Join us on Wednesday, March 9 at noon Pacific for the Metal 3D Printing Hack Chat with Agustin Cruz!

3D printing has been an enabling technology, and the ability to create parts that never existed anywhere before has been a real game-changer. But the cheap and readily accessible FDM and SLA printers we’ve come to depend on are not without their drawbacks, chief among which is that they only make plastic parts. Wouldn’t it be great if we home-gamers had the ability to print metal parts just like they do in industry? Agustin Cruz thinks so, and he’s been hard at work on an electron-beam sintering printer to make that dream come true. Dealing with the technical challenges of such a printer hasn’t been easy, but then again, squeezing out melted plastic wasn’t easy at first either.

Agustin has agreed to take a little time out of his project to talk to us about his progress, and to share what he has learned about electron-beam printing. Along the way, we’ll talk about metal printing in general, and perhaps even take a look at where the whole field is going and how — and when — it’ll penetrate the hobby printing market.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 9 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter.