HP Introduces Metal Jet 3D Printers

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

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HP launched the "Metal Jet" printer, which it calls the world's most advanced metal 3D printer. The printer uses one moving head to spread layers of fine metal powder, and another head to bind the powder together, building up a structure layer by layer. The metal is cured, excess powder is removed, and you end up with a solid, precise design. HP claims their 3D printer is "up to 50X" more productive than other metal 3D printers, while being more flexible and cheaper than other methods. HP will offer a metal 3D printing service in early 2019, while the printers themselves will be available "for under $399,000" in 2020.

Check out the video here.

"A big advantage of an additive technology like HP Metal Jet is it allows us to produce many of these parts without first having to build manufacturing tools. By reducing the cycle time for the production of parts we can realize a higher volume of mass production very quickly."
 
When I was in school back in the day, I worked for a small company to earn a buck and they supported Thermal Spray equipment. Basically imagine a plasma torch that instead of cutting, fed a spool of wire of whatever-material (metals and alloys), and sprayed a shower of white-hot sparks all over a substrate material and basically metal-coated it. This looks like in the 25 years since those days, they've managed to shrink-ray the technology and do a home-brew version of it now but instead of coating its now directed and the coating itself becomes the substrate. Interesting stuff, because in 20 years maybe we'll be printing reallly important things, like bigger dicks.
 
Seems kind of large. How am I supposed to fit this in my trashcan when it runs out of the "ink" it comes with? If the printer costs $400k I can only imagine what they're charging for supplies.

Pretty neat, though..
 
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And the guys at Defense Distributed are walking around with huge,shit-eating grins on their faces...
 
Skud said:
Seems kind of large. How am I supposed to fit this in my trash can when it runs out of the "ink" it comes with? If the printer costs $400k I can only imagine what they're charging for supplies.

Pretty neat, though..
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That was my thought also. Ink will be 200k for the metalic one and 150k for the binder. They will not run out at the same time but still prompt you to replace them both as soon as one gets to 33%. The printer will cease to function when one gets to 20% to help remind you to buy genuine hp metallic and binder cartridges.
 
So they launched a metal printer, but you can't buy it until 2020? Well guess what, I also launched a metal printer that you can buy in 2020!
 
HeadRusch said:
Interesting stuff, because in 20 years maybe we'll be printing reallly important things, like bigger dicks.
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I'm not sure how marketable giant metal dongs are? I think you want to use a foodsafe, flexible plastic/latex printer for that :)
 
Just doesn't seem like it will print high quality parts to me. The whole point to forged parts is its strength, this just seems like it will print brittle parts due to the particularized metals. Maybe Im wrong but the old resin parts we used to print the powder wasn't that great and they figures we printed in class 7 - 8 years ago sucked. I get that the tech has gotten much better but metal is supposed to be heated up and melted to provide better strength.
 
Chas said:
And the guys at Defense Distributed are walking around with huge,shit-eating grins on their faces...
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I like how you have one group that want to print an entire gun and shoot it. Then another group that freak out because a name brand gun has a MIM extractor on it. :confused:
 
SomeoneElse said:
Just doesn't seem like it will print high quality parts to me. The whole point to forged parts is its strength, this just seems like it will print brittle parts due to the particularized metals. Maybe Im wrong but the old resin parts we used to print the powder wasn't that great and they figures we printed in class 7 - 8 years ago sucked. I get that the tech has gotten much better but metal is supposed to be heated up and melted to provide better strength.
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They do heat up the part after it is completely assembled, that's the sintering process they mentioned. While sintered metal is not as strong as forged, not every application needs that kind of strength.
 
Chas said:
And the guys at Defense Distributed are walking around with huge,shit-eating grins on their faces...
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metal printing isn't that new, just crazy expensive compared to plastic printing

Price wont come down for a long time.
 
This seems pretty meh. There are already systems on the market that will do production volumes at less cost. Granted those tend to be two part machines with 1 part printer and then a separate sintering oven but really not that big of a deal. And if the two step process is a problem, then it will also be a problem with this and you'll likely want to go with laser direct beam form.

SomeoneElse said:
Just doesn't seem like it will print high quality parts to me. The whole point to forged parts is its strength, this just seems like it will print brittle parts due to the particularized metals. Maybe Im wrong but the old resin parts we used to print the powder wasn't that great and they figures we printed in class 7 - 8 years ago sucked. I get that the tech has gotten much better but metal is supposed to be heated up and melted to provide better strength.
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The vast majority of parts don't need the strength of forging and many parts will never be a able to be forged due to the complexity. In addition, additive manufacturing allows part design and performance that is outside the possibilities with either machining or forging.
 
It's mass-produced. It's coming from HP.

That's a key advancement.

What we need to get to is being able to print intricate things, in microgravity, using ore mined on the moon and in the belt. I see this as a small step forward :D.
 
So how strong is this stuff? It seems like a "solid wood vs particle board" type of thing.
 
aaronspink said:
This seems pretty meh. There are already systems on the market that will do production volumes at less cost. Granted those tend to be two part machines with 1 part printer and then a separate sintering oven but really not that big of a deal. And if the two step process is a problem, then it will also be a problem with this and you'll likely want to go with laser direct beam form.



The vast majority of parts don't need the strength of forging and many parts will never be a able to be forged due to the complexity. In addition, additive manufacturing allows part design and performance that is outside the possibilities with either machining or forging.
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I'd really love to see printed bioengineered hydraulic manifolds that don't blow up into my face when put above 250 bar. Until then printing is off the table unfortunately :(
 
So, the final result wind up being metal dust encased in some sort of resin? That's cool I guess.

I was hoping for something more like metal injection molding, where in a final step the carrier resin is burned off leaving you with a slightly shrunk solid metal object, with no remaining resin.
 
PaulP said:
They do heat up the part after it is completely assembled, that's the sintering process they mentioned. While sintered metal is not as strong as forged, not every application needs that kind of strength.
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Makes sense to me. I guess i missed that part.
 
Sikkyu said:
metal printing isn't that new, just crazy expensive compared to plastic printing

Price wont come down for a long time.
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Define "a long time".

The first 3D plastic printer was 1984.
We're about 5 years in on sintering already.
These are the first mass-produced units and are meant for large-scale printing.
 
Heavens said:
I'd really love to see printed bioengineered hydraulic manifolds that don't blow up into my face when put above 250 bar. Until then printing is off the table unfortunately :(
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Don't know about this system, but there are other systems that are used for things like advanced turbines and are pushing some serious forces. Sintered powder metals actually are more durable than forged metals in many applications.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
So, the final result wind up being metal dust encased in some sort of resin? That's cool I guess.

I was hoping for something more like metal injection molding, where in a final step the carrier resin is burned off leaving you with a slightly shrunk solid metal object, with no remaining resin.
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The final result is resin free. The binding agents in this type of 3d printing are really just designed to hold the metal powders together until they are sintered. As part of the sintering process, the binding agents are effectively out gassed and the solid metal object is formed.

HP seems a little late to this party as there are already production systems using basically this same process from multiple vendors with some in this price point and designed for full volume part production. For intricate parts the binding sintering process has higher throughput than anything else right now (including MIM).
 
aaronspink said:
The final result is resin free. The binding agents in this type of 3d printing are really just designed to hold the metal powders together until they are sintered. As part of the sintering process, the binding agents are effectively out gassed and the solid metal object is formed.

HP seems a little late to this party as there are already production systems using basically this same process from multiple vendors with some in this price point and designed for full volume part production. For intricate parts the binding sintering process has higher throughput than anything else right now (including MIM).
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Ah, so it is just like metal injection molding then.

That's much better
 
pendragon1 said:
no idea but I can buy a reeaally big house or two apartments for that money.
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Yep. And as the tech advances, and they become more ubiquitous, the prices, especially on smaller units, will come down.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Ah, so it is just like metal injection molding then.

That's much better
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Yeah, one way to think of the binder metal printing is basically MIM without molds with the added advantage of being able to handle complex voids and internal structures.

There are basically 3 main types of metal printing currently. Binder Metal Printing is what this and many of the full scale production printing systems use. There is also liquid metal deposition in which metal powder is basically pumped through a nozzle and hit with a laser at the output (basically putting down microscopic hot spheres of metal) which has some advantage esp in that it can be used to repair metal items. And then there is the grand daddy which is laser sintered metal powder beds which can make the most robust parts but has the slowest throughput.
 
Don't think about 3D metal printing as an advancement in mass manufacturing, because it isn't. It won't be able to make screws or fingernail clippers cheaper than the companies that manufacture those items now. But it can make prototypes, it can make different things without retooling, and it can make complex pieces that we can't easily make by casting or machining.

Most importantly, this is the first step in commercializing the ability for an AI to independently manufacture the robots it will need to murder all of us.


Director: "HAL, why do we all have to be at this meeting? We already bought you the Metal Jet printer you wanted."
 
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