industrial 3d printers

You probably know that high end industrial 3d printers can print metal objects by using laser or electron beams on fine metallic powder but Vader is something completely different. Vader aims at small companies or professional workshop environments by implementing proprietary Magneto Jet Printing (MJP) and magneto hydro dynamics (MHD) ceramic print head technologies to reduce the machine cost.

It uses molten metal and jets it in small droplets onto a surface similarly to a standard ink jet paper printer and by connecting the metal droplets a 3d object can be made. It could be considered world’s first molten metal 3d printer! Since one of the design ideas behind this machine is to make it widely available, the material it uses had to be widely available and cheap so the main material is molten aluminum wire.

While the basic technology sounds easy in theory and has been used even 20 years ago in the past for some applications, there are still many difficult technical obstacles to overcome. These obstacles include reaching complex requirements like developing a print head that is resistant to abrasive properties of molten aluminum by using ceramics, magnetic containment and getting drop-on-demand molten metal droplets.

Vader is founded two years ago by Scott and Zachary Vader , a father-son team. With Fall of 2015 being the time frame for the release of first working pre-production Mark 1 prototype. The price range of the first machine should be around 250.000 US .D which is much cheaper than currently available commercial metal 3d printers.

Hopefully the Vader team will be successful in bringing their machine to the market and start the race for affordable metal 3d printers. I want one! And I know some of you want one too! Vader Systems company page: Star http://www.vadersystems.com/