At first glance, the barrier to entry for metal 3D printing seems high.
Initial capital expenditure for the equipment. The required infrastructure. The technologies’ associated hazards. The steep learning curve involved.
These factors and more have turned away many potential users who could have benefitted from metal additive manufacturing.
But dig deeper and you will find an accessible, lower-cost route: Metal Fused Filament Fabrication (MFFF). This technology uses a desktop 3D printer, together with proven postprocessing techniques to produce metal parts.
Compared to other metal 3D printing options, MFFF has a very low cost of entry (just over $1,000 if you already have a compatible desktop printer). Plus, it comes with no significant health and safety considerations, while providing a high-value return. This is possible by creating low-volume parts at a 90% lower cost than CNC machining with similar or shorter lead times.
Users successfully adopting MFFF have found it to be a complementary, additional technology to the existing range of metal fabrication options. In particular, MFFF allows users to produce small volumes of custom parts where design complexity carries no additional cost.
And it’s when comparing feature complexity and preparation efforts vs. volumes and material waste that MFFF really begins to shine.
What's Inside:
- Demand for affordable small volumes of custom metal parts
- The Metal FFF process
- The anatomy of cost-effective metal 3D printing applications
- Which new features does MFFF unlock?
- Is it really a metal part?
- Can it look like a metal part?
- What do you need to produce metal parts?
- Case study: Custom spray paint adaptors
- Return on investment (ROI)
- Summary
