Is an Affordable FFF Metal 3D Printer on the Horizon?

If you own a 3D printer, then you have almost certainly had someone ask you “can you print metal?” The answer for hobbyists is virtually always going to be a negative. While it is possible to 3D print a metal object, doing so takes a very expensive 3D printer that only large corporations can afford. Most of those rely on the SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) process, which uses a powerful laser to melt and fuse metal powder in layers to form the part. But imagine the possibilities if a hobbyist could 3D print metal. Chris Vallone thinks it could be practical and even affordable, and he is currently working on a FFF metal 3D printer to prove it.

FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) is the most common 3D printing process, particularly for consumer 3D printers. It works by melting material (generally a thermoplastic) and then extruding the molten material onto the build platform in layers, like a hot glue gun pushing out glue. That works well with a range of thermoplastics, which transition to a liquid at relatively low temperatures. PLA (PolyLactic Acid), for example, is a thermoplastic that melts at about 160 degrees Celsius and is generally printed at a temperature around 200 degrees Celsius. Compare that to iron, which has a melting point of 1,538 degrees Celsius. Even pure silver has a melting point of 961 degrees Celsius. Those high temperatures are one of the biggest reasons that we don’t see consumer 3D printers for metal, but Vallone is working on a printer that can held those temperatures.

The 3D printer that Vallone is building for the job is very similar to the FFF 3D printer you own, it has just been upgraded to handle far higher temperatures. Aluminum wire is fed into the hot end by the extruder, just like a normal printer does with thermoplastic filament. That hot end reaches a whopping 750 degrees Celsius, which is more than enough to melt pure aluminum and most alloys. That requires a special hot end that has a massive heating coil. The print bed is also beefed-up, because it needs to reach temperatures exceeding 500 degrees Celsius in order to avoid warping.

This special high-temperature 3D printer works like any other, it just extrudes molten aluminum instead of plastic. Vallone’s tests so far are somewhat anticlimactic to look at, because he hasn’t yet been able to successfully print a recognizable object. A lot of that is due to the fact that he can’t keep his print bed heated for very long and water cooling will be necessary to perform longer tests. But he has been able to extrude aluminum onto the print bed and we are very hopeful that he will have some finished printed parts to show off soon.