Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing with SPEE3D

Thanks to SPEE3D for sponsoring this episode.
Check out my previous video with SPEE3D here to learn more about Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing: • Fast Metal 3D Printing...
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[@alycapo3391]

Since you ARE the definitive source of 3D printing news. We eagerly await your thoughts and comments on microtronics being acquired by formlabs. Needless to say alot of the community feels it will negatively impact the ethos of "affordable" SLS printing. Again, please let us know your thoughts.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

Aye age

[@murderdoggg]

1:30 "Naturally Lubricious" is how I like my moving parts.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

I don’t know if that’s really a word or if he made it up on the spot 😅

[@murderdoggg]

@@NathanBuildsRobots I totally bought it as a real word.

[@dittilio]

Perfectly cromulent word.

[@See-essEll]

Not only does your bin of powdered metals serve as spare parts, you can also blend them for use in thermite and other fun things! Dual-use for military applications.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

I think one of the interesting things about this process is they use larger particles than some other metal powder processes. Smaller powders are more dangerous and more expensive to produce since they have more surface energy and can even explode.

[@murderdoggg]

@@NathanBuildsRobots Important factor on s sea fairing vessel.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

@@murderdoggg Yeah, it looks like they are really leaning into the maritime applications. It seems like the titanspeed could be a really good process for fabricating large propellers, as an alternative to casting. Casting has its own issues with porosity and stuff, so in this case the additive parts might actually be stronger/better.

[@darthvader6533]

Could you accelerate thermite to mach 3 safely?

[@cybyrd9615]

@@NathanBuildsRobotsthey are coating metal powders with titanium carbide nanomaterials at Purdue University which have a surface energy of 50 mJ/m^2 as opposed to metal surface energy of 2 J/m^2 that could change the particle size used.

[@Tgspartnership]

simply amazing how additive manufacture comes up with these processes. the fact you can now make solid metal objects using air and powdered metal, is mind blowing. how long until someone comes up with a DIY variant of this, that can run on the desktop, at home.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

It would be cool to have a mobile robot with one of these spray guns! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_spraying

[@knowyourjoe8826]

This is really fascinating technology. So many advantages with regard to less starting material, reduced waste, relativity fast manufacturing processes. Looking forward to seeing where all this goes. Sharing cool tech like this just goes to show why "Nathan Builds Robots" is the authority on 3D printing. Thanks for all the great info.

[@omniopen]

I love all of these new additive manufacturing methods, from friction stir method to this a ton of productivity and efficiency unlock is going to happen :D

[@starguy9]

Thank you for doing this interview

[@JOEDHIGGINS]

Love the process, but I can't think of many parts I could use straight off the machine without a machining step. The machining step is a pain, especially with many of these parts where you need to figure out workholding, and then if you are going to CNC the part, tool path generation. They would really benefit from something like pressure advance, to cut down on the extra build up at the corners. I am assuming they are using a venturi to pick up the powder, so some sort of servo vale should do it from a hardware side. Software should be doable. THe deposition rates seem good, and if their material prices are low enough, I think it may be worthwhile in some machine shops. But a bit more part accuracy would be really nice.

[@rao_v]

You can imagine a second robot arm that comes in every X layers to do a little subtractive CNCing so you end up with an almost ready item (they still seem to want to heat treat at the end).

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

I think it’s more of a replacement for casting - so you can get a super large near-net shape without having to make a mould or use a foundry. Especially these days, there are limited numbers of foundries making these sorts of large parts in the west. Seems like a great machine for manufacturing large propellers, with the super large printer and marine alloys.

[@JOEDHIGGINS]

@@NathanBuildsRobots It they are cost competitive with sand casting, that seems to be a good market. I am assuming it would open up some geometries that are difficult with sand casting. If it does, then you just have to beat investment casting prices, which is a much smaller market, but an easier number to hit (though this looks to be a bit less dimensionally accurate than probably both sand and investment) Nothing about their process as shown indicates that with refinement it couldn't be more accurate than it is, so I will assume that it is something they are working on. Either way, I hope this tech can find a commercially viable niche. We are going to be needing a bunch more CNC manufacturing as gen Z is small. With capital costs so high, AM companies are really going to need to show some profits if the AM segment is hoping to continue getting investment. And without significant growth in AM, the expansion of manufacturing that everyone is pushing for is going to be a lot harder.

[@marc_frank]

continous 3d scanning of the part that's being printed would probably help with building up the part uniformly

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

That would help in large FDM prints too. I think some companies that use inkjets have a closed loop feedback with computer vision to improve print quality.

[@marc_frank]

@@NathanBuildsRobots that's pretty cool

[@noneednoneed5752]

Very interesting

[@reyalPRON]

now this is cool :)

[@Brian-S]

Interesting I was just talking with my buddies dad who owns a boat prop shop and how hard variable pitch props are to make. This thing could handle it no problem

[@EFLO3D]

Where are your damn sideburns Nathan? You menace.

[@C-M-E]

This is a rather novel use case for this process. It's been around for a long time, just not as a 3D AM technique. If it didn't require heavy machining afterwards, I'd be keen to take a look, but it won't be capable of doing fine detail models like laser sintering can achieve.

[@molak34]

2:17 you are lying or you don't know how fast a lathe can cut bronze. That's a 2 hour part from a solid.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

I guess it depends on the size of your lathe. It’d be a week-long job on a harbor freight mini-lathe 😅 But one could assume that any ship with space for this in their machine shop would also have room for a decent sized lathe.

[@billverine765]

Forget all the practical applications, my mind goes to printing real Iron Man armor with Titanium powder. This is truly amazing technology though in all seriousness. You could see one of these being used on the Moon or Mars to make spare parts as needed. Wonder how it would act in Zero G? The weight limitation on the robot would not be a factor.

[@cybyrd9615]

The mass limitation will still exist

[@cybyrd9615]

They’re already adding 2D titanium carbide to the surface of metal particles used in cold spray AM

[@moonblad]

I‘m no expert, but I see material accumulating at the corners. Adjusting the flow rate or the movement speed could result in a perfectly flush surface each layer. Then it would require less post-processing.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

To me it looks like it’s an unavoidable part of the process they are using. The material is built up over an area, so to fill out the corners of a part they need to apply a little extra there. But it’s better to have too much material than too little!

[@eslmatt811]

So can i put this print head on my ender3?

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

Ender Mach 3

[@cybyrd9615]

Yea but it’s weight would probably break the frame

[@marc_frank]

don't robot arms have their own software and operating system to control the joint angles? why do they do it themselves?

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

Good question. I think you’d need some idea of the state of the machine within the slicer to check for collisions and make sure the robot has enough range of motion

[@marc_frank]

@@NathanBuildsRobots that makes sense. i did a kuka certificate. they have a programming language similar to BASIC for their arms. spee3d could transpile their toolpaths to that and run it through the kuka simulator to check for issues. if you just define points to move to, it might even avoid exceeding the range of motion and singularities on it's own. you can probably create geometry for the robot cell, too, to avoid collisions. oh well, whatever they do, it works.

[@edevans5991]

Did someone say turntable?

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

Like a record

[@marc_frank]

moving the print around has never made sense to me. rotation is ok i guess.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

Their “hotend” is pretty heavy/complicated, since they are feeding high flow and high pressure air to it, while also incorporating a powder feed mechanism. While printing there are a lot of angle a changes, and it’d be a lot more work whip that huge rocket nozzle assembly rather than just tipping the build plate. And part removal is easier when you don’t have to climb into the machine to switch build plates. Definitely a list of pros and cons in terms of safety/cable routing/moving weight/maintenance/shipping. The most obvious solution isn’t necessarily the best! The new config definitely makes more sense for super massive parts. I guess you want to move whichever is lighter.

[@marc_frank]

@@NathanBuildsRobots oh, so on lightspeed, the parts were lighter and on warpspeed the printhead. that's awesome

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

@@marc_frank The Titanspeed that is the super large one. Warpspeed was present at this show, Lightspeed was at the previous one. It looked like 3 meter diameter/multiple ton capacity for titan, 1 meter diameter/30kg for Warp, and 0.5mm diameter for light. I didn't get the weight limit for the lightspeed, but I assume it's a little less than the warpspeed.

[@joehimes9898]

SR 71 in reverse.

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

That’s crazy that that plane went so fast. But it begs the question, could you add material to the SR71 by flying through a cloud of metal particles?

[@joehimes9898]

@@NathanBuildsRobots they used titanium so when they got to Mach 3 it didn’t melt. Indicates that they probably wouldn’t be able to print titanium on this machine.

[@degreeless_engineering]

THIS IS THE KIND OF SH*T I'M TALKING ABOUT! It's obvious that this guy has knowledge of machining. What kind of waste powder does it generate?

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

I think most of the powder sticks to the plate, but some does get yeeted off into the abyss. It’s fully contained so it’s probably collected in a bin for recycling. Notably, the powder particle sizes are larger than what’s used in other powder processes, so it’s probably cheaper to produce and safer to handle, but that’s just a generalization, I don’t know it for a fact.

[@cybyrd9615]

That’s their marketing strategy

[@alxandrjw]

I’m curious how the material for printing is made. Would it be possible to recycle metal scrap in to material to be printed?

[@nosleep6344]

How strong are the parts without heat treating? And does the "green" part have internal stresses?

[@syko2695]

Mach 3 is about 2,300mph 😮

[@NathanBuildsRobots]

Yeah it’s pretty crazy how hard do you need to throw metal powder at the wall for it to stick