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Depending on your use case, some high performance polymers like PEEK or Ultem (PEI) can have many advantages that metals have, but are still considered plastic, so you can print them relatively normally with SLS or sometimes even FDM printers.
Printing metals is often way harder than polymers, due to high temperatures needed, and post processing is also way harder.
What are your needs?
Most metal printers I've seen are SLS printers that basically used powdered metal instead of powdered nylon. Nylon SLS printers are still $15k. I imagine, but could be wrong, that a metal printer would require a beefier laser, which would drive costs.
@IMALlama @Live_Let_Live I wonder if a design for a metal FDM printer based on MIG could work?
I vaguely recall seeing things like this over the years. You'd want a proper annealing setup IMO if you care about functional parts, assume you'd want a mill too as that'd probably have a really nasty surface.
That totally ignores the fantastic metal vapours and other stuff that a metal printer would give off. Don't get me wrong, I think metal printing is a super interesting idea, def think it's more industrial though.
On the other hand, there are products like BASF ultrafuse that are intended to be printed on fdm plastic printers and through post processing you'll end up with a metal print. No idea how well they work, but idea seems interesting and may be more accessible to hobbyists.
Could? Sure. I don't think the result would be great from a resolution or strength perspective. Thinner walls also seem like they would be hard to pull off, especially compared to SLS.
WAAM printing has its limitations but i still feel like it's probably the lowest barrier to entry as far as pure metal printing goes. That's got to be doable for under $10K by now, right? If you janked it together yourself? Plus below that there's still always lost PLA casting, or sintering composite metal/plastic filaments. Maybe I'm way off base though, who knows.
What are you classifying as 'affordable'?
below 10,000-15,000 dollars? the cartridge should be affordable as well so not more than 100$ per killogram
There aren't really even sls printers in that price point yet despite there being somewhat cheaper ($20kish) options for awhile. I wouldn't expect anything for at least 5-10 years.