You can print metal fused with plastic parts in your Prusa with this, but then what?
If we ignore price what are your thoughts?
Maybe you already understand, but the idea is that once you print it, you then put the part in a sintering oven. The oven burns off the plastic and fuses the metal to yield a part that is usually about 95% of the density had it been made from solid metal.
http://www.thevirtualfoundry.com/ makes some materials that are meant for this and PLA based.
@Ben_Malcheski pretty sure he has an idea… look at where he works 
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@Eclsnowman haha didn’t see that. The way he posed it, it seemed that he wasn’t making those final connections. Not really sure what he’s getting at other than it’s expensive filament?
I have some samples from Virtual Foundry that I look forward to trying. Most of all, I need to rig up or find a furnace. VF is actually really close to me and I assume they have a furnace i could use for demoing. Already have had good luck printing metal filled ABS but limited success with PLA due to jamming. Probably need to improve the cooling (bigger radiator for water cooling) on my cold side for PLA.
@Ben_Malcheski basically yes, but what about debind? Are you going to ship the parts off to debind and sinter? If you’re a company would you buy your own equipment to do that? They also don’t spec much for debind solvents or post sinter density. 95% is probably out of their range
@Mike_Kelly_Mike_Make Well, if I already had an FDM machine and didn’t have the money for a machine dedicated to metals, then spending a fraction of that cost on some auxillary equipment to debind and sinter might be more feasible… Many people and small companies are willing to learn new things. Sure bigger companies skip the learning and go right for the turnkey stuff that is financially feasible for them but smaller companies or individuals can’t do that.
Thanks for the opinion. Though fraction of the cost might be a bit exaggerated, I believe this BASF stuff requires a catalytic debind which I think uses Nitric Acid. Not exactly safe stuff for most labs to be handling. A stainless capable furnace would also be pretty crazy.
Would you find mailing parts out for debind and sinter a better alternative than purchasing metal parts from a service bureau like shapeways?
Just trying to understand how people view this because right now I’m not really clear on who’d use it.
I personally work in a field where lead times more than one or two weeks are often hard to swallow. So if it meant that I could get a part printed, sintered, and returned in less than a week it may be interesting (assuming the actual printing process is well understood in advance). We have very rarely needed to 3D print metal parts rather than having prototypes made from conventional methods since that is what they typically are designed for anyway. But we often run into lead time issues here. We may use metal 3D printing more in general if it meant that we could count on short lead times at a similar cost to what we pay for machining, which is usually very high prices. Our usual vendors who do offer short lead times don’t offer metal 3D printing so I suspect this is why we don’t use it much.
I assume each metal has it’s own requirements for treatments besides just heat. Admittedly I have not done much research but it seems to me that a muffle furnace capable of 2300F and big enough for a typical desktop printer runs less than $2k. For a lot of consumers that’s probably out of the question, but for a small company that doesn’t seem unreasonable.
It seems that the MetalX is listed at <$100k + a furnace and the DM ecosystem looks like a minimum $60k investment.
The other details involved such as chemicals seem to vary with the binding material. It seems that PLA based materials don’t depend on any chemicals to debind. I’m under the impression that the materials MarkForged uses for its MetalX do not require any chemical treatments but I don’t have a source to indicate yes or no.
Obviously, I’ve only started to scratch the surface on researching this and I’m no metallurgist so some more information would be appreciated to help me better understand why using a desktop FDM and acquiring some auxiliary equipment for this type of process is not as feasible as I think it is. It seems that a ceramic filled plastic could be gotten to help release the parts from supports as DM does.
What is the advantage to the microwave furnace over a typical muffle furnace?
I’m not a furnace expert by any means but from what I’ve been told a cheap furnace capable of this sort of process would run 15-25k for something sketchy from China. You might be able to find a furnace capable of those temperatures with no atmosphere control.
I totally hear you on the lead time concern. MF does use a chemical debind that they recently started talking about with their “wash” station.
From what I can tell from this BASF material is really only useful if you can debind and sinter it in house. Sending it out means you have to deal with the lead time concerns that most people would try and avoid with metal 3D printing.
hi guys,i work with BASF as a service provider in that topics and currently having easy access to the material and sinter ovens, wich is a bit more complicate than just heating it up. It needs a catalytic debinding and sintering in a defined athmosphere of different gases. Not compareable to the results you will achive in a MetalX printer wich will cost about >150k€
I make a short news Video about it here on my channel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_mNDi5GsNM&t=74s
It’s in german and just a note, but we hope to get it available in english spoken videos in the very near future.
With my company https://www.conspir3d.com we offer evaluation projects with customers to test out this material and than we can supply the whole post processing for about the same price as a Metal X but with much higher strength as the post process of Metal X and the BASF UltraFuse is different.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKgNKNmaE1ew11ZROJBRHTA
It’s shrink rate is about 19% ad X/Y and 21% at Z and you are good advised to do modifications to your printer, eg a hardened nozzle and a heated chamber environment as POM as a thermal plastic is a bit tricky to print, specially for bigger objects!
@Ulrich_Baer
I see a printed motor.
@Addictive_Manufactur what sort of densities do you achieve. Also why is mark forged the only thing you compare against?
Preliminary characteristic properties of sintered parts
Density 7,83 g/cm3 according to DIN EN ISO 3369
Yield strength Rp0,2 174 MPa
Tensile strength Rm 550 MPa
Young’s modulus 174 GPa
Vickers hardness 120 HV10 according to DIN EN ISO 6507
Here is a picture of a microscopic view to a cut of a sintered part at 1360°C
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If anyone is interested, we offer this material, priced with sinter services included, please contact Conspir3D, info@conspir3d.com for an evaluation project for business customers
Great information. Have you done any elongation tests?
BASF did, but haven’t published the results yet. My own maschine is not capable of doing elongation tests with metal., just plastics. As soon as i got the results, i will publish them on my channel