Arcam - Electron Beam Melting

[soylentgreenb]

I believe 3d printing technology may have a similar trajectory as PCs. We're routinely using far more computing power than it took to land on the moon or develop the hydrogen bomb for mundane stuff like pretending you're a mage casting ice-bolts at a dragon, looking at porn or distributing cute kittens with silly captions across the world.

In 50 years amateurs will print replacement parts for bikes, unique door-knobs, dildos and all sorts of silly stuff that would horrify todays experts.

[Zidriz]

@soylentgreenb Yes absolutly. I read somewhere that our technology advances in exponential rate rather than a Linear rate. Which makes it hard for us to imagine quite how fast things improve.

[YoungJim409]

20 hours for that upright? You couldn't investment-cast it any faster than that, so if this is competitive for cost I expect to see more of this in the future.

[telesniper2]

@YoungJim409 You're insane, you can investment cast much faster than that

[rasmasyean]

@telesniper2 I don't think it's to replace investment casting of mass produced parts. It's to make metal prototypes on the spot without a complicated process. And in low volume custom parts, you will get it a lot cheaper and can make parts that are impossible to "cast", esp. without finishing and assempling multiple pieces in a secondary process.

[kernunoos]

is there documentation comparing realistically these products with traditionally cast alloys? especially concerning mechanical behaviour.

Interesting to see honeycomb metallic alloy structures and other partially "hollow" products though!! THAT's what's really worth it I think