A Metal 3D Printer for Just $2 - Yes!

3D metal printers available these days mostly carry a price tag of at least $250K, which puts them pretty thoroughly out of reach for pretty much everyone aside from large corporations. Argentinian engineer Gastón Accardi, however, has been working with 3D printing technology for more than a decade, and has been working on a prototype of a 3D electroplating metal printer. His very first prototype was put together with cheap parts -- the initial prototype cost him just $2.00. The electroplating technology is a far cry from consumer technologies like FFF and SLA types, and Accardi's 3D printer takes the very concept of electroplating beyond the basic. He has plans to mount a 4-axis CNC machine with the electroplating system to make a system more similar to an FFF-based 3D printer. His process is so far a very slow one, and he's seeking investment to create future iterations that might one day become available for sale. Find out more about Accardi's plans and machine in the full article: http://3dprint.com/47065/argentinian-3d-metal-printer/


Below is a photo of Accardi's 3D electroplating machine:
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...2/accardi4.jpg

Wow the idea has great promise let me know I can help donlutter1@gmail.com

Very nice idea!
The layer thickness is very small, in the order of 1um or less, I guess, making it a rather slow printing process.
Possibly useful for 2.5D printing or PCB prototype printing?
I also very much like the rotary set-up - ideal for testing a new printing technique due to its constant motion and lack of issues with stopping, starting, corners, which you normally have in 2-axis XY-printing.

Excellent idea but slow, I can develop the idea to be very fast not in rotary fashion but for 3D printers....would you able to co-operate to farther to more advance steps?.while, I were actually thinking about the fast printing, I came through my idea but using the electrolysis is an amazing idea...instead of what I were thinking to lay the materials...please if you consider a co-operation you can reach me at my email ( asamad90@yahoo.com) to proceed further... Regards.

I'm surprised he hasn't put together a Kickstarter campaign for this yet. Considering all the money people have raised for printers that aren't any different from the rest, this would seem like a natural winner.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

Yes, Werby he need too, a little , kikstart.... Do it...regards...

Yeah I'd support that kickstarter project. Anyone know how long it takes to make a PCB with the normal process (etching it from copper)? Seems like you could put this electroplating head on a 2-axis table and print your own PCBs pretty fast.

The problem with that is that you need to lay down a conductive lacquer before the copper will deposit. That's the "silver ink" he talks about. Laying that down would require another sort of printhead, that doesn't depend on a conductive surface to deposit its contents. It's probably not that hard to do, but it's more complicated than simply laying down copper traces on a blank board. And then you'd need a drilling head to follow all that, so you'd have places to put your electronic components.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

You can also use graphine which is 1000s OF times more conductive than copper or silver. And then you would have a metal printer
Don Lutter

Any chance of schematics? I mean, I understand the basis here: The metal particles are suspended in a fluid compound, which is then removed during the "printing process", which appears to operate similar to arc wielding, minus the burned retinas, but plans... blueprints... Heck, even a bill of materials would be nice. Pretty please?

Hi everybody, i upload new videos with more experiences.
Check my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/MrGastonaccardi
Cookbook, math, observations...
Hope like this!

This is ingenuity at its finest. Perfect.

$2 and a lot of spare stuff just laying around isn't quite the same as just $2... But I get the picture, it's an intriguing concept, but I wonder about practicality when it takes days to put down a few millimeters of material.