Printing in Metal

by GadgetManiac on August 9, 2009

Say you’re an astronaut stuck on Mars in the near future and your oxygen pump fails and you didn’t bring spare parts – what are you gonna do?  Simple…no need to wait 7 months for a supply ship to arrive…just use your 3D printer to fabricate the required parts.

3D printers have advanced far beyond creating the lawn sprinklers in ABS that we mentioned just a few years ago, and can now fabricate metal parts as well, including stainless steel. You might be well be gasping for air while the CAD-driven printing process finishes your pump parts, and at 60 HRb the metal in the parts will only be 1/3 as hard as AISI 1050 carbon steel, but it will likely be sufficient for your purposes.

Amazing stuff…it should soon be possible to print items that contain embedded wires & electronic components, such as radios and cell phones.     

Shapeways website

Related posts:

  1. 3D Printing and Scanning
  2. Reebok Pump 2.0 Shoe
  3. Metal Storm
  4. Low-tech Cooling
  5. Rio Carbon

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

KevinAFD November 10, 2010 at 3:42 PM

I love the idea of being able to print in metal. I wish there was a cooler word for it than the word “print,” though.

Reply

TopDog May 20, 2011 at 8:33 AM

Amazing technology, although I guess it’s the end of the manufacturing industry as we know it.

Reply

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