Disruptive technologies: 3D metal printing

DW (English)

3D printing is now conquering industrial metals too. What was once laboriously made on lathes, such as aircraft engines, can be copied and produced in no time at all with a 3D printer. A Spanish company is already selling them.

Transcript

00:00A small technical part that is required for a very large machine, like for gas-fired power

00:10plant turbines, the technology consists of thousands of these precision metal parts.

00:16To do this, the components have to be milled to the nanometer and made to fit.

00:22But one Spanish company has an alternative.

00:26Their metal parts come out of a printer ready to use.

00:30Will this kind of technology replace conventional production in the future?

00:34This is what their 3D printer from metal looks like.

00:37And that's what it can do.

00:39The experts call it additive modeling.

00:42That means that no material is milled away, but the shape is created by permanently applying

00:48new layers using laser technology.

00:51The idea came from Lukas Hoppe.

00:54For us, what we really want is a machine that is autonomous and super easy to use.

00:59So we made our own interface, and basically what you do here is you load your part.

01:03Once you have your part loaded in the location where you want it to be, then all you have

01:06to do is close the door and test print.

01:08And you get all of the process information down here.

01:11You have your printing parameters up here.

01:13So far, they have sold over 300 3D printers to industrial customers.

01:19The cost per machine?

01:20Around 200,000 euros.

01:22There are different versions like this compact printer.

01:26Or this one with a robotic arm, which can produce very complicated shapes.

01:34Many companies today lack the specialists who can still do this.

01:39A lot of problems that our customers are facing is trying to replace a specialized workforce

01:46that doesn't exist anymore in some of the more traditional jobs.

01:51But more and more industrial customers want to make their own spare parts,

01:55and printing is the solution.

01:57However, this takes time.

01:59It can take up to 20 hours before a part is ready.

02:03The laser printer uses metal wires of different alloys, which are fed via wire spools.

02:10However, printers are not yet able to produce all alloys of special steel,

02:14and the object size is limited.

02:19The Melteo company is located in northern Andalusia, in Pinares,

02:23an impoverished former mining town.

02:26The inventor of the technology chose this location because there was already a company here in Spain

02:32that specialized in 3D printing technology.

02:35He was able to benefit from this, such as in marketing.

02:40According to the startup, it's precisely because of the high unemployment rate of around 30%

02:45that it's easy to find new people.

02:48We started out as a really small team, now we're 100 people,

02:51and I'm going to say every week there's somebody new.

02:56The objects that their printers produce?

02:58Ship propellers, injection nozzles, such as in the chemical and food industries,

03:02and pipes for gases and liquids.

03:05The printers can print up to 2 meters in length or in two parts,

03:09such as this exhaust pipe from a car manufacturer.

03:17And this is a very complex design that was able to be manufactured in two components

03:23with our robotic integration system, that would need some machining.

03:29Machine processing is what the head of technology means by milling.

03:36The company has developed a 3D printer that can do both,

03:39printing and then milling and polishing until the printed parts are shiny and as smooth as glass.

03:47This is the base plate where we started printing on top,

03:51then we would cut it off or machine it out.

03:55The company is profitable, but the profits are not paid out to investors.

03:59They want to reinvest all surpluses.

04:01Our aim is to become the reference and changing how metal parts are manufactured in the world,

04:06and for this we need to grow.

04:10They don't want to get rid of the old technology, but change the market instead.

04:15These 3D printers are ready for shipping.

04:21This one is packed up and ready to go to the US,

04:24to a car manufacturer that wants to become more independent from suppliers

04:28with a new 3D printer from Spain.

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