At this point, most readers are familiar with FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printers and how a plastic filament is pushed through a heater and applied as a liquid through a nozzle. Most of us also know that there is a wide variety of materials that can be printed with FDM, but one thing we may be missing is that you can’t load a spool of metal wire into your printer and print in metal, or at least you can yet not. It is something [Rotoforge] is working on a project to create a hot end that can melt metal. Your starting point is a ceramic diesel engine glow plug, which you expect to reach 1300°C (2372°F).
The video below the break covers the process of rebuilding the glow plug, which mainly involves cutting off the metal parts that make it a glow plug and then carefully drilling a hole through the ceramic tip. The video is worth watching because it shows in depth how they developed the means to do this.
Unfortunately, they’re not quite ready to print metal with this thing yet, but we think the current progress is impressive enough to have a good chance of success. Definitely something to check out.
Previous metal 3D printers we have featured often used a MIG welder.
Thanks [theFinn] for the tip!
