General Discussion

Simon
Charlotte NC · 10h ago

I have a 3D FDM printer at home that works just fine. At my company we use 3D printers both for prototyping (in plastics) and specific production parts (in metal)

I evaluated Desk Top Metal (DTM) back around 2018. As the article noted it was hugely hyped. What the article failed to cover was the significant limitations of the process which printed raw metal parts with a binder which then required sintering. During that sintering process the parts would shrink around 15%.

This was ok if you were printing a cube. For anything more complicated the shrinkage was not uniform. You needed a lot of trial and error to get an acceptable finished part since at that time the software to predict the shrinkage as "crude" (It has since improved a lot but is still complex and expensive).

My experience was DTM glossed over this crucial issue. Given they essentially ignored reality their implosion isn't surprising. Engineers deal in the art of the possible not hype.