FSIHCMMDH MetalPen
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Release status: concept
| Description | A metal deposition head based on surface tension of molten metal.
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This is a stub for development of a capillary molten metal deposition head.
Introduction
One of the theoretically most affordable ways to melt small quantities of metal is induction heating. However, in case with metal 3d printers it has a major drawback of eddy currents that arise in the printed object itself while it is printed, causing non-homogenious heating and power draws. So the basic idea is to distance away induction melting area from deposition area and to shroud induction heater with a faraday cage with low resistance. This kind of shroud will act as a mirror preventing EM waves from escaping and thus keeping effects localised and not messing with a printed object or electronics. If resistance of a shroud is kept low and there're no sharp edges, real heat production in shroud walls can be almost avoided.
However, if we reject an idea of melting pool being directly on the object, we have to find some way to guide molten metal to the object in a controllable way. And probably one of the most promising methods to do it is via capillary forces. Just like in ink pen. So if there's no contact with the object - there's no flow, just a drip of molten metal hanging from the deposition head (drip sizes are controllable via choice of nozzle materials and coatings).
BOM
- Induction heater coil
- Power source for a coil
- Faraday shroud (probably just a piece of a metal pipe)
- Simple ceramic nozzle with a drilled capillar. A detailed study is needed on interacton of different ceramics with molten copper.
First steps
First iteration will work with copper wire via inducing local circular currents in it. In order to build it, a study on ceramics is needed (or maybe it will be some other material if no ceramics can be wetted with copper) and some EM fields computer calculations.
