> Parts also shrink up to 15 percent during the debinding and sintering process – but again, that's all automatically managed by the system.
Given this change in volume (which I assume would be highly nonlinear depending on design density and geometry?) I wonder what repeatability is like.
Perhaps for the manufacturing (non prototyping) printer they have a closed loop feedback mechanism to build a few outputs and feed any dimensions out of tolerance back to the input stage.
It might also be possible to model the shrinkage in software and compensate for it automatically, assuming you know what materials you are going to use.
Could be a minor surprise when you check that you have a 200x200mm work area, design a 100x180mm part, and then get told that it won't fit on the build area.
It's not just materials, but the geometry of the part that plays a role in the shrinkage. Though I wonder if some form of finite element analysis could overcome this (that software won't be cheap).
Given this change in volume (which I assume would be highly nonlinear depending on design density and geometry?) I wonder what repeatability is like.
Perhaps for the manufacturing (non prototyping) printer they have a closed loop feedback mechanism to build a few outputs and feed any dimensions out of tolerance back to the input stage.