So yes, got to go to the TCT show last week at Birmingham NEC and see the huge array of snazzy industrial CNC equipment. Lots of 3d Printers and definitely a lot of multi material extruders and systems for tool changing on 3d prints seemed the de rigeur for this year.
There seemed to be a lot of smaller, but still largely unaffordable outside big industry, SLS type machines capable of sintereing lots of differing types of metals. There was a tantalising machine that doubled a SLS process with a 5 axis CNC mill, enabling, for every few layers of sintering, a pass with tooling meaning that internal geometries could be finished to a very high standard and tolerance.
Other stuff that caught my eye was there are some interesting filaments starting to hit the market that are desinged to be used in lost filament types of casting in combination with vacuum furnaces etc. Again its stuff that is not even potentially affordable to academic "maker" spaces, let alone community spaces, yet, as ever, it would be amazing to see these tools given to the really creative end of the maker community to see how far they could be developed and pushed! I live in hope!
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