Inexpensive 3D printer for metal based on welding machine

The University of Michigan University of Technology has developed a 3D printer based on an arc welding machine. Drawings, specifications and software for the printer are fully open, and the cost of parts and materials for assembling the printer is less than $ 2,000. Unlike the recently announced Mini Metal Maker metal printer, which uses metal cladding and requires roasting products after printing, the Michigan Technological printer uses ordinary welding wire and does not require any additional processing of finished products (except for file processing).

Industrial metal 3D printers that exist today cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Welding robots, with which it is still more correct to compare the development of the Michigan, are also not cheap. A radical price reduction was achieved by combining two already existing technologies - arc welding and the Rostock delta robot from the RepRap project for positioning the part.

The resolution of the printer is still quite low, but this is primarily due to the use of a serial welding machine , the minimum diameter of the welding wire in which is 0.8 millimeter. If to modify the welding machine for work with thinner wire and smaller currents, then it is quite possible to achieve much greater accuracy.
')
In addition to the wire for the printer requires gas. The developers used a mixture of argon and carbon dioxide. In addition, the safety precautions when working with a metal printer is similar to the welding precautions, so working with it at home will not work - you need a separate workshop.

An article describing the printer and experimenting with it was published in IEEE Access magazine, there is a free preprint on academia.edu . All materials, including detail drawings and assembly instructions, are on the project wiki .