Two South African Cancer Patients Receive 3D Printed Titanium Jaw Implants

jigmypig (3675225) writes "Two patients in South Africa that have had their lives and more specifically their jaws severely affected by cancer, have just received 3D printed jaw implants. The jaws were 3D printed using a laser sintering process that melts powdered titanium, one layer at a time. The process saves a ton of money, and unlike traditional manufacturing of titanium jaws, it doesn't waste any materials. Traditional manufacturing wastes up to 80% of the titanium block used in the process, whereas with 3D printing there is little to no waste at all. This new process also allows for a fully customizable solution. The models are drawn up in CAD software, and then printed out to precisely fit the patient."

Comments

Re:"Waste"

[Anonymous Coward]

It might not be economical to recycle shavings for a variety of reasons: made in a shop that processes too many things to keep them separate, contaminated too much with cutting fluids, the recycling process doesn't work well with shavings (some metal melting processes are more expensive with a lot of thing pieces that can oxidize easily while heating up to the melting point), not worth the transport costs or handling for small batches, etc. Still probably cheaper to have not had to refine that metal in the first place, although I don't if that is balanced out by the process of grinding and grading powder for sintering.

In the end, for small objects that are not mass produced though, the material cost is going to be quite small compare to everything else involved. It will be dwarfed by the design, setup, and manual steps needed. Although if the 3d printing can be done in one go while milling it takes multiple, possibly awkward, mountings of the part, that could be a much larger savings. I've had enough projects that more time is spent mounting a piece to the milling table than actually milling it, especially when you have to make a custom piece to hold it (... or worse, mill something to hold the piece you'll mill to hold what you want to actually make...).