
Desktop Metal gets $115M in funding to deliver metal 3D printing - vswar
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/18/desktop-metal-gets-115-million-in-funding-to-deliver-metal-3d-printing-for-manufacturing/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
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Nanite
For a nice CGI movie on their high volume model:

[https://www.desktopmetal.com/products/production/](https://www.desktopmetal.com/products/production/)

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JoshTriplett
Very impressive video. Questions that page completely doesn't answer, though:
How much does the system cost? ($5k to "reserve", but what's the final cost?
Their "downloads" page, of all places, has a price sheet for the "studio"
system, but not the "production" system.) What does the software workflow
involve, from CAD software to printing?

Also disappointing that, despite having an innovative piece of _hardware_ ,
they still treat the _software_ as heavily proprietary as well.

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Const-me
> despite having an innovative piece of hardware, they still treat the
> software as heavily proprietary as well.

My client created an innovative piece of hardware without investing in
proprietary software. In a couple of months, he found cheaper clones offered
on aliexpress and taobao. While the design was good, the product failed
commercially. Then the company found me, I’ve created heavily proprietary
software for the next version of their hardware. The product sells OK so far.

In addition, creating software from scratch specifically for the given
hardware delivers better overall value for the end users.

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thisisit
If I may, what was the product and what is within the proprietary software
which differs it from the clones? Because given China manufacturing scale it
is given that every other thing will have a clone on aliexpress or taobao.

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Const-me
A 3D printer.

On the very high level, I’ve implemented a small subset of what Autodesk
Netfabb premium does, the subset relevant to the hardware my client is
offering. That Autodesk software costs $500/year, I guess that’s what differs
our product from the clones: a clone would cost $500/year extra.

Another thing, 3D printers are too different, they use many different
technologies (FDM, SLA, DLP, SLS, etc.), and within each there’re different
printing materials. These things are very relevant to e.g. slicing and support
generation. Compared to the software like Netfabb which has to support all of
them, our software only supports a single printer and a carefully selected set
of printing materials. That’s why, hopefully, we were able to deliver better
overall UX.

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chromaton
Jamison Go reported that his beetleweight fighting robot, Silent Spring, used
a drum weapon made using a Desktop Metal system. The drum was printed using
4140 steel, then hardened the traditional way.

It apparently yielded very good results, winning the beetleweight category at
Bot Blast. You can search YouTube for videos of it in action.

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sytse
Video of Silent Spring
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRLupZvjcrk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRLupZvjcrk)

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jstanley
The gyroscopic effects of the spinning disc on the black robot are
fascinating.

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syntaxing
This machine is definitely some extremely exciting stuff! Most companies I
work for (I'm in the US) unfortunately does not have much of a machine shop
any more. They either got closed down during the recession or the machinist
had to leave for health/age reasons and the role never got fulfilled again. No
one wants to have to setup a machine shop in their building since it takes a
lot of money and logistics. According to management, "It's not worth it".

That being said, I am not sure how competitive the production unit will be. A
lot of the commercial industry does not necessary care about weight reduction
or aesthetics. I can't foresee that the parts made by these machines will be
anymore cheaper than traditional sintering or more accurate than milling.

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elihu
Sounds interesting; any details on how it works, what materials it can be used
with, what are the consumables, strength, accuracy/resolution, maximum size,
etc..?

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dogma1138
Looks like fused jet deposited powdered metal printing.

Strong but not nearly as strong as casting (especially without secondary
processing), as for materials powdered metal printing is usually either
ferrite alloys or nobel metals the former is much more common.

Resolution is in single digit microns or finer.

This is based on similar products not this specific one, it might be faster
which is important but there is only that much you can improve on the process.

The speed also to me looks like a result of very limited market in terms of
competitiveness. Existing products are few and they rather sell you more
machines than drastically improve the printing speed by making it much smaller
and focusing on smaller parts.

I don't know if they use induction or optical fusing based on the size I would
go for optical so they might have found a good laser or a absorption
facilitating epoxy/flux to go with the powder.

Edit: based on a comment here it looks like they don't do fusing as part of
the print.

In this case its metal powder with a chemical binder (glue) which usually
contains flux and vaporizes at a fairly low temperature.

After the printing the parts go into an oven (usually encased in sand for
temperature control)

The oven brings the part to a high enough temperature for the crystal
formation but not close to the melting point.

In this process larger crystals can form but not nearly as large as with cast
forging.

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ortusdux
I don't see the advantages to this over lost-PLA casting. Am I missing
something?

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Animats
That's what I was wondering. Shapeways makes metal parts by a similar process
as a service. See their 2009 video.[1] There's a mini-industry making metal
jewelry that way.

I notice that Desktop Metal doesn't show their oven in the video. That's the
big, expensive, somewhat hazardous unit. "Easily swappable aluminum gas
canisters ... safe to use on the shop floor" says the data sheet.[2]

Wazer, the low-end water jet cutter that's still stuck at "pre-order", has a
similar problem. They're trying to make a somewhat messy industrial process
less messy. There's some hand-waving involved. You end up with a sludge that's
a mixture of water, shattered garnet, and whatever you're cutting. They gloss
over what you have to do to dispose of that.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg)
[2] [https://desktopmetal.s3.amazonaws.com/Studio-
office_friendly...](https://desktopmetal.s3.amazonaws.com/Studio-
office_friendly.pdf)

~~~
ortusdux
I was pricing out metal casting after I watched this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-FHY5FNsWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-FHY5FNsWc)

12 minutes uncut. They go from printed model to working cast piece.

All new, Kaya Cast vac chamber they use is $1k, the Paragon kiln is $800, and
the Electro-melt furnace is $350. Add in safety gear and incidentals and you
are looking at 3-4 thousand dollars to go from a 3d print to a cast metal
piece. Heck, depending on the complexity, the vac may be optional.

~~~
Animats
Hot metal casting on a small scale isn't complicated or expensive, just messy.
Desktop Metal is trying to do this in an office environment. Because nobody
has a shop any more.

(The "maker movement" may have run its course. TechShop seems to be in
financial trouble.[1])

[1]
[https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177391](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177391)

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AngryData
Maybe im just a debbie downer but I don't see how these could possibly compete
with metal sintering and traditional milling and CNC work. An inferior metal
alloy with a huge price tag that will require machining anyways.

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squarefoot
Waiting for the day that printer will be able to print copies of itself.

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DenisM
Maybe just a robot that keeps ordering copies of itself from Amazon? That
seems more attainable.

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sillysaurus3
This is an amazing idea. I want one.

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gvb
"Alexa, Simon Says Alexa, order an echo."

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mrfusion
Anyone know how it works?

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icefox
Anyone know who the primary customers for these will be?

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ganoushoreilly
Any engineering shop that's prototyping and possible creating production
products. I got to see the prints first hand, pretty solid stuff. Sadly they
hadn't printed a T-800 terminator yet, but give it time. Skynet is alive!

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icefox
Would their be a market to be a middle man that owns the printer and does the
work to coordinate low volume runs from shops that need some prints, but not
enough for full volume or enough to own/maintain the printer?

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mitchty
That already exists.

[https://www.shapeways.com/materials/steel](https://www.shapeways.com/materials/steel)

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theprop
What 3D printer or service -- in any material, metal, wood, plastic, glass,
anything -- can print something affordably i.e. $5 for something that's say 1"
by 5" by 5" ???

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enahs-sf
feature request: T1000.

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Hydraulix989
So where are they at right now in terms of progress? R&D? Prototype built?

Why didn't somebody already build something like this?

