Recently, a metal 3D printer made headlines online by being called "a $2 metal printer." When I first came across this topic, I thought it was definitely sensational. I usually spend around $200 on foreign items, and the most I've ever bought is from a Dollar Shop—where products are sold for just $1 to $2. Could I really buy a 3D metal printer at home for just $2? That seemed impossible.
The metal 3D printers I’m familiar with are actually quite advanced. The basic principle involves using metal powder combined with a high-energy laser to melt and cool, creating the desired shape. However, printers like SLM (Selective Laser Melting) require powerful laser heads, and the setup involving metal powder and the laser system is quite complex. Most of these machines are produced by major companies in the U.S. and Germany, and they come with a hefty price tag. There are also some low-end metal printing technologies out there. A friend from the U.S. once mentioned a technique that involved welding, where metal is melted and formed at high temperatures. But the results I saw looked pretty rough, so I wasn’t impressed.
When I think about electroplating, I usually associate it with surface finishing—making something dull look shiny and selling it for a premium. But after reading this article, I was still surprised. This Argentine guy took a creative approach. He used electroplating as a method of forming objects. He placed an electrolyte inside a large pen, added an anode inside, and used a printed metal panel as the cathode. Then he connected it to a CNC-like device, which initiated an electrolytic reaction. Metal ions from the solution were deposited onto the metal plate. He even provided a video showing a pen filled with electrolyte, which then plated metal onto a rotating disk below.
The video looked a bit crude, and the rotating disk gave off an odd vibe. I can imagine several issues with the prototype. First, using such a large panel as the cathode would result in high resistance and significant power loss. Second, the biggest problem is that electroplating is extremely slow. In industrial settings, only a few tens of microns of metal can be plated per minute. It's safe to say that the printing speed of this machine is way slower than our regular plastic 3D printers. Overall, this concept is still far from being practical.
However, I do see a few promising aspects of this project. First, theoretically, electroplating could achieve higher precision. If you control the contact points between the electrolyte and the cathode, the printing accuracy might reach current industrial standards. Second, if all you need is a plating power supply and an electrolyte solution, the cost is much lower than that of traditional industrial metal printers. Plus, it’s safer compared to methods like welding. Third, different types of electrolytes can be used to print various metals—stainless steel, copper, gold, silver, nickel, and even plastics like PP and PVC—all at a low cost.
I spent a lot of time thinking about how to speed up the printing process of this prototype, but I couldn’t find a solid solution. The main issue is that the design only has one electrolyte outlet, and the accuracy is limited by the pen tip. So, there’s a trade-off between printing speed and precision. If more electrodes were used, the control system would become much more complicated, which isn’t ideal. Also, the pen in the prototype can only move vertically. If the liquid flow could be controlled, allowing the pen to apply electrolyte from multiple angles, that would be a huge improvement.
In the end, the $2 price tag likely refers to the pen itself. If anyone truly believes that $2 can be used to buy a 3D metal printer, I’d love to order a thousand of them from them. But until then, I’ll keep my skepticism—and maybe a little curiosity.
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