14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like it's a good time to buy a metal 3D printer. Especially since, up until a few days ago, you couldn't really do that, not unless you were prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on one. Now though, there are some choices, or at least prospective choices.
On the one hand, a team has developed a 3D printer that works with aluminum; it melts the metal and deposits it in whatever shape you want. But it will be a couple of years before the technology is cheap enough for a desktop printer.
On the other hand, the new Mini Metal Maker also works with metal and is actually quite affordable – you can grab it for $750 (€560) on Indiegogo, or $1,000 (€746) for the fully assembled kit and some material to get you started.
The catch is that the printer actually works with a clay metal composite. This is why the printer can be so cheap; it's easy to mold the paste into whatever shape you want. But the end result has to be treated before it's ready for use. The molded object has to be fired in a kiln, which removes the clay and water and leaves behind only the metal.
This last step requirement will obviously limit the uses of the printer and the number people that could actually employ it. But for those who do, it's a very cheap and very interesting way of creating custom metal parts.
Being that this is the first model of the printer, performance may not be that impressive. For example, the printing resolution is just 500 microns, and the completed parts look pretty rounded, you can't get too much definition.
There's also the caveat that you won't get your printer sooner than September 2014, but at least the company plans to ship to backers regardless of whether it meets the $10,000 (€7,460) funding goal or not.