beyond the print stage. My interest lies mostly in an all-in-one, user-friendly printer. I will take a deeper look at these materials later; my experience in the area of ceramics is admittedly lacking.

The delivery system I have in mind would work well with a wide range of plastics. Really any powdered material that I could melt and fuse with a laser (CO2 or similar; something that would fit in a printer on the order of current 2D printers) would be a likely candidate. Of course, the powersupply and safety shielding would make this thing bulky but within reason. The delivery system would be clean and allow for delivery of flux as well as adjusting laser intensity based on the material being printed.

Thank you!

EDIT: I forgot to mention I have a degree in drafting technologies and have a few years of professional CAD experience so 3D modelling is in my toolbelt. Phew, this is starting to read more like a resume than a discussion about useful materials!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 12:46PM by 11010broadway.

Sounds like a 3d printer I made back in the mid 1990s.
The bed was the size of kitchen table. It had a 3 foot tall gantry on top of it to move a laser around.
Another large table was beside it that acted as a hopper and plastic or metal powder was in the hopper.
A set wipers moved the powder from the hopper to the kitchen table.
Zcorp made one a lot like it.

Plastic powder and titanium powder worked well in it.

Quote
11010broadway
I am a physicist with access to lasers.

The world would be a way cooler place if every one was a physicist.... or an engineer
Awesome, glad you're here!

I spent a year studying, and designing a metal droplet printing (paper sketches, some CAD dwgs), no experience with lasers,
but there is another physicist who specializes in lasers in these forums.

Poke around in this room:

Laser Cutter Working Group
[forums.reprap.org]

I would set my sights on aluminum, and zinc both are very useful, start with zinc to work out the bugs.

Maybe your laser can melt glass frit, process temperatures from 1000°F – 1600°F (540 - 870°C).
Shrink rate, and cooling will be a challenge.
[en.wikipedia.org]

Ferro is the supplier:
[www.ferro.com]
If glass had a much higher yield point it would replace steel.
I digress...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 02:20PM by A2.

Hello 11010, welcome to the forum!

The three most common metals or alloys I see in the general space occupied by people who have RepRap style printers are aluminium, brass and mild steel. There is not much beyond that, except for small inox parts. After that I rarely see anyone build much with anything else.

If I had to pick one, I might be tempted to say brass. I think I would get the most use out of that if I had a machine that could print only one metal.

After that, aluminium and mild steel are neck and neck. I used to cast metal, and aluminium was a favorite at the time. In part because as a teenager, I had very limited technical skills. Steel is more versatile, but it is harder to work with, but easier to weld. The trade offs get complicated real fast, that is why I would pick brass!

---

Yvan

Singularity Machine

Quote
criswilson10
Sounds like a 3d printer I made back in the mid 1990s.
The bed was the size of kitchen table. It had a 3 foot tall gantry on top of it to move a laser around.
Another large table was beside it that acted as a hopper and plastic or metal powder was in the hopper.
A set wipers moved the powder from the hopper to the kitchen table.
Zcorp made one a lot like it.

Plastic powder and titanium powder worked well in it.

Ah yes, similar printers have been around for a while. I would really like to scale this down. Of course, once scaled down it is always easy to scale it back up for larger prints. There are a few major downfalls to this type of printer. One, the laser and power supply are large and expensive. Two, the powder is often either pushed around (nearly impossible to change materials automatically) or it is sprayed in (what a mess!). Three, lasers of this power are dangerous. I hope to mitigate these issues with a unique delivery system.

To those who have replied in general:

I see a lot of people using certain metals with 3D printers. I would like to know, however, what materials you would really -like- to be able to print with.

Unfortunately metals tend to reflect light... Copper would be fantastic to print electronics with if it didn't absorb such a tiny fraction of the delivered energy. I think I know how to get quite a bit more of the energy into the metal. It might only be a two-fold increase but even that would cut the print time significantly. Also, most uses of copper outside artwork wouldn't require a significant amount to be melted but rather a thin line simply for electron flow. There would be limitations but there are limitations to desktop inkjets too, right?

Quote

Hello 11010, welcome to the forum!

The three most common metals or alloys I see in the general space occupied by people who have RepRap style printers are aluminium, brass and mild steel. There is not much beyond that, except for small inox parts. After that I rarely see anyone build much with anything else.

If I had to pick one, I might be tempted to say brass. I think I would get the most use out of that if I had a machine that could print only one metal.

After that, aluminium and mild steel are neck and neck. I used to cast metal, and aluminium was a favorite at the time. In part because as a teenager, I had very limited technical skills. Steel is more versatile, but it is harder to work with, but easier to weld. The trade offs get complicated real fast, that is why I would pick brass!

Thank you!

Brass sounds interesting. Steel is definitely tempting but along with steel seems to comes the expectation that it has been tempered. That whole process is really what makes steel useful as a metal. Without that there would likely be better metals for the job. Aluminum is one of my top picks, too. I will look into brass.

Quote

The world would be a way cooler place if every one was a physicist.... or an engineer smiling smiley
Awesome, glad you're here!

I spent a year studying, and designing a metal droplet printing (paper sketches, some CAD dwgs), no experience with lasers,
but there is another physicist who specializes in lasers in these forums.

Poke around in this room:

Laser Cutter Working Group
[forums.reprap.org]

I would set my sights on aluminum, and zinc both are very useful, start with zinc to work out the bugs.

Maybe your laser can melt glass frit, process temperatures from 1000°F – 1600°F (540 - 870°C).
Shrink rate, and cooling will be a challenge.
[en.wikipedia.org]

Ferro is the supplier:
[www.ferro.com]
If glass had a much higher yield point it would replace steel.
I digress...

Ahh, very cool, thanks! To be clear, I didn't mean to shrug off your suggestions of glass/ceramics. I simply expected it to be outside the realm of what I could accomplish. Those links suggest otherwise which is great. It won't be printing mirrors/windows anytime soon but basic ceramic type materials would still be really useful!

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 05:21PM by 11010broadway.

... I've recently assembled a multi-diode head with 6x of the common 445nm-diodes with around 6x 1.5Watts focussed on a spot of maybe 0.2mm:
[forums.reprap.org]
... and have plans to add one or more IR-diodelasers with 9Watts each to get higher raw powers .

And actually got my galvo-scanner head working with self programmed software to mark surfaces or sinter different materials with my IR-fiber-lasers.

So, beside optimizing the setups I'll start with testing all sorts of available materials - sheets, wires and powders made from plastic, ligning, ceramic, glass and metal.

The next weeks/months should then identify the more interesting sytem - either the (slower, max. 150mm/s) laser-heads moved with my CNC-mill with a working area of around 275x210x210mm ...
... or the much faster (up to 20m/s!) but more expensive fiberlaser+galvoscanner with only around 100x100mm scanning area

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 06:13PM by VDX.

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

To help absorb the energy from the laser you could blacken the aluminum surface.
Same could be done with the brass. You could use black frit glass too.

These are the two most popular methods, after anodizing, which I don't think you want,
as anozizing is actually a dye that is trapped in the pores of the aluminum,
where as these are micron thin coatings that I think would blow/burn off with the heat.

Brownell's $7.69/3oz DIY at home.
The process is called LUMICLAD® electroless black oxide for aluminum alloys.
The LUMICLAD coating reaction utilizes zinc/molybdenum chemistry to form the black finish.
[www.brownells.com]
[www.birchwoodtechnologies.com]



Room Temperature Blackening Solution for Aluminum
To reverse engineer, look at the Material Safety Data Sheet of Insta-Blak A-380
Zinc Oxide
Sodium Hydroxide
[www.epi.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 06:16PM by A2.

Quote
VDX
... I've recently assembled a multi-diode head with 6x of the common 445nm-diodes with around 6x 1.5Watts focussed on a spot of maybe 0.2mm:
[forums.reprap.org]
... and have plans to add one or more IR-diodelasers with 9Watts each to get higher raw powers .

And actually got my galvo-scanner head working with self programmed software to mark surfaces or sinter different materials with my IR-fiber-lasers.

So, beside optimizing the setups I'll start with testing all sorts of available materials - sheets, wires and powders made from plastic, ligning, ceramic, glass and metal.

The next weeks/months should then identify the more interesting sytem - either the (slower, max. 150mm/s) laser-heads moved with my CNC-mill with a working area of around 275x210x210mm ...
... or the much faster (up to 20m/s!) but more expensive fiberlaser+galvoscanner with only around 100x100mm scanning area

Sounds like I have some catching up to do! Keep up the good work my friend. If you go through the trouble of testing those materials please consider testing the same materials with different properties. Often metals, for example, come with a thin oxidation layer on them. Also, different sources will provide the 'same' material that seems to be identical but has different surface properties. This will drastically affect laser absorption levels. More here. (PDF Warning)

Also, if your array focuses to the same point -at the material- you will have less control over your angle of incidence. If you focus your lasers to a point before aiming at the material and deliver that focused beam to the material at the optimal angle of incidence (varies with material) you will get a better beam absorption than if you focus your lasers as they meet the material. This is particularly useful when shooting at powder versus, say, a brightly annealed surface because the natural valleys allow for a lot of beneficial reflection.

Quote
A2
To help absorb the energy from the laser you could blacken the aluminum surface.
Same could be done with the brass. You could use black frit glass too.

These are the two most popular methods, after anodizing, which I don't think you want,
as anozizing is actually a dye that is trapped in the pores of the aluminum,
where as these are micron thin coatings that I think would blow/burn off with the heat.

Interesting idea, thank you for sharing. I didn't consider this but I did consider looking for an 'optimal' oxidation layer pre-heating. Oxidation tends to trap some of the reflected laser and actually increase absorption. The downsides being obvious so some optimization is en route. Your suggestion would be pretty simple to test, anyway. Squirt some of this on some powder, melt it, compare the resulting material properties to that of non-blackened powder through the same process. I suspect the resulting oxidation layer would significantly impede the bonding though.

Hi broadway,

I would really encourage you to take a look at the Metalbot project... [www.metalbot.org] . We are seriously persuing the high energy laser route using Laser Diodes, CO2 or Yag lasers. Our ideal material is very fine (<5um granular) high strength titanium alloys (such as TI-AL6-V4) or a super alloy, this is a key project goal.

With this type of tech we can make parts that that are VERY hard to otherwise machine.

"I am a physicist with access to lasers"

I would like to hear more about the lasers you have access to... our project members are experimenting with CO2 and Diode lasers so your input would be welcomed. There is a wealth of information on the Metalbot forums!

All the best,

Jethro.

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3D Metal Printing and more - visit [www.metalbot.org] !