Check out this fantastic article from Hardware Is Hard, giving some great insight into the state of metal 3D printing today and how Freeform is taking it to the next level! If you're a passionate engineer who wants to work at the cutting edge of mechanical design, additive manufacturing development, materials engineering, or manufacturing operations, we have a home for you! Check out our postings on Hardware Is Hard: https://lnkd.in/gFWk2Kkd
I saw the good and the bad of metal 3D printing when designing and sourcing parts during an internship in 2020. Heralded as a turnkey piece of technology that could theoretically democratize industrial manufacturing (think of the prevalence of FDM printers but now make them metal), metal 3D printing has had a turbulent couple of decades. It is a piece of technology that has to date been reserved for very costly and complex systems where no other manufacturing methods are capable of producing the same parts (usually due to internal geometries or other manufacturing constraints). I was lucky enough to see the good and the bad when designing and sourcing metal 3D printed parts during an internship in 2020, but I’ve now revised several of those opinions. Let’s get into it! The Good: 1. Combining multiple part geometries simplifies supply chain and can reduce weight. 2. Organic geometries for structural components (enables generative design). Internal geometries and channels (critical to thermal control) 3. Less material waste for additive processes 4. Non-dependency on part geometry. No CAM or tooling changes required based on component design. It’s fully automated more or less The Bad: 1. 6-15 week leads times from a small contingent of capable suppliers 2. Post machining that would take my parts to 2-3 shops across the country over many weeks 3. Inconsistent part quality that you are stuck with after 10-23 weeks of production time. We got an in-depth look at what one company, Freeform (https://freeform.co/), is doing to fix this. Read about it here https://lnkd.in/gMxEeKrx