Rosotics
Assembly Line
🚀🖨️ Cheap, fast induction tech enables unlimited-size 3D metal printing
Arizona company Rosotics says it’s ready to revolutionize large-scale 3D metal printing, with a new “rapid induction printing” approach that can print parts of enormous size – with radical advantages in speed, cost, safety and energy efficiency.
Many of today’s metal-printing systems use lasers to heat and melt powdered metal feedstocks. Rosotics founder and CEO Christian LaRosa says there are a number of problems inherent in laser systems. Firstly, those powdered metal feedstocks are expensive and frequently hazardous – for example, powdered titanium is explosive. Secondly, the lasers are an inefficient means by which to translate power into heat. Large-scale laser-based systems can require special energy supply systems. Thirdly, they can be dangerous – even a reflected beam of that kind of power can be enough to blind someone if it hits them directly in the eye. And fourthly, parts created by these methods typically need to be heat-treated afterwards, meaning that you can only print parts as big as the oven you can bake them in afterwards.